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Old 08-16-2017, 03:20 PM   #161
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Default Re: Alternate Crosstime Organizations

Some years into Homeline's future a means of traveling backwards in time is discovered. Due to a cash flow problem several agents are sent back to the present to make a couple of changes.

"Infinite worlds and time" agents are now operating with advanced technology and their own agenda.

Twists
Time travel caused Homeline to split into two initially identical worlds, neither one wants to give way to the other.....
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Old 08-16-2017, 05:07 PM   #162
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The Abyss: The existence of the Abyss is classified by Infinity, although the existence of Parachronozoids resembling mythical Demonic entities has been well documented by Infinity operatives across multiple known mana-active Worldlines. But while the Infinity Patrol's official line is that these entities are mostly isolated cases, ISWAT knows different, in part due to field experience, independent research, and information acquired from Cabal contacts. The truth of the nature of Demons and their home dimension is far more horrific, representing an existential threat not only to Homeline, but to all Realities.

The Abyss is a Parachronic Anomaly. Part Shiftrealm, part never-ending Reality Quake, part Banestorm, the Abyss is unofficially categorized as a “Reality-Consuming Void Dimension.” Information gleamed from Cabalists who have dared to explore it, and from Worldjumpers who were lucky to escape from it (or unlucky, as some poor traumatized souls would claim), the Abyss itself is an entropic, chaotic realm where space and time break down the further “in” you go; time passes differently in different regions (and can sometime vary within a region), and spatial geometry also begins to degenerate, with locations connecting to each other in unusual ways, or certain other areas turning into inescapable mazes once entered. In addition, the laws of physics themselves will often be warped or twisted entirelty, allowing such things as rains of blood, or rivers of flames, or trees made of bones and sinew.

This realm possesses many inhabitants, the two largest categories being the Damned and the Demons. The Damned consist of ordinary humans from Earths absorbed into the Abyss, trapping them therin, leaving them at the mercies of the Demons, the hazards of the Abyss, and other monstrous creatures of this dimension. Tragically, death does not seem to offer any release to the Damned, as all are restored to life in some form; some painfully regenerate from their fatal injuries, others are recreated wholly in some other, just as horrific location. While some Damned have organized themselves within Abyssal society in service to Demons or as resistance fighters, the vast majority are little more then slaves, or worse, to the true inhabitants, the Demons.

“Demons” is a very broad category, which can be roughly summarized as “Immortal being linked to the Abyss, who feed upon magic and life.” Beyond this, the term can be applied to a large range of Abyssal entities, even the ones that do not resemble the image of “traditional” biblical demons. Gargoyles may in fact be a more nomadic variety of demon. The nature of Demons is also highly varied; some are created by more powerful demons as servants, others occur when a damned becomes powerful enough to harness Abyssal energies to achieve apotheosis. And yet others were former “mortals” corrupted and twisted into demonic beings.

The Abyss itself is divided into nearly countless subrealms, each under the control of one or more “Demon Lord”, beings powerful enough to manipulate a pocket of reality according to their whims. Such realms are usually horrific hellscapes where they wield absolute power, ruling over a captive population of helpless Damned slaves and Demonic servants.

As mentioned previously, the Abyss has been deemed “Reality-Consuming”, and this has always followed the following pattern: Demonic scouts arrive on new mana-active worlds, either deliberately summoned or via accidental summoning by critical spell failure. These scouts begin to imbed themselves into the world, spreading the knowledge to summon more demons or create Gates, triggering Banestorms and Reality Quakes, or to spread demonic corruption. These actions serve to weaken the dimensional barriers, slowly altering the Worldline's Quantum signature, until such a time that the Abyss begins to “seep” into the new reality via permanent induction zones, allowing for a true invasion to begin.

The second phase, the invasion proper, slowly turns the Worldline into a Hell World, as the invading force decimates the population, devestates the landscape and warp the local lifeforms. More nexus portals are created, eventually connecting the new conquest to dimensional highways of corrupted worlds. The careless methods used by the demons for such construction will inevitably cause further damage to the world's reality, until the Quantum barriers decay entirely, causing the world to Banestorm completely into the Abyss. At which point, the demons begin the process anew, seeking out new worlds to conquer and absorb into the Abyss.
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Old 08-16-2017, 05:14 PM   #163
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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
<snort> They probably would be a stereotypical terrorist group.
If you see people saving the lives of literal innocents kidnapped by a corrupt dehumanizing government as automatically terrorists, I'm not sure how you think.
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Last edited by Flyndaran; 08-16-2017 at 05:21 PM.
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Old 08-16-2017, 06:25 PM   #164
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If you see people saving the lives of literal innocents kidnapped by a corrupt dehumanizing government as automatically terrorists, I'm not sure how you think.
After they pull off their jail break what else would they do with a bunch of disgruntled people dedicated to the downfall of a "corrupt dehumanizing government" except carry out terrorist operation against it and it's people?
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Old 08-16-2017, 07:06 PM   #165
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After they pull off their jail break what else would they do with a bunch of disgruntled people dedicated to the downfall of a "corrupt dehumanizing government" except carry out terrorist operation against it and it's people?
A terrorist is someone who uses fear to motivate civilians to act in a political manner on their behalf.

