The unacknowledged Infinite Worlds timeskip

[ehrbar]

The biggest issue with an eight-year "canon" timeline advance is that the Condor Group on Merlin-1 was canonically in contact with Reich-5 eight years ago, and Reich-5 is a low mana world, not a no mana world.

Accordingly, Reich-5's entire worldwide leadership should have fallen under the control of the Condor Group fairly rapidly, since it had no defenses against subversion by the level of magical resources that the Condor Group could apply.

Assuming that the Condor Group is mildly competent, the Ahnenerbe-gathered wreckage of the conveyor that the Homeline Russians lost on Reich-5 was hit with a Rebuild spell, and a complete working conveyor has been available to be reverse engineered. That's in addition to everything Reich-5 already learned by interrogating its three Homeline prisoners and from psychic world-jumping, everything that Merlin-1 had from its open scientific literature on many-worlds physics, and everything that wizards can magically extract from the spirits of the dead Spetsnaz Homeliners who died on Reich-5 and with history spells from the objects they brought with them. A body of knowledge they can then unleash the entire scientific resources of Reich-5 upon.

Which means, barring either 1) an incredibly lucky and effective ISWAT operation to take out the Condor early in its takeover efforts or 2) a Homeline saturation-nuking of Reich-5, there should be a metastasizing Nazi cancer across Quantum 3, traveling in conveyors mass-manufactured on Reich-5.

[Micah Davis]

Originally Posted by ehrbar

The biggest issue with an eight-year "canon" timeline advance is that the Condor Group on Merlin-1 was canonically in contact with Reich-5 eight years ago, and Reich-5 is a low mana world, not a no mana world.

I guess the easy neat solution to this is that the Condor Group has gotten got on Merlin-1 substantially before a full merger has taken place. Which feels overdue honestly, how have authentic Nazis run a cabal in Merlin-USA’s backyard for decades without the Cold War to justify it? That might leave Reich-5 with substantially more magic but without the outright win that the full backing of the Condor Group could provide.

Also it feels like if Reich-5 were on a roll that Merlin might out itself as a cross time capable civilization. It’s already kept a lid on it for too long.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by ehrbar

The biggest issue with an eight-year "canon" timeline advance is that the Condor Group on Merlin-1 was canonically in contact with Reich-5 eight years ago, and Reich-5 is a low mana world, not a no mana world.

Accordingly, Reich-5's entire worldwide leadership should have fallen under the control of the Condor Group fairly rapidly, since it had no defenses against subversion by the level of magical resources that the Condor Group could apply.

I wouldn't go that far. Reich 5 has psionics after all.

[ehrbar]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I wouldn't go that far. Reich 5 has psionics after all.

The Armanen Order commands some psionicists and mystics, sure. It's also weak enough that it has to actually hide from the German government, and the power-users aren't (apparently) running the Order. There might be some members who resist joining with the Condor, but I doubt it's really all that effective.

After the Condor Group merges with/takes over the Armanen Order, the only obvious place for there to be a speedbump is if the Reich-5 Japanese have their own occult mystics who are good enough that Japan can't be subverted by the Condor.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

To be honest, I want The Secret to blow up and shift the setting over to "alternate timeline Star Trek".

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

To be honest, I want The Secret to blow up and shift the setting over to "alternate timeline Star Trek".

You do know that post TNG Star Trek has the same Secret, and just more people with same travel technology they have, right?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

You do know that post TNG Star Trek has the same Secret, and just more people with same travel technology they have, right?

That was probably a bad analogy on my part.

I simply don't find the tension of keeping the Secret and any Homeline hand-wringing about it satisfying, barring Homeline being a misguided villain. I'd prefer a setting where there was a lot more equality in parachronics so the default playstyle didn't feel like haughty "You are not ready" aliens.

That's just my preference, not an objective statement.

[ehrbar]

The Enslave spell is a potentially useful tool, but why in the world would magical conspirators trying to subvert governments rely on it alone? Other tactics when you have wizards and your target society is non-magical include:

1) Magically-backed psychological influence -- people who don't know about magic are likely to rationalize the message from a Dream Sending as their own subconscious, the Loyalty they felt was a emotion of natural origin, etc.

2) Blackmail, through information discovered by magic or for actions compelled by temporary forms of mind control.

3) Bribery -- what's an annual Youth potion imported from Merlin worth, anyway?

4) Assassination -- when the targets have no magical defenses, how hard are they to kill by magic? (For one crude example, Teleport Other a hand grenade into their car as they're going to work.)

I mean, really, there are just too many buttons to press for it to be hard for Condor to integrate itself into the Reich-5 senior leadership. And it's not like there's going to be mass institutional resistance to any likely Condor Group agenda; everybody from the middle ranks on down isn't going to particularly care that there's been a bit of shuffle at the top, followed by a few secret projects. The orders to go forth and conquer a bunch of parallel worlds are going to be surprising as a factual matter, but after a moment of shock, it'll be the obvious thing to do.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I simply don't find the tension of keeping the Secret and any Homeline hand-wringing about it satisfying, barring Homeline being a misguided villain.

Well, or an open villain. The Paratime Secret of course derives from Piper's original, where the First Level is quite openly exploitative in a fairly traditional 19th century colonial power mold. Complete with colonial plantations, a still a somewhat relevant aristocracy, and actual slavery. It fits in a lot better there than a version of Infinity with more late 20th century American values. Though it's still a bit weak - why not be openly colonial?

I've often thought it exists simply because Piper had this idea about explaining flying saucers, but it needed a reason the people with the saucers had to keep them [secret], so... they just do. It does lend itself well to "police" style stories, which is the original idea of the setting, a variant of the Time Police.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I simply don't find the tension of keeping the Secret and any Homeline hand-wringing about it satisfying, barring Homeline being a misguided villain. I'd prefer a setting where there was a lot more equality in parachronics so the default playstyle didn't feel like haughty "You are not ready" aliens.

I've never really thought of it as a case of them treating other civilizations as "not ready." Rather, it's a combination of the fact that a) overt time travel is likely to screw up the timeline - not just "Oh, I interfered with the way things were meant to be" (which kinda comes back to those haughty aliens) but rather the fact that comparatively subtle manipulations can cause time quakes, quantum shifts, and all other assorted bits of badness, so who knows what would happen if you show up at Thermopylae with a squadron of attack helicopters. Oh, and b) they don't want any more competition (Centrum, Reich-5, and the others are already making a mess of things, from Homeline's perspective, they don't need even more groups screwing up the quanta).

As already alluded to in the thread, there's also the Doylist explanation - the whole point of the Infinite Worlds setting is having characters playing in different timelines, and the Secret keeps those timelines as they are expected to be, rather than how they would be with known time-travelers roaming about. There's also the fact that time travel stories almost always involve some element of needing to keep one's nature as a time traveler secret (to avoid disrupting the timeline, to avoid getting thrown into a mental institution or burned as a witch, etc), so IW includes a built-in explanation for why you've got to do that even when it's alternate timelines rather than your own.

All that said, a setting where there are a massive number of time-traveling factions (possibly with varying degrees of maintaining some form of the Secret, akin to ST's Prime Directive) could certainly be interesting.