Alternate Crosstime Organizations

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If there was nothing to discover, then there be nobody who needed to be dealt with in the first place.

Homeline abducts people who just "Know too much," which is a convenient message that "if we need to do this, go ahead and tell them you're an outtimer, then bring them here."

I'm sure there are a number of "Coventry Settlers" who had no inkling that the Secret was a thing until they wound up on the wrong side of Infinity.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The people they are murdering clearly know something about interdimensional travel because if they didn't the Homeliners would have no reason to murder them. They may not understand what they know, but that doesn't mean that they have left no traces, told nobody anything, that there is nothing to find out.

This is a falicy. It doesn't have to be true. Infinity makes it a habit of abducting people across the multiverse for their skills. Abductions garner just as much, if not more, attention than murders. If/When Centrum discovers this, they might start doing the same thing to learn what Infinity might be planning next. Having a room full of Otto Skorzenys and reviewing their analysis of events might lead them somewhere useful.

Then, I-SWAT is faced with a conundrum: Do we kidnap every Otto we run across, to prevent Centrum from doing the same? Do we ignore this and allow a potential window into our operations? Do we silence every Otto we can find, just to be safe?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The whole point of the Secret is the fear of introducing more players into the convert conflict and complicating it still more, or worse setting off open hostilities.

Not really, the Secret is to keep the existing players the only players, so they can maintain their functional monopoly on the multiverse. Homeliners don't think of non-Homeliners as real. The moment that Homeline loses the monopoly on planet-wide transdimensional travel, they have to accept that other people have a right to use the multiverse, just like they do. And they don't like that at all.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Going around murdering people to keep the Secret endangers the Secret by drawing more attention and it makes the consequences of failures to keep the Secret far more dire.

You're begging the question here. You assume that, by murdering someone who is on the right path, that will spur people to continue their research because they had to be on to something. They didn't. You can make it look like an accident and you never have to admit you did it. They're not Homeliners, they were interfering with your exclusive rights and property, you have the right to stop them.

Who says that Edwin Katskee wasn't on the verge of discovering drug-induced transdimensional travel, and I-SWAT just ensured he took too much cocaine and died of an overdose while trying to figure it all out?

That's a secret Infinity'd want to keep. If it's not using one of their easy-to-track conveyors, it's going to be something worth suppressing.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

When the Secret fails as it inevitably will in some cases you want to be able to tell the new player "No, your citizen are safe and sound." and not "Yes we murdered half of a dozen of your people pointlessly...oops."

"We just exiled them to a world where they can never return from. But, we assure you, they're safe."

How is that any more honest than murdering them?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

...
The only time this becomes a larger problem is if they already know the secret. Leaving a trail of untraceable murders doesn't lead investigators to "well, the only way this could keep happening is if they were using transdimensional travel." There are plenty of other, less insane, leaps of logic you would make, which would lead to similar dead ends, long before you got here. "Aliensdidit" is far more likely to be the final answer long before "transdimensionalaliensdidit" is.
...

That reminds me of an episode of Sliders. The main character was kidnapped by a paranoid conspiracy freak. Aliens exist in that reality but are benevolent, so he assumed the protagonists were up to no good. The world jumping explanation for what he saw was an insane distraction to him.
It's been a while since I saw the show.

People with minds open to the completely unproven reality hopping idea are probably open to all sorts of other explanations that also lack proof from their perspective.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

People with minds open to the completely unproven reality hopping idea are probably open to all sorts of other explanations that also lack proof from their perspective.

This is my point, in a nutshell.

The only reason you consider the Secret to be in danger is because you know the Secret, and you know it's true.

A murder made to look like a robbery-gone-wrong with no other evidence or leads to say "transdimensionalaliensdidit" is going to be chocked up to being nothing more than a robbery-gone-wrong.

[Flyndaran]

Unless such leads become "too common" to ignore. Eventually, curiosity if nothing else will cause more noses sticking into your missions.
Worse, paranoia while unlikely to reach the correct conclusions, will radically alter the natural progression of the culture and make things even more chaotic and dangerous for the cross-dimensional aliens.
Or as Garak from Deep Space Nine took as the moral from the story of the Boy Who Cried, "Wolf!"; never tell the same lie twice.

