Five Earths, All in a Row

[Prince Charon]

Due to the character limit, I'm posting the FAQ (now that it's written) here, and hoping that I can add a link to it in the OP.

Frequently Asked Questions

I should have done this sooner. Like, years ago.

* What is this?
A story setting (and also a game setting, mainly GURPS), in which five Earths from five different timelines became able to see and communicate with each other, and to travel to each other though space. Each one has psi abilities that serve as the 'magic' of the setting, though it's newer on some than on others. Some of these Earths have characters and situations that resemble various other fictional settings on them, but not any specific published form of those settings. Some of those characters, especially the ones on the modern earth, are astral entities (spirits, thoughtforms) that have been made, or remade themselves, in the images of those characters.


* Is there a wiki?
There's an entry on the GURPS wiki that leads to more pages. Very helpful. Most of it seems to have been done by Maximara, at the monent.


* When will it update?
When the update is ready. I don't usually write fast, and have difficulty predicting when I'll have a new post ready. Also, some of what gets posted is written by other people who have their own update schedules that I have even less ability to predict.


* Can I contribute to this?
Yes. I'd prefer if you post your contributions in the main discussion & development thread on SB.com first so that I can review it and make suggestions, especially if you want your work to be canon for the setting, instead of marked Apocrypha (or left unmarked). That's also the thread I use for beta reading my own stuff, since I might miss things (like spelling, or research that I did might be off due to wiki edits, or things that I said earlier and forgot, or whatever). If you want to contribute something that's specifically gaming-focused (generally GURPS), I suggest using the thread on the SJGames forum. For other forums: If you're not a member of SB.com and don't want to wait (new members get their posts moderated before they can be posted, IIRC, because spammers), or don't want to join, there's a mostly dead parallel thread on SV.com than you could use. If you can't post on either, we'll work something out.


* Power Levels of spirits and living characters
In general, most beings are vaguely 'street level,' or not much above (and yes, 'street level' is an intentionally vague term; please don't get hung up on point costs, those of you reading this who play RPGs). Assume that anyone so powerful that they would consider 'a dozen or so well-trained soldiers who are used to working together' to be a non-threat are very, very rare, though the number who would have a chance of soloing such a group is much higher. Spirits and other beings that are modeled on more powerful fictional beings exist, but in many cases may be slightly nerfed to very nerfed. There are no absolute defences or undefeatable attacks, though there are plenty of bad matchups between individuals or groups.


* Power Levels of the Gods, and what they are
'Gods' are spirits or other beings that are of such power that human minds (including mine) cannot categorize or quantify how powerful they are relative to each other. At best, scholars can vaguely compare different degrees of power within the same pantheon, but not between pantheons (e.g. Zeus is more powerful than Hermes, but no mortal can say who is of greater power between Thor and Herakles). In short, spirits (including the servitors and avatars that some gods might manifest to interact with the mortal world) may get character sheets, but the gods themselves will not. Also, pantheons prefer not to go against each other directly, for reasons that humans generally don't get told, save in vague terms about 'unimaginable consequences that no-one sane wants.' (If it were possible to quantify the powers of gods, or if War In Heaven were allowed, that would put the threads at risk of having endless unresolvable arguments about why X faith hasn't completely destroyed Y faith, and other 'my dadgod can beat your dadgod' nonsense. I don't want that, so we're not having it. Full stop.)

In general, any gods that will appear in this setting started out as spirits, became connected with some story or set of stories, and through various methods (fame of the stories is only one of many, but it's one of the more easily-comprehended methods), grew in power to the point that they trancended mortal comprehension of their true selves. Some of these beings were the ghosts of famous or infamous mortals whose tales outlived them, others began as thoughtforms shaped by specific myths, and still others shaped themselves to resemble new stories, perhaps merging with or absorbing other spirits that had been born of those tales. Some of the myths did happen on one or more of these Earths, though most of the ones that did certainly didn't happen exactly as they did in any specific myth (because oral traditions tend to vary quite widely), others really didn't. It can be quite difficult to determone which is which.


* Why isn't <insert story/setting here> appearing at all, appearing more, et cetra?
Because I have limited time, and don't want to expand timeline entries or what writing I do beyond all reason, some things are going to be left out. In some cases, other writers might make up for this, and in others, they don't. I'll give you a few examples of settings that will have minimal influence:

My Little Pony
I have no interest in MLP, either the original or FiM, and hate the way it was getting into everything for a while. I have no problem with bronies in general, but I am not one, and have no interest in expending my limited time to find out whether I will or won't like it if I try it. The show exists in setting, some spirits or items might get a vague mention, but that's all.

Worm (and other Wildbow things)
Worm is a very interesting setting for fanfics, but it was a very depressing story even before Wildbow started retconning it to fit with the depressing sequel, Ward (and let's not get into the arguments about whether it is or isn't grimderp, please). Also, Worm's cosmology does not fit this setting, so while there might be spirits or empowered people on the Modern Earth (Earth-1, aka Infopunk Earth or Inp-Earth), the Shards and such won't otherwise be appearing. As far as I can tell, Wildbow's stuff in general tends to be too depressing for me to be inclined to read, so don't expect me to. Spirits and characters with abilities modeled on such from Pact, Pale, Twig, et cetra might appear, though.

Touhou Project
An interesting setting, but it appears to be a bit too powerful for what I'm doing. Again, spirits based on the characters, or people channeling their abilities, might appear, and there are probably realms in the astral plane that resemble it, but Gensokyo as a 'real' place is not part of this setting.


* Why doesn't this thing from <insert story/setting here> work exactly the way it does in that setting?
Because this isn't that setting. Things in Five Earths that resemble things from other settings are most often imitations, with abilities modeled on those of the thing which they resemble. In Star Trek, a phaser is a piece of very advanced, but mundane, technology; on Infopunk Earth, a phaser is a psionic 'magic item' that might have some electronics in it. A local imitation of the Infinity Gauntlet complete with local-imitation Infinity Stones would have a hard time killing half the people in a small town, for example, and some of them would even be able to resist it. Likewise, even if you're a REALLY BIG Exalted fan, that doesn't mean you gain a real Solar Exaltation (or whichever), it means that you have a chance of the spirits noticing you and helping you gain psychic powers that superficially resemble those of a Solar Exalted. If you're very lucky or interesting, the Roman god Sol Invictus might have noticed you. No matter how powerful you become, though, you will still be a psychic, not a Solar Exalted, and certain abilities, like Perfect Defences, cannot even be particularly well-imitated by psychic powers.