Catalog of the Weird Parallels

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

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I can see this leading to a lot of unemployment and nepotism. Over time of course. right now its just the aftermath of a reality quake.
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Imagine the poor few that realize that something is royally messed up. They may glom onto visitors as somehow seeming more "normal."
They may have the warrior skills endemic to this reality, but want something different. Recruit potential?

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The big overturn here is age. Is there a mechanism to give people a chance at retiring rather than being killed when they are too old to fight, jungle-book style?

Can you challenge any superior, or do you have to fight your way up the chain?

I can see this leading to a lot of unemployment and nepotism. Over time of course. right now its just the aftermath of a reality quake.

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With the invisible world I'd expect recruiting would be mostly done through robots, cameras (I mean microphones), and quick snatch and grab operations. Throwing a team of PC's at it will get results. But tricky tricky. good one.

Thanks! As for Chandler, one can simply step down when challenged, but everyone recognizes that as total defeat unless the power disparity is immense. Simply retiring (complete with gold watch, benefits package, etc.,) before someone challenges you at all is also an option.

Once a challenge is proposed, however, you will win or you will die.

If you lack any claim at all to a position, those under you will be restive and very likely to challenge you in turn, and furthermore there is somewhat less loss of face if one turns down a challenge with someone who has no claim to your position. However, if you repeatedly turn down challenges from even the most irrelevant opponents, you will quickly lose all legitimacy.

[TGLS]

Vacuole parallels are parallels where the entire universe an arbitrary volume, smaller than Earth, with an environment is comparable to Earth, despite the lack of plants for oxygen, planet for gravity, and sun for heat and light.

Vacuole-1: This parallel contains nothing but 47 kittens. The rest of the space is blank whiteness. The introns of each of the kittens is encoded with 2000 characters of Baudot. The first kitten was encoded with the contents of the Kryptos statue. The rest of the kittens have not been decrypted. There is no clear source of food for the kittens and they have not aged for the 3 years the parallel has been known for.

Vacuole-2: This parallel contains a number city blocks from different cities in different times all next to each other. When someone observes a block, it's as if everyone in the block suddenly disappeared. The blocks seem to replace and rearrange themselves when no one is looking. There have been cases where the conveyor was in the removed city block; searching is unproductive.

Vacuole-3: This parallel is nothing but a large buffet. There are always just enough tables for the number of people in the parallel and there is always more than enough food and drink.

Vacuole-4: This parallel is small mansion surrounded by an acre of forest. If the inhabitants are to be believed, this parallel is a virtual reality (evident by they're insistence in removing "rogue programs").

Vacuole-5: This parallel is a building with a confusing, and often impossible layout. Most of the doors are locked someway or another; a huge amount equipment is broken, but all of the components are somewhere in the complex. Infinity has a team trying to sort out the mess because there is allegedly some kind of parachronic device sealed inside.

Vacuole-6: This parallel is a pool hall with only 10 pool tables. Each of the pool tables has non-standard balls arranged in a very particular order, all identical. It's probably a coincidence that a scout sank the 6th ball on the 4th table the same day a quantum 4 world's Saturn vanished.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by TGLS

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Vacuole-4: This parallel is small mansion surrounded by an acre of forest. If the inhabitants are to be believed, this parallel is a virtual reality (evident by they're insistence in removing "rogue programs").
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You could have ValHalla as what natives believe they're in. That leads to them gleefully attacking any intruders quite intensely regardless of odds.

[Flyndaran]

Hell World - Candyland... or at least it became a hell world once humans visited.
Their very bodies covered in virulent consume-all yeasts and bacteria. Natives watched in horror as these man-monsters from beyond started to bite into the very buildings with glee. What creatures could possibly chew, let alone digest, structural gingerbread? Gum drop bullets had no effect!

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Hell World - Candyland... or at least it became a hell world once humans visited.
Their very bodies covered in virulent consume-all yeasts and bacteria. Natives watched in horror as these man-monsters from beyond started to bite into the very buildings with glee. What creatures could possibly chew, let alone digest, structural gingerbread? Gum drop bullets had no effect!

This is delightfully horrible, thank you.

Also, enjoying the vacuole worlds. All of them sound like lovely places to end up by accident.

[David Johnston2]

Fracture: The Earth's outer crust has been broken apart into orbiting islands strung out in orbit around the Sun, still retaining atmosphere and a facsimile of gravity on each piece's topside. with the interior of the planet seeming to just have vanished. Magic ships ply the spaces between the islands.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Fracture: The Earth's outer crust has been broken apart into orbiting islands strung out in orbit around the Sun, still retaining atmosphere and a facsimile of gravity on each piece's topside. with the interior of the planet seeming to just have vanished. Magic ships ply the spaces between the islands.

World Of Warcraft has the shattered world called in an earlier expansion, The Outlands. Magical gates tore it apart leaving massive gaps falling into the void between many sections with impossible rocks floating in the sky, etc.
I don't remember if canon ever mentioned any core.

But that setting idea is ripe for a steam tech dirigible adventure that I would adore.

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by PTTG

This is delightfully horrible, thank you.

Also, enjoying the vacuole worlds. All of them sound like lovely places to end up by accident.

I could see Infinity turning Vacuole-3 into the corporate cafeteria. They do have a habit of taking advantage of resources on timelines that aren't Homeline, after all.

[PTTG]

Float:

Gravity dramatically weakened on Earth in 1820, although the moon still orbits and the planet somehow hasn't broken apart (and centripetal force isn't throwing people into space). It's now a divergent 1902 with really fantastic micro-gravitational architecture.