[Flyndaran]

I suppose another method of dealing with accidental secret reveals isn't to come up with one good plausible story, but a dozen or more okay explanations. No consensus means no concerted focus of resources to disprove each one. Burying with too much information is a recent problem with the internet that I don't think previous cultures could ever have even imagined.

[Mark Skarr]

Let us take, for example, the case of Dr. Jillian Taylor.

She’s a brilliant biochemist and psychiatrist, working for the United Nations, specifically COPPF (the Committee on Permanent Peacekeeping Forces). She’s happily married and has two children. Unbeknownst to her, or them, or anyone else in her timeline, she’s also a world-jumper.

During a negotiation session with a hostile government, a bomb explodes and activates her world-jumper powers. She is flung into a Homeline operation on another reality. Homeliners recognize her world-jumping ability and take her back to Homeline for both medical treatment and indoctrination.

Dr. Taylor, being highly intelligent, hides her education and acts like a confused, lost woman (not much acting, required, really), and is given two options: Work for us, or be exiled. They never offer to help her find her home and family. Nope, she’s their property now. She can either do what they want, or they’ll drop her somewhere and forget about her, forever.

Now, remind me how Infinity/I-SWAT are supposed to be the good guys?

Did they tell her the basic truth: “Hey, we don’t know which world you’re from.”

Did they offer a reasonable solution: “We can help each other. We can teach you how to use your ability, and you can scout for your world, with some of our agents. When you find it, you can bring our team back, then you know where your home is. You can go back at any time then, or you can keep working for us, and be free to visit them. It’s just a long-distance job.”

No, because that’s not how Infinity/I-SWAT rolls. She’s wa-aa-aa-aa-ay too valuable to let go (especially after they discover that her ability isn’t constrained by their concepts of Quantums), and they can’t risk her telling someone what she knows. If they knew she wasn’t going to be trapped by Coventry and she was playing the long game, they would have just put a bullet in her head.

Spoiler:  

When Jillian, under their tutelage, finally was able to control her powers, she took her patrol team to a well-known building to her: 832 First Avenue, between East 46th and East 47th streets: IST New York. Thereby alerting IST to the existence of a hostile, extra-dimensional worldline, not above pillaging other worldlines for resources and personnel—not that the many-worlds-theory wasn’t well-known and understood by IST, but, some certifiable evidence is always nice to have.

And hence, Infinity/I-SWAT was responsible for another, potentially-hostile power aggressively traversing the multiverse, specifically looking for them as they’re little more than minions working for a supervillain organization. Hail Hydra.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Let us take, for example, the case of Dr. Jillian Taylor.

She’s a brilliant biochemist and psychiatrist, working for the United Nations, specifically COPPF (the Committee on Permanent Peacekeeping Forces). She’s happily married and has two children. Unbeknownst to her, or them, or anyone else in her timeline, she’s also a world-jumper.

During a negotiation session with a hostile government, a bomb explodes and activates her world-jumper powers. She is flung into a Homeline operation on another reality. Homeliners recognize her world-jumping ability and take her back to Homeline for both medical treatment and indoctrination.

Dr. Taylor, being highly intelligent, hides her education and acts like a confused, lost woman (not much acting, required, really), and is given two options: Work for us, or be exiled. They never offer to help her find her home and family. Nope, she’s their property now. She can either do what they want, or they’ll drop her somewhere and forget about her, forever.

Now, remind me how Infinity/I-SWAT are supposed to be the good guys?

Did they tell her the basic truth: “Hey, we don’t know which world you’re from.”

Did they offer a reasonable solution: “We can help each other. We can teach you how to use your ability, and you can scout for your world, with some of our agents. When you find it, you can bring our team back, then you know where your home is. You can go back at any time then, or you can keep working for us, and be free to visit them. It’s just a long-distance job.”

No, because that’s not how Infinity/I-SWAT rolls. She’s wa-aa-aa-aa-ay too valuable to let go (especially after they discover that her ability isn’t constrained by their concepts of Quantums), and they can’t risk her telling someone what she knows. If they knew she wasn’t going to be trapped by Coventry and she was playing the long game, they would have just put a bullet in her head.

