Centrum Light, Homeline Dark.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Every human society will have groups that care about the weak and disenfranchised. Those don't negate the effects of institutionalized inhumanity.

Not recognizing the copyrights and patents of nations you have no treaties with doesn't strike me as institutionalized inhumanity.

[Flyndaran]

Ooookay. That post has nothing to do with mine you quoted.
Homeline copying information isn't what any of us reference when discussing their and Centrum's crimes against humanity.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Ooookay. That post has nothing to do with mine you quoted.
Homeline copying information isn't what any of us reference when discussing their and Centrum's crimes against humanity.

Uh-hunh. And yet that's the only significant way in which Homeline does not acknowledge the reality of people of other realities and as for Centrum, they show exactly the same care for people of other worlds that they do for their own people. They strictly evaluate people in terms of how useful they are (or at least could be) to the State.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Every human society will have groups that care about the weak and disenfranchised.

Right. So claims that Homeline or Centrum enact their policies on the basis of outtimers not being real people is a gross oversimplification.

[Flyndaran]

You guys must be reading different Gurps books. The ones I have illustrate a situation on par with the worst of the cold war with Homeline as CIA and Centrum as KGB. I see that as really dark and dehumanizing.
I suppose it's best to just agree to disagree on how bad that is to avoid derailing into real world culture and politics.

But I will say that I know I read specific wording saying that many Homeliners don't see those from other realities as really real.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

You guys must be reading different Gurps books. The ones I have illustrate a situation on par with the worst of the cold war with Homeline as CIA and Centrum as KGB. I see that as really dark and dehumanizing.

They engage in extralegal and extraterritorial erasures of memories of foreign citizens, and have a place to which they kidnap innocent foreigners if they're getting too close to making discoveries they aren't happy with. Not as a matter of lone criminals working against the system, but as a matter of policy. That sounds like exactly the sort of believing that those quantum foreigners are unpersons that alphabet soups tend to engage in. And it's something UN supports and endorses, apparently.

(I say those Vorlons and Shadows should get out of everyone else's galaxy, or at least start treating them as 'real boys and girls', with autonomy, sovereignty and rights.)

[Stormcrow]

It's not that they don't do these things. It's that it's not a simple matter of "outtimers aren't real people, so everyone here is perfectly fine with treating them as inhuman things." Realistically, many people would be outraged at what Centrum and Homeline do. But every time the setting would need to confront these issues, it sweeps them under the rug with ideas like Van Zandt's secret UN meeting. The nations of the world are okay with Infinity's control of reality because... reasons.

[PTTG]

Right. In fact, we don't know how Centrum deals with [the contents of Van Zandt's meeting with the UN].

Here's a thought. If anchor timelines (that is, those like Homeline and Centrum) are the only places where projectors work and somehow are linchpins of the quantum structure, it seems reasonable to suspect that they can be forecast or detected in ways that regular worldlines can't.

If VZ was experimenting with visiting other worldlines, he might reasonably have checked out these anchor timelines to see what's there.

Now, if we make Steel an anchor timeline between Homeline and Centrum, that means VZ scouted out Steel, saw a threat that could wipe out Homeline if it didn't prepare for a transtemporal war, and got the UN on board by effectively saying, "evil robots, yo."

Centrum has a slightly different and more conservative view of crosstime tech. They might never have explored Steel, or else when they did it was pre-steel and therefore not a threat nor was it stable enough to be interested in.

[Flyndaran]

Getting virtually the entire planet of humanity to agree on any single thing is less realistic than herding tap dancing cats. But it's necessary for the basic setting premise. Lampshading it wouldn't work for most games.

Perhaps that could be the method of darkening Homeline. Infinity uses far darker means to ensure cooperation of governments... for their own good, of course. (eyeroll) That's plausible in context, and furthers this thread's goals, I think.

Having a subtle but growing faction within Centrum that wants more cooperation and learning from other worlds now that they've gotten "rich enough" could lighten them. Morality is often something people develop when basic survival is no longer at stake.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Centrum has a slightly different and more conservative view of crosstime tech. They might never have explored Steel, or else when they did it was pre-steel and therefore not a threat nor was it stable enough to be interested in.

Centrum knows about Steel, and they are working towards taking out all the AI strongholds with nuclear bombs. They have also set up VIRUS as a support network.