New Reality Seeds

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Drifter

That sounds like a great meta game area. Or reason to go to a Hellworld in the first place. Recruiting labor for an IW agro colony. You work with Miracle Workers and probably a national military to get people to the colony. Once there you have to deal with the various private industries that actually run the economy. Add in colonist groups that want some say over how they are governed. And of course the sleeper Centrum agent that came in with the refugees.

That would be an interesting game. And there are several angles it could be played from.

I wonder if you really need big populations though: the green revolution left a huge mark on the world.

Originally Posted by dcarson

Ranching might be cheap on a empty world. If there are large herds of something tasty you just need to harvest. Buffalo as far as the eye can see takes very little labor, just shoot and ship.

There's the initial harvest, and then there is making it sustainable. You don't just need something tasty, you need something that replenishes quickly. And you need to keep predators out of it. Though I suppose with the right marketing, hunting down at least some predators of buffalo can be an income source rather than an expense.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Or, give the Platonic Academy the true magicis lingua,or perhaps a translated vonyich manuscript revealing alchemical secrets.

One way to go surely. High tech, magic, so many possibilities.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by fchase8

What if there was a Q3 empty world for agriculture? That could make the whole operation a lot easier. The agriculture world could provide food, and even be where the miners live when not mining.

Indeed, such a world would probably end up being where Infinity would put its conveyors. Though there could be some of Quantum 3's staple weirdness - remains of an ancient, unknown civilization, regions of mana, talking animals, etc.

Try this idea. A group of world-jumpers decides to play God/es. Cabalists or Swagmen, or what you like. They find an Echo Parallel of Homeline at around 15,000BCE. They introduce agriculture and medicine and use a device that stimulates the pleasure centers of the Brain as a means of showing divine favor, pain centers for wrath. But being smart and slick evil, they simply addict the people to the pleasure projections.

This could go many ways. The Swagmen could simply build an Empire to sate their needs and desires, or to provide muscle for their plots. The Cabalist could have wilder ideas. Why not breed humans for different functions in society? And to be useful servants for the Cabbalists in other worlds. Or perhaps the Cabalists want to create a society that performs a ritual lasting several millennia in order to achieve truly bizarre ends. Or acts of mind-blowing megalomania.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Ranching might be cheap on a empty world. If there are large herds of something tasty you just need to harvest. Buffalo as far as the eye can see takes very little labor, just shoot and ship.

That's a good idea. Any timeline without people and with a large, tasty animal in big groups could be harvested pretty much any time. Just send in a temporary harvesting camp.

It would need a trailer that has housing, a medic bay, a communications bay, a weapons bay. Some drones or a small plane. A few jeeps, or even horses, depending on when and where your hunters come from and how much fuel you want to bring. And an abattoir and freezer rig.

On a small scale that's what you'd need for a hunting expedition. "Sound of Thunder" sort of story. Except without all the consequences hassle.

Or it can just be some sort of giant rolling combine harvester thing. You herd in wild cattle on one end, process them and spit out meat and waste on the other. MacDonalds or other fast food places, or Centrum with their demand for scale, would like this approach.

Or if you're dealing with things like sauropods you might design the land equivalent of whalers. Or just grab a whaler, transport it to an empty world, and hunt whatever passes for whales.

Originally Posted by johndallman

My version of Centrum has low-population agricultural worlds. Since they're a centrally planned economy, with no shortage of worlds to use for this, and a historical aversion to shortages, they feel this is quite worthwhile. They do sometime use them as bases for operations in the same quantum, which is how some of the Infinite Cabal PCs wound up on "Farm-Production 18".

This would be a good way for Centrum and Infinity to set up base operations on different Quanta levels. Build a base on some empty or near empty world to use to fan out to other timelines on that level. The base world itself becomes a production center for agriculture and other resources.

I did that with Ariane, the plague timeline. There are Homeline colonization groups around reclaiming sections of the world, the few locals supplying base labor. There is so much Homeline traffic here, but not enough oversight, that smugglers have started dependable operations, running slaves, looted artifacts, even magic items from one parallel to another, or back to Homeline. So not just Centrum and Infinity would benefit from such an operations center.

I guess legitimate businesses would benefit as well.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Drifter

That sounds like a great meta game area. Or reason to go to a Hellworld in the first place. Recruiting labor for an IW agro colony. You work with Miracle Workers and probably a national military to get people to the colony. Once there you have to deal with the various private industries that actually run the economy. Add in colonist groups that want some say over how they are governed. And of course the sleeper Centrum agent that came in with the refugees.

If the world is Q3, the sleeper agent would more likely be Reich-5, or maybe Merlin-1.

Maybe the military is the U.N. blue helmet (hired from nations like Nepal and Fiji), or straight-up mercenaries.


A lot would depend on what kind of Hell world population was imported.

Was it your TL7-ish nuclear winter refugees? They would be able to use Homeline tech, but would also agitate for greater rights and development. Plus what if they're from both sides of the conflict?

Or what about a lower TL Hell world, from disease or the good ol' asteroid strike? They would have more trouble with Homeline tech, but would be easier to manage. Indeed, if Infinity decided to go with a good deal of low-tech in the colony/base, lower TL labor might be more skilled. But this would definitely set up a situation with one group effectively the privileged elite over another - how would Homeline activists think about the whole thing?

