Van Zandt's Secret

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by Willy

As for psy powers I´m pretty sure, since Psy works on homeline, that this is a non option. Consider the rabid paranoia in every good security advisor who is responsible for say the president xyz has. They watch there clients every minute of their life and would most surly discover any changing the client undergoes. Think a bit further, to a normal highranking leaders entourage, count bodyguards, medics, "advisors", network security specialists and whatever, literally any threat is covered. Now imagine a world where psy works, pretty sure that psy and counter psy measures are part of it and any gouvermenst seat or parliament is protected against it.

Certainly, once the existence of psionics becomes public knowledge, using it on important people becomes dicey to unworkable, but, since Homeline, having a history that closely mirrored our own until Zandt revealed his discovery, did not yet know about psionics, the necessary defenses would not have been in place, and any detection of psionic meddling would have to have been done in retrospect months or years later. Add to this the fact that what occurred in the meeting is a high level secret, so analysts have no way of knowing whether the slight change in Mr. Big's personality is due to mind-meddling or due to him being confronted with evidence of Cthulhu or whatever (or just being confronted with evidence that the world is vastly bigger than he had assumed hours before- that alone is going to throw off the personality readings).

EDIT: And the person who posted while I was composing this already made my point.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

That sounds a lot like Keith Laumer's Worlds of the Imperium series, where the rather simple parachronic technology (19th century tech) destroyed huge numbers of worlds, creating what was called "The Blight", and the only worlds that survived either never developed the tech or got it just right.

Yes it does. Of course World of the Imperium is a major inspiration for the Infinite Worlds setting. Might go so far to as to say the major inspiration

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

I always assumed that Van Zadnt's secret was a dossier of embarrassing information about world leaders, to be released if they opposed his proposal. )

This wouldn't work. It'd never remain the very very secret thing "The Secret" is.

Also, besides the mindnumbing number of files you'd have to accumulate "world leaders" have a shorter shelf life than The Secret has proven to.

If you don't want to believe in idealism your best option is probably fear but it needs to be a very broad and enduring fear because new "world leaders" do not seem to have tried to change the deal.

[Apollonian]

My take on Van Zandt's Secret is here - basically, another timeline developed parachronics during the Cold War and then destroyed itself with a parachronically-enabled nuclear war. This example persuaded the Homeline powers to place the Secret in the hands of a semi-trusted third party.

Twist: Van Zandt may have been from that timeline, and may have triggered the war to set up his own private cross-time empire - Homeline.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Certainly, once the existence of psionics becomes public knowledge, using it on important people becomes dicey to unworkable, but, since Homeline, having a history that closely mirrored our own until Zandt revealed his discovery, did not yet know about psionics, the necessary defenses would not have been in place, and any detection of psionic meddling would have to have been done in retrospect months or years later. Add to this the fact that what occurred in the meeting is a high level secret, so analysts have no way of knowing whether the slight change in Mr. Big's personality is due to mind-meddling or due to him being confronted with evidence of Cthulhu or whatever (or just being confronted with evidence that the world is vastly bigger than he had assumed hours before- that alone is going to throw off the personality readings).

You may think a bit further in time, even if van Zandt mind controled the actual leaders, there is no reason why further leaders will not protected against mind intrusion, because now that psy is a acknowledged reality, further leaders will be protected. Even in dictatorships and monarchies people get older and die or are overthrown, not to mention that in the infinite scenario a lot of members are democrats, who may last only for one term, so this is a one shot which most certainly would backfire badly.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Willy

You may think a bit further in time, even if van Zandt mind controled the actual leaders, there is no reason why further leaders will not protected against mind intrusion, because now that psy is a acknowledged reality, further leaders will be protected. Even in dictatorships and monarchies people get older and die or are overthrown, not to mention that in the infinite scenario a lot of members are democrats, who may last only for one term, so this is a one shot which most certainly would backfire badly.

Any secret will be a plot device that requires some suspension of disbelief. Realistically any secret involving that many people would have been found out over time especially as older leaders in the know get replaced with newer leaders that want to know.

Infinity has a monopoly on a lot of things which allows it to run on inertia. If Van Zandt has been able to control trans-D tech, it's also highly possible he is able to keep a monopoly on psi tech and magic from other other worlds. Keeping control of that might even be how he keeps secrets from escaping.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

My take on Van Zandt's Secret is here - basically, another timeline developed parachronics during the Cold War and then destroyed itself with a parachronically-enabled nuclear war. This example persuaded the Homeline powers to place the Secret in the hands of a semi-trusted third party.

Twist: Van Zandt may have been from that timeline, and may have triggered the war to set up his own private cross-time empire - Homeline.

The flaw with Kruschev-1 is that that reality could have destroyed itself with nukes without parachronics. The cross-time nuclear strike really don't make sense. More over how can Infinity think all the colonies were destroyed in the war?

More over as explained in the GURPS wiki there is Homeline-2 which the Homline of Infinite worlds don't know about...yet.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by maximara

More over as explained in the GURPS wiki there is Homeline-2 which the Homline of Infinite worlds don't know about...yet.

Because it doesn't exist.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Because it doesn't exist.

Homeline-2 does exist because Classic: Time Travel is now back in print. There is simply no way to reconcile Classic: Time Travel and Infinite Worlds without Homeline-2 existing.

*Homeline-2 was far more aggressive then 4e Homeline in finding realities.

*Homeline and Centrum of Infinite Worlds learned of each other 12 years later than those of Classic: Time Travel

*Their Centrem-Beta (Centrum Beta-2) is in 1910, 15 years ahead of the Centrem-Beta in 4e (1895)

*Aside from three exceptions (Merlin-1, Reich-5 and Etheria) all the realities in Classic and 4e have the same year and Etheria saw the passage of only one year.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by maximara

There is simply no way to reconcile Classic: Time Travel and Infinite Worlds without Homeline-2 existing.

Yes there is: Classic Time Travel is an alternate multiverse, like Horatio Club, Order of the Hourglass and the Time Corps. Just because the book exists it doesn't mean that the setting exists in IW (i.e. Tales of Solar Patrol, Transhuman Space, default space)