Alternate Earths 3, What Worlds? (hypothetical)

[Glamourweaver]

So, if GURPS released an Alternate Earths 3 book, what 6 alternate Earths would you like to see given in-depth coverage?

My ideas:

- Haussman 2: mentioned only in passing in the opening fiction to "Infinite Worlds" this world, with its ornothopters, makes me think of romantic feudalism & pulp sky pirates. I'd like to see it fleshed out.

- Centrum Beta: We know alot about the Centrum today, its operations, & its philosophy, but not alot about its culture & society before the Last War (other than that there was a global Franco-English Empire). I think some depth on Centrum's only known Echo would be nice.

- Azoth 7: I'd love some more details here

- Armada 2: Fascinating world that could be even better fleshed out, with focus on the extended life of swashbuckling piracy & perhaps the Spanish Inquisition's expansion across most of Europe & the New World (I'd imagine upon the successful conquering of England in 1588, the Inquisition would be the ones charged with converting them back to Catholicism)... that could be the reason WHY the world isn't as advanced in the 19th Century present of Armada 2 as in Homeline's history, the Inquisition stiffled the Enlightenment!

- Nergal: fantastic setting

- I'd think for the 6th World it should be one we haven't heard of before... the two ideas that leap to my mind is a world where Guy Fawkes succeded in blowing up Parliment, unintentionally birthing the philosophy of Anarchism far earlier & leading to global rebellions & revolutions against the concept of government; or a world where Alexander the Great was killed on the field of battle & Persia conquered Hellenistic civilization leading to a very different course for Western history.

[vitruvian]

- I'd think for the 6th World it should be one we haven't heard of before... the two ideas that leap to my mind is a world where Guy Fawkes succeded in blowing up Parliment, unintentionally birthing the philosophy of Anarchism far earlier & leading to global rebellions & revolutions against the concept of government;

Or one where the Putney Debates went slightly differently, Cromwell found the Levellers' position more convincing, and England ended up with a republican form of government with the House of Commons the primary force in government and, if not universal manhood suffrage, suffrage for even petty landholders and all veterans of military service. If the new governmental structure proved stable, the same principles eventually get extended even to the colonies, resulting in a very different world.

[Mgellis]

Cyrano, the timeline where Louis d'Antares is from.

Also, they could include a section on truly strange things that show up in the Infinite Worlds, like the Unidentified Futuristic Beings.

Mark

[tratclif]

The Powers That Be have indicated that Alternate Earths style products are more likely to be single-world e23 products, but let's not let that spoil the fun.

So, picking a list of six...

One thing I've been waiting for is Cyrano from the iconic characters section in Basic. The Three Musketeers -- on Mars, with force swords and the Jedis played by the Jesuits. Ken Hite has said this is written up to some extent, it just got cut from IW.

A clever pure historical. One thing I really liked about the first AE was how they put some new twists on "Confederacy wins the American Civil War" and "Rome survives to modern times". Probably one of the Bonaparte worlds, since that's one of the more popular themes that hasn't been written up for GURPS

I've read criticism that there hasn't been a good "Britain dominates the World" line yet. Cornwallis from AE 2 is a dystopia, and those done as Pyramid articles have been criticized for having too many American stereotypes. Phil Masters dis some work on Britannica-6 (steampunk, but instead of Victorian bugeois stuffiness we have Georgian aristocratic wildness) for a convention session, we can dream that he'd write it up for a campaign setting.

I agree that Azoth-7 would be fun, but I'm not sure you could fit all the alchemical technology into a writeup. Still would like to see it.

I'm not sure I'd want a whole write up on just Centrum Beta, but some people like Centrum more than Infinity. We could use a world or worlds on the Centrum side of the Quanta that Infinity can't get to.

Another vague idea, a secret-magic world that the Cabal is trying to infiltrate. Intra-Cabal infighting, and I-cops trying to figure out what to do.

[Glamourweaver]

Originally Posted by tratclif

I'm not sure I'd want a whole write up on just Centrum Beta, but some people like Centrum more than Infinity. We could use a world or worlds on the Centrum side of the Quanta that Infinity can't get to.

Interesting idea....

What I'd like to see at that end of the Quanta are examples of how Homeline isn't special in that worlds seem to be defined by how they relate to it (Quanta shifts based on following its history etc.) Thats just Infinity's biased perspective that arrises from a) the inherincy of human nature to define things in relation to oneself & b) their limited view of the Quantum field.

Ways to demonstrate that point would be...

-Alternates that follow the Centrum timeline but diverge from it later (i.e. from the Homeline perspective, they diverge just as Centrum does, but Diverge after that point from Centrum history). [i.e. present day world where the Franco-English Empire still stands, the Last War never having happened; World where the Last War ended very differently to the Centrum's horror (their version of Reich-5); world where Indian techno-alchemical break throughs pushed back the Franco-English Empire in the Middle Ages, etc. etc. etc.]

- Same principle as above, but with other worlds like Caliph, Shikaku-Mon, Cornwallis, Dixie, etc. [What if the USA had moved to reoccupy the South after WW1?]

- Echoes, or even future versions of major Alternate Worlds we already know (ala Centrum Beta) [Shikaku-Mon Echo during the Britannic War, much later version of Britannica-7 where Masculinist movement is fighting for civil equity for men; etc. etc.]