Originally Posted by PTTG

You know, a magical cross-dimensional empire that has since fallen would be a pretty interesting place to visit...

This could be a source of labor, a magical Hell world. Infinity thinks everything is safe on the empty world, no mana and thus safe to import people, only some of the mana 'leaks' and the imported labor start showing signs of magic...

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this idea. A group of world-jumpers decides to play God/es. Cabalists or Swagmen, or what you like. They find an Echo Parallel of Homeline at around 15,000BCE. They introduce agriculture and medicine and use a device that stimulates the pleasure centers of the Brain as a means of showing divine favor, pain centers for wrath. But being smart and slick evil, they simply addict the people to the pleasure projections.

This could go many ways. The Swagmen could simply build an Empire to sate their needs and desires, or to provide muscle for their plots. The Cabalist could have wilder ideas. Why not breed humans for different functions in society? And to be useful servants for the Cabbalists in other worlds. Or perhaps the Cabalists want to create a society that performs a ritual lasting several millennia in order to achieve truly bizarre ends. Or acts of mind-blowing megalomania.

Perhaps this is the origin of classic "fantasy" skerries. A few powerful mages set up shop in a world, make themselves immortal, use ritual magic to empower themselves through the devotion of worshippers, then use the dividends to create and shift new reality bubbles to make divine palaces, armies of servitors, play out power fantasies. They might even create an "afterlife" plane which collects.... something.... from departing sentients from within the skerry, providing useful energy to the "gods" and some kind of persistence of personality as a side-effect.

If there's a falling out between the "gods," which seems likely considering the kinds of personalities involved, it actually makes sense that direct conflict between them would be dangerous and unlikely to succeed, so they stick to holy wars amongst their followers, hoping to starve the other god of worship enough to weaken him for a killing blow...

There's at least two ways to play that; PCs as visitors looking for magical information or just because they're lost, or, PCs are powerful mages on the way to godhood.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by fchase8

A lot would depend on what kind of Hell world population was imported.

Was it your TL7-ish nuclear winter refugees? They would be able to use Homeline tech, but would also agitate for greater rights and development. Plus what if they're from both sides of the conflict?

Or what about a lower TL Hell world, from disease or the good ol' asteroid strike? They would have more trouble with Homeline tech, but would be easier to manage. Indeed, if Infinity decided to go with a good deal of low-tech in the colony/base, lower TL labor might be more skilled. But this would definitely set up a situation with one group effectively the privileged elite over another - how would Homeline activists think about the whole thing?

The words "indentured labour" would be widely used. The word "slavery" would be used by some people.

This is a screaming PR headache not even waiting to happen, unless it's managed incredibly carefully (and probably even then). It's also the exact sort of behaviour that lets Infinity paint Centrum as a bunch of medieval-minded poopy-heads. "Turns out that we're no better than them, then."

The one way you could sell it to a few people is as a way round the Prime Directive leave-the-primitives-to-rot nonsense. Just like Centrum do.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

The words "indentured labour" would be widely used. The word "slavery" would be used by some people.

This is a screaming PR headache not even waiting to happen, unless it's managed incredibly carefully (and probably even then). It's also the exact sort of behaviour that lets Infinity paint Centrum as a bunch of medieval-minded poopy-heads. "Turns out that we're no better than them, then."

The one way you could sell it to a few people is as a way round the Prime Directive leave-the-primitives-to-rot nonsense. Just like Centrum do.

A slave world created by a long gone (or is it?) World-Jumper culture could be an interesting mess to clean up. Centrum might see a nice useable world, the Cabalists might see the same, folks from Homeline might seem scary on the slave world. After all, if no one knows anything about freedom and God, the only god your people have ever known, says that slavery is the only true path, maybe the liberators are demons.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

The words "indentured labour" would be widely used. The word "slavery" would be used by some people.

This is a screaming PR headache not even waiting to happen, unless it's managed incredibly carefully (and probably even then). It's also the exact sort of behaviour that lets Infinity paint Centrum as a bunch of medieval-minded poopy-heads. "Turns out that we're no better than them, then."

The one way you could sell it to a few people is as a way round the Prime Directive leave-the-primitives-to-rot nonsense. Just like Centrum do.

How to treat outtime natives is probably a big socio-political issue on Homeline. Probably so big that it would prevent Infinity/U.N./Miracle Workers/whoever from ever using 'saved' off-world labor (imagine all of the people who would have to approve such a career-risk operation). Just better to have primitives work on their own worlds, and occasionally buy imports from them.

Maybe someone could try it if the whole operation was secret, if the Q3 base was secret, but it would be hard to keep such an operation secret, and it would be a lot more expensive. Though if a base has to be secret, getting a labor pool that is both cheap and literally can't tell anyone else might be seen as worth the risk.

[PTTG]

For an interesting political game, I'd like to add a rogue secret police / intelligence service to Homeline. Their agents are only ever Homeliners. They are completely off the books.

They are tiny compared to any other power player in the IW, but they are also among the most elite forces. They probably use magic or psionics (plus amplifying technology) to ensure loyalty - though they don't use mind control for their own agents; it's to easy to subvert. Instead they use truth-telling or aura reading to ensure that agents are really loyal.

Whenever the morally questionable would advance Homeline in general, and Infinity in specific, these secret forces are the ones to ensure it gets done. Given a darker cast, they're great foes. Given a slightly lighter tone, they become great high-point-value PCs.