Five Earths, All in a Row

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

Actually no. You do know how Composite Superman got his powers, right? I could see some spirit forgoing the lightning part and people getting power from their statues or action figures.

That's an option, yes. So are weird accidents like getting shocked while changing a lightbulb, or plugging or unplugging something, and 'just happening' (because the spirits messed with probability) to touch the item immediately after, or be carrying it when it happens, or similar (or they just have a series of dreams about being the character, and wake up with toned down versions of that characters powers). I'm still working on an article about Origins (the process of getting powers), but it's really not ready for posting, yet.

Originally Posted by maximara

You imagine someone running around with lesser versions of powers of the original He-man?

Like that, yeah, though even with spirits being able to project semi-physical bodies, very few He-Man fans are going to see their pet cat or felinoid action figure turn into Battlecat.

[ronwit]

Originally Posted by maximara

Actually no. You do know how Composite Superman got his powers, right? I could see some spirit forgoing the lightning part and people getting power from their statues or action figures. You imagine someone running around with lesser versions of powers of the original He-man?

Yeah, well, I hope so. Standing out in the backyard, holding him up to the sky and praying for a lightning bolt to strike. What would the neighbors think? And forget waiting for a bolt to come through the window. Joe was lucky the whole building didn't burn to the ground.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by ronwit

Yeah, well, I hope so. Standing out in the backyard, holding him up to the sky and praying for a lightning bolt to strike. What would the neighbors think? And forget waiting for a bolt to come through the window. Joe was lucky the whole building didn't burn to the ground.

As noted above (post #751), the 'you' in the setting could get powers in a fairly wide range of ways, although standing in the rain holding up an action figure is one of the sillier possibilities. If you want to write an origin for the 'you' in-setting, just suggest it. Most options will either work as written, or can be easily modified. I'm more likely to say no to especially wanky powers or power-levels, or too-ridiculous in-story events, than to weird origins.

[maximara]

Story involving Dieselpunk Earth that can be used to introduce Centrum to the Five Earths.

On a Clear Day You Can See Infinity

Goldstein looked disbelieving at the book in front of her. Yes it was written in English but thanks to the differences in history the English of Secundus didn't make actual works from close analogs to that reality that easy to read. Her conversation with Mohammed Change was in it and she would swear it was word for word. It has unnerved her enough to have listening devices looked for but as would be normally expected then found nothing.

Normal. There was nothing normal about this...disaster? Windfall? Sure it would easily get her promoted to Grade 7 but the implication for Interworld were worrisome. Humans flying around with powers beyond mortal men wasn't that much a surprise. That world they had moved to Wave Minus One and then tried to move back to Wave Minus Two after finding Secundus had such humans on it. Pity the effort to move it didn't work as planned as they lost all contact with the reality likely it being moved out of range.

The really insane thing was this wasn't even native to Earth One as the natives called it but to another reality they called Earth Three which they didn't need a shuttle or projector to get to - somehow it and three other earths could be reached by spaceship. Five Earths all at different points of divergent history and one of them seemed to know everything there was to know about Infinity, Secundus, Centrum and Interworld and was happily sharing it with the others. More over this was an updated version of the book published some seven years before The Event as the natives called it.

She looked at the title and frowned. Odds were that the various earths were not in the same wave which mean they might be outside the range of Interworld's shuttles even with help from a projector. Suddenly she realized something. What if one of the worlds was on Wave Minus Three. From what little they had found out Earth Three had a robust space program even before The Event and now thanks to some "magical" force people were building spaceships that actually worked in their backyard with little more then some plywood, a bit of paint, and a concept of how the engine was supposed to operate.

If infinity got there hands on one one of those...Goldstein paled. That would give Infinity access to Wave Minus One which according to the book they currently didn't have. She quickly picked up the phone. This was bigger then her, bigger then her promotion, If one of those Earths shifted to their wave they would have serious problems.

As she waited for the phone to be picked up she looked at the book's title again. Who'd ever thought that GURPS Infinite Worlds Five Earths Edition could be the road map to possible open conflict.

==Notes==
While the books themselves don't update Steve Jackson Games is making print expansions for Infinite Worlds like crazy as the book has become insanely popular for obvious reasons. GURPS Infinite Worlds Five Earths Edition is the 2013 May edition of GURPS Infinite Worlds and is a two volume work taking every world published (including those in Pyramid) and adding it to the version we have. I should mention that it takes the discrepancy between Infinite Worlds and Time Travel and runs with it formally adding Homeline-2 and Centrum-2 to its canon.

[Prince Charon]

Thank you for posting it.

(Goldstein is underestimating the difficulty of building spacecraft on Infopunk Earth, but she has little reason to know that.)

[ronwit]

I am a little late to this but over the last few days I have skimmed through this forum and the timeline on GURPS Wiki, so sorry if some of my comments/questions will be covering old grounds. Are we going to find out that... "They Saved Hitler's Brain"? Probably Arnim Zola. Oh, kudos on the Superman as Hugo Danner thing. I have been a long time fan of Schroeder's Speculations and the other Wold Newton websites. As well as PJF's original works.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by ronwit

I am a little late to this but over the last few days I have skimmed through this forum and the timeline on GURPS Wiki, so sorry if some of my comments/questions will be covering old grounds. Are we going to find out that... "They Saved Hitler's Brain"? Probably Arnim Zola. Oh, kudos on the Superman as Hugo Danner thing. I have been a long time fan of Schroeder's Speculations and the other Wold Newton websites. As well as PJF's original works.

Thank you.

There are rumours on Dsp-Earth that They Saved Hitler's Brain, but as yet, no proof, and I'm undecided on whether it's true or not.

[dcarson]

A "Boys from Brazil" scenario might be another possibility.

[ronwit]

OK some actors begin to develop abilities based on their most famous or iconic roles, fan-boys (especially collectors) abilities and gadgets from their obsession, what about creators? Does J K Rowling start inviting students to Howarts, Stan Lee turn into Galactus?

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by ronwit

OK some actors begin to develop abilities based on their most famous or iconic roles, fan-boys (especially collectors) abilities and gadgets from their obsession, what about creators? Does J K Rowling start inviting students to Howarts, Stan Lee turn into Galactus?

Not nearly on that level, especially Stan (who is associated with a hell of a lot more characters than Galactus, and thus wouldn't be getting power only from him; and also, of course, Galactus is ridiculously powerful, and so would be toned down a lot more than the mostly more street-levelish powers of JKR's wizards and witches and such), but roughly in that direction.