Centrum Light, Homeline Dark.

[Flyndaran]

I could see terrorists wanting to destroy the abusive Homeline nations that fund and support the systematic plundering of other worlds. They wouldn't want to escape to another world, because that's just running away from the enemy.
Once you entertain the ends justifying the means, you're already halfway to terrorism.
(I'm obviously not supporting terrorism, just trying to imagine hypothetical reasoning of Homeline terrorists.)

[Daigoro]

For many kinds of terrorists, who want to live in a society closer to their own vision, it might be easier to find a world where history already happened that way and go and live there.

However, there'd be a problem if they're not readily welcomed in their target society. Also, this would appeal to one segment of an ideological group, and might thus thin out the ranks of the group via such emigration, but more hardcore ideologues may not want to leave their home world, or they might not believe that it's as real as the home world.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

As mentioned before, terrorism becomes a real difficult proposition when the I-Cops have psis with precognition on their pay role.

And yet there are canonically still crosstime Mafia and swagmen operations.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

When Homeline diverged from us it was toward the end of the Cold War.

1995, actually (p. B524). An Al-Qaeda spin-off faction made a stab at the World Trade Center in 1993. And I don't have my copy of Infinite Worlds to hand, but I'm pretty sure that it mentions active terrorist groups on Homeline trying to get hold of conveyor technology; they just seem to be strikingly unsuccessful.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Pretty much the only substantial semi-competent terrorist group was the PLO and it wouldn't have been that hard to handle the Palestinian issue given a plethora of colonizable vacant Palestines some of which would have been been much better agricultural territory than Homelines.

Maybe. But a significant proportion of Palestinians see the issue as being that they (or their grandparents) were driven from their homes, which they want back. Some of them still have their old house keys, for the symbolism. Plus, there's festering resentment over perceived past treatment (by Israel's allies as well as by Israel). That's not a problem that's guaranteed amenable to simple solutions.

Aside from which, it's not like all terrorism, pre- or post-1995, is about Palestine. At all.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Also it's not that easy to find a parallel with unlocked nukes.

There'd be complications, but a few history books would tell our hypothetical terrorists where to look on close parallels, which will have zero security against out-time incursion, because what's out-time incursion? Unlocking the nukes is then left as an exercise for students of technological history, with all the time they need on some other timeline.

Aside from which, to be honest, the possible nukes are a bit of a grandiloquent distraction. Laying hands on a few tons of high explosives is certainly trivial, and every serious terrorist group has shown the ability to work with that. Even if they felt fastidious about hurting people they claimed as their own side, Guy Fawkesing a few government buildings in the "enemy" capital would surely be irresistible - and even quite "rational" terrorists are demonstrably quite capable of defining anyone in a government building (or at a party conference, or whatever) as deserving of anything they get.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

What narrows it further is "wants a nuke". I mean seriously what would the IRA or the Red Brigade do with one even if they could get one?

The IRA were usually somewhat rational, but even they weren't above excessive gestures. Baader-Meinhof types (not necessarily the Red Army Faction, but groupsicles with that mentality) tend to be, frankly, loose cannons; being able to drop a nuke into the White House or Times Square to make some kind of over-intellectualised point would likely appeal all too much to some of them. Or, as I said, a few well-placed HE charges.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Terrorism was historically a tactic where the point was to wear down the other side with persistence while provoking over-reactions that build your support while undermining the support for the dominant party.

That was the primary tactic that seemed to have half a chance of working. Given other options that could scare the pants off a perceived enemy, or just amount to a completely unignorable scream of rage, I think that many terrorist groups would go for it.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There is no such thing as over reaction to nuking a city.

By the same criteria, there may not be any such thing as over-reaction to flying airliners into skyscrapers and killing "only" thousands of people. (Personally, I think that there's certainly such a thing as a misdirected and ineffective reaction to either, but that's a different argument for a different forum.) It's not clear that the people who planned that achieved many of their goals, even on the broadest interpretation. And yet, here we are.

Originally Posted by RogerBW

And yet there are canonically still crosstime Mafia and swagmen operations.

Quite so. I can believe in a setting with suppressed or ineffective terrorists if it also has suppressed or ineffective organised crime, and I can believe in active crosstime Mafiosi if it also has I-Cops desperately bogged down in counter-terror ops and waiting with a sick sense of inevitability for the other shoe to drop - if it hasn't already, which is more likely - but one without the other just doesn't make sense.

Actually, the real problem is Infinity relaxing their monopoly enough for other organisations (governments, military, universities) to run independent crosstime operations. It might be hard to keep a lid on a monopoly situation, but the mess that ensues from letting anyone who can fake sincerity play with the tech is surely obvious.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Actually, the real problem is Infinity relaxing their monopoly enough for other organisations (governments, military, universities) to run independent crosstime operations. It might be hard to keep a lid on a monopoly situation, but the mess that ensues from letting anyone who can fake sincerity play with the tech is surely obvious.

Yeah.

I could just about see it working if the only conveyor operators were Infinity personnel (with post-hypnotic suicide triggers and so on), but with massive casual commercial and academic crosstime travel to inhabited lines someone is going to find themselves bribed, blackmailed, threatened, seduced, whatever. Centrum only needs to get hold of one Q6 or Q7 mission to make a credible threat against Homeline.

If/when I run IW again, I think it's going to portray the I-Cops as desperately calling for crosstime travel to be restricted, because just look at how overstretched we are and the trouble people are getting into even without the really major stuff we're worried about, while the rest of Homeline says "yay, free money".

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Yeah.

I could just about see it working if the only conveyor operators were Infinity personnel (with post-hypnotic suicide triggers and so on), but with massive casual commercial and academic crosstime travel to inhabited lines someone is going to find themselves bribed, blackmailed, threatened, seduced, whatever. Centrum only needs to get hold of one Q6 or Q7 mission to make a credible threat against Homeline.

If/when I run IW again, I think it's going to portray the I-Cops as desperately calling for crosstime travel to be restricted, because just look at how overstretched we are and the trouble people are getting into even without the really major stuff we're worried about, while the rest of Homeline says "yay, free money".

Both options seem to come with making IW significantly more grimdark than intended (the setting / campaign / game line in general, not just Infinity).

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I can believe in a setting with suppressed or ineffective terrorists if it also has suppressed or ineffective organised crime, and I can believe in active crosstime Mafiosi if it also has I-Cops desperately bogged down in counter-terror ops and waiting with a sick sense of inevitability for the other shoe to drop - if it hasn't already, which is more likely - but one without the other just doesn't make sense.

Have "local" security and intelligence agencies disappeared on Homeline? If not, then it's possible they are at work off-stage, nipping in the bud those terror groups even before they manage to branch off into the I-Cops' jurisdiction.
OTOH, anti-terror agencies aren't (overly) concerned with organized crime and cross-time swindlers - if anything, they are happy if these operate out of their (the agencies') turf.

[AlexanderHowl]

A compromise would be for institutions to license conveyors from Infinity with an Infinity crew/security. The reason why criminals are capable of functioning crosstime is because they contract with Infinity just like anyone else, Infinity just claims a cut of the value of the merchandise, whether it is kidnapped girls for sexual slavery, copies of art for art fraud, or piles coke and opium for the drug trade. Otherwise, there is no logical reason for the success of crosstime crime with the failure of crosstime terrorism.

[sir_pudding]

I thought terrorism is explicitly mention in GURPS Infinite Worlds, at any rate I don't see what the issue is with having Homeline based terrorism be an ongoing security concern in the setting.

[AlexanderHowl]

It is, but crosstime terrorism is much less effective than crosstime crime.