- Worlds that work like Burton except around stories & myths not found on Homeline.....

[Tom Kalbfus]

How about an alternate Earth that was physically different. For instance what if the continents of North and South America were submerged but all the rest of the contents are the same as in our world. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are merged to form a single ocean which is called the Atlantic. The Atlantic laps on the shores of both Europe and Asia, ahd there is a very long chain of island stretching from where Alaska would be all the way down to Chile. These Island chain is called the Rocky Islands, and some of those islands like St Helens are actually volcanic. These areas provide good fishing grounds if nothing else.

Humans have still managed to evolve in Africa on this world and they migrated to Europe, Asia, and Austrailia. Another significant difference is there are no horses, as they would have evolved in North America and that continent doesn't exist. Europe is a colder place that in our world. The Sahara Desert begins further south, the Arabian Penisula is covered with forests, and it snows frequently in Italy and Spain during the winter. The British Isles has a subarctic climate and some tundra in Scotland, with a small nomadic population of reindeer herders. Reindeer and Oxen have taken the place of horses in this world. You can call this The World of no Americas. The tech level of this place is optional. Based on a book I've read, where I got this idea from, I'd make the technology somewhere around the level that existed during World War I, with biplanes, and automobiles. There is also a War going on in Europe, started by a country whose borders roughly coinside with Germany and Italy, and they seem to be at war with two countries whose borders approximate the locations of France and Spain. There is a country to the south in North Africa which is so far neutral in this conflict. The main religions of this world are polytheistic, but its deities are not related to the forces of nature and take on instead a philisophical bent, their are good deities and bad ones, they are considered powereful by the believers but not omnipotent. The question of who created the Universe is not considered as the Universe is considered to have always existed. Astronomers are only now discovering the existance of other galaxies in their telescopes, where a few short years earlier the Milky Way Galaxy was considered to be the entire Universe. Anyway their is a War to fight with the Empire of Raveria which has started this conflict which threatens to turn global.

[Qoltar]

World without the Americas?

Already been done - at leaast in paperback books . Pretty sure it was called Two Hawks From Earth and it was written by Philip Jose Farmer. Pretty good read.

In the book there was a chain of islands where we have the Rocky mountains (Appalacia, Andes...) on our world ..so it was "there" but not there.

- E.W. Charlton

[xerxes]

How about an alternate where aliens conquer Earth in the 1950's?

I don't recall any use of aliens in Infinite Worlds material (maybe Caliph in AE2).

[Tom Kalbfus]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

World without the Americas?

Already been done - at leaast in paperback books . Pretty sure it was called Two Hawks From Earth and it was written by Philip Jose Farmer. Pretty good read.

In the book there was a chain of islands where we have the Rocky mountains (Appalacia, Andes...) on our world ..so it was "there" but not there.

- E.W. Charlton

Yeah, that's the book I read. I read it in the early 1980s as I recall. Haven't seen it in print lately and I lost the original copy I had. I do recall there were two people Banestormed into this World from World War II. One was a German Fighter Pilot, and another was an American-Indian Bomber crewman, I think he was a gunner. Well a Banestorm (GURPS Parlance) took both planest to this No Americas World and their continued their duel in this alternate sky. I believe the Bomber was shot down. The German landed in the aggressor Nation's territory and he became a technical assistant to the further development of that nation's air force. Two Hawks (The American Indian) landed in the Western Nation's territory and became a technical assistant for that nation's air force. As I recall, Europe was inhabited by Asians, and caucasian "white people" were nonexistant in thie world, the German fighter pilot of course sticks out like a sore thumb among this world's populations. As we later learn, Two Hawks is not from our Earth either, although the German fighter pilot is. Two Hawks comes from an Alternate where the Kaiser's son starts World War II instead of Hitler. this world would make an interesting addition to an Infinite Worlds campaign.

[flyingwombat]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

World without the Americas?

Already been done - at leaast in paperback books . - E.W. Charlton

Don't know about that one, but one of the "Blade" books about British spy who goes on world-hopping missions had him land in an England, except England and Franc (at least) was ruled by an emperor, which was at war with a continental power, and the land mass of the western hemisphere was replaced by islands -- and a larger Eurasian continent.

Anyway...

The submerisible fighter plane in Sky Captain etc was not a P-51, but a P-40. The mad scientist was German. But if you want to make those minor changes... go for it!

And, At the end description for caliph, it says see AE 2 for further details. For me that means interstellar travel is in!

Anyway... (again)
I like the idea of a full write on Cyrano. Can't wait.
And a right up of Lucifer-5. I think alternate NPC profiles from historical homeliners would be interesting. For example, the new German space cruiser is commanded by Captain Karl Doenitz with Lieutenant Commander Rommel as his chief engineer.


Here's mine:

Philly with everything: The Philadelphia experiment was real and successful. So successful it brings upon on very quick end to WWII -- With US troops suddenly materializing in front of the Reichschancellory of at the Imperial palace in Tokyo, you bet it's over bub. Postwar development of "the hopper" leads to rapid exploration/exploitation of the solar system. By 1960 instellar exploration begins.

There are others... but it's late... <yawn>