Spoiler:  

When Jillian, under their tutelage, finally was able to control her powers, she took her patrol team to a well-known building to her: 832 First Avenue, between East 46th and East 47th streets: IST New York. Thereby alerting IST to the existence of a hostile, extra-dimensional worldline, not above pillaging other worldlines for resources and personnel—not that the many-worlds-theory wasn’t well-known and understood by IST, but, some certifiable evidence is always nice to have.

And hence, Infinity/I-SWAT was responsible for another, potentially-hostile power aggressively traversing the multiversej, specifically looking for them as they’re little more than minions working for a supervillain organization. Hail Hydra.

Do I really need to point out that this is a scenario you entirely made up? Why wouldn't they tell her that they don't know where she's from? Why wouldn't they offer to unite her with her family if they can find them? And how would she even find IST-1? I mean you can certainly dial up the evil and stupid in your campaign, but what's in the actual game materials to support this being how they operate by default?

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Do I really need to point out that this is a scenario you entirely made up?

Do I really need to point out that this was an ad hominem. And badly thought out. It was an example of exactly how they operate, given information in Campaigns.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Why wouldn't they tell her that they don't know where she's from? Why wouldn't they offer to unite her with her family if they can find them?

Sure, they might know where she's from, they might not. They might even tell her. But, if they do know, are they actually going to let her go?

And uniting her with her family is absurd. Are they going to go kidnap them? The family of a missing UN worker also goes missing. That's sure to raise some eyebrows.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

And how would she even find IST-1?

It's the "New Worlds" enhancement. It's in the book, it's on page 64.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I mean you can certainly dial up the evil and stupid in your campaign, but what's in the actual game materials to support this being how they operate by default?

Ignoring the ad hominem, you might want to go back and re-read the books. Infinity is not about to let someone go who knows anything related to The Secret. I mean, there's a box on page 540 called "Keeping the Secret" for FSM's sake.

Originally Posted by Campaigns, box, pg 540

An “outtimer” who learns this secret – The Secret – must be hired, discredited, or made to vanish.

emphasis from book.

Originally Posted by Campaigns, box, pg 540

The I-Cops use Coventry to isolate people who Know Too Much: outtimers who stumbled onto a Homeline operation; Homeliners who broke regulations; scientists abducted from other timelines because the Patrol feared they were too close to developing parachronic technology; and even disgruntled ex-employees of Infinity!

Originally Posted by Campaigns, box, pg 540

It would not be unfair to conclude that Infinity and Centrum regard outtimers – as a group, if not as individuals – as something less than “real” people with human rights.

Sure, the same box says:

Measures can range from dirty tricks intended to discredit the subject or change his perceptions, to commando raids aimed at eliminating all the witnesses and destroying all hard evidence. But where Centrum might kill, Infinity prefers to make the witness vanish. He is kidnapped . . . and taken to Coventry.

Which, really, is the same thing as killing them, you're just doing it in an incredibly inhumane method. We've taken them somewhere they can never return from and simply dropped them off. How is this better and more moral than just killing them? Dropping a TL7-8 person off in a TL4 world and expecting them to survive is pretty large leap of faith. Even if you can get back with projector assistance, how would you be sure you'd ever find a survivor? It's murder, just an inhumane method of murder.

And sometimes, the preferred method isn't available or tenable. Build a man a fire, keep him warm for a day. Set a man on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life.

[(E)]

A small criminal organization might seek to make money by aquiring Genetically matching organs for critically ill residents in other time lines.
The Hermes syndicate.
The front is "advanced cloning technology" and operates out of a country with the appropriate medical laws.

[ericthered]

I've never been under the impression that people taken to Coventry are simply abandoned there. If only so criminals, activists, and businessmen don't raid it for talent. The whole point of Coventry is to be a better option that killing people. The TL8 medicine it has is almost certainly shipped in. Yes, the folks are torn from their worlds, their families, their livelihoods and their life work. Yes, That's a severe emotional blow. But physically they're taken care of. And most of them don't have much of their freedom taken away either. They are free to roam about their village on an empty world with plenty of food and a decent bed, make friends, and live lives. Just not the lives they'd planned on. I'm not saying I'd like to go there. I'm just saying you won't die within 3 months of being dropped there.