A freedom fighter is someone who acts on the behalf of at least some civilian population in direct opposition to a military or government.

I doubt that they would directly attack civilians of Homeline. But, I'm certain that they'd attack Infinity infrastructure.

Many of those people will just want to go home and try to get on with their lives. Some of them will want to tell everyone about the horrors they experienced at the hands of an unknown enemy and warn their government about them (with evidence provided by said "terrorists"). Some of them, sure, will want to strike back, and they have as much right to do that as Homeline had to imprison/banish them in the first place. Two wrongs don't make a right, but Homeline doesn't really have a leg to stand on.
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Old 08-16-2017, 08:01 PM   #166
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A terrorist is someone who uses fear to motivate civilians to act in a political manner on their behalf.

A freedom fighter is someone who acts on the behalf of at least some civilian population in direct opposition to a military or government.

I doubt that they would directly attack civilians of Homeline. But, I'm certain that they'd attack Infinity infrastructure.

Many of those people will just want to go home and try to get on with their lives. Some of them will want to tell everyone about the horrors.
We were cut off from the internet! The horror! The horror!. But here's the thing. If all they do is engineer a jailbreak and then dissolve then they aren't an alternate crosstime organization and they don't need a name. But if they just go home, then Infinity is going going to just collect them again. I mean it's not like they haven't kept records.

And if they're going to attack Infinity "infrastructure" that raises the question of just what "infrastructure" is vulnerable to attack. Trying to directly hit anything on Homeline itself, particularly installations belonging to Intervention is probably suicidal. So...how do you attack? I tell you how. You track down scouts and traders, you capture and torture them, get your hands on their conveyors and plant bombs on them before sending them back. That's what you do.
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Old 08-16-2017, 08:12 PM   #167
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So in your game-mind it's literally impossible for any group of people to be good except for, what, a few days?
And equating kidnapping and murder with intermittent internet is downright offensive to anyone with knowledge of human history and modern events.
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Old 08-16-2017, 08:17 PM   #168
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I feel like my contribution to the threat is being drowned in an unrelated argument about the morality of Coventry. Not saying you guys can't discuss the topic, but I'd like to know people's opinion on my Abyss thing.
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Old 08-16-2017, 08:20 PM   #169
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We were cut off from the internet! The horror! The horror!.
Boy, way to really belittle what happened to these people.

They were kidnapped from their home and family by a hostile government and thrown into an internment camp. Everything they have known (electricity, running water, amongst other things) has been taken away from them as punishment. Nothing they have known or studied in their life will prepare them for this. They haven’t done anything wrong, other than maybe study the wrong branch of science, or be curious about strange goings on. Or maybe they just happened to know someone and got caught in the crossfire. None of that matters to Homeline.

The terrorists here are Homeline, Infinity, I-Cops and I-SWAT.

Quote:
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But here's the thing. If all they do is engineer a jailbreak and then dissolve then they aren't an alternate crosstime organization and they don't need a name. But if they just go home, then Infinity is going going to just collect them again. I mean it's not like they haven't kept records.
They’re not going to dissolve, as much as you’d like to think they would. Until Homeline is dealt with permanently, they’ll be there to pluck people out of Coventry. Maybe they’ll capture the Infinity authorities who decided this was a good plan and drop them on a similar world.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
And if they're going to attack Infinity "infrastructure" that raises the question of just what "infrastructure" is vulnerable to attack. Trying to directly hit anything on Homeline itself, particularly installations belonging to Intervention is probably suicidal.
But, having access to methods of world-hopping that Infinity is not aware of, would reduce the danger significantly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
So...how do you attack? I tell you how. You track down scouts and traders, you capture and torture them, get your hands on their conveyors and plant bombs on them before sending them back. That's what you do.
Sure, the violent method is a time-honored method of war, and it is justified, but it’s obvious you lack imagination.

Having a bunch of hackers from Shikoku-Mon with their highly-developed and superior electronics skills, would lay bare all of Infinity’s dirty secrets. Abducting scientists from Infinity and handing them over to Centrum or Reich-5 would also work. Just going back to Shikoku-Mon with advanced, new, world-hopping tech and helping them develop it would be devastating to Homeline. After all, Homeline's been kidnapping Shikoku-Mon citizens for some time, just because they’re curious.

--
@LoneWolf23k: Not really my thing. I can't really provide critique as it's not something I would use in my game.

Last edited by Mark Skarr; 08-16-2017 at 08:22 PM. Reason: Clarified a sentence.
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Old 08-16-2017, 08:21 PM   #170
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It's like an infectious zone of Qlippothic energy from Gurps Cabal. Cool.
It does make me think of how one could fight a demonic infection, and if it's possible to steal a location back from the Abyss itself.
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