Alternate Crosstime Organizations

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

I see nothing wrong with saying "Psi doesn't work here", same as "Non-mana based magic doesn't work here" or "Superpowers don't work here" or "Chi powers doesn't work here" or even "artificial electricity doesn't work here".

I generally make heavy use of such conventions: magic from one world generally won't work on very many other worlds, and worlds where artificial electricity fails just aren't that uncommon.

Though generally world traveling magic/psi is privileged and tends to work on more worlds than other systems.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by scc

Um, what? There are no worlds that block Psi, Psi doesn't work on something that varies in nature like mana. I mean you could have one, but that would require every living thing or the world itself to posses the Anti-Psi power, which means that Psi powers still sort-of work, and if you could find a counter to that your powers would work fine.

As per GURPS powers Psi is a power modifier and subject to blocking. It is not subject to enviornmental blocking (like magic with manna levels) but is subject to technological blocking.

Further Coventry is specifically noted as not being reachable by any means except by a projector-assisted conveyor; no other world jumpers can reach it. That include psi world jumpers- so worlds that block or interfere with psi powers are part of the basic set book.

[PTTG]

Homeline (and therefore all echos) have extremely weak Psi activity; that is to say, too little to be practical for anything without artificial enhancement.

[Flyndaran]

Or it's not a feature of Homeline itself, but merely the life evolved there.
If you go to a world where eyes never evolved, it wouldn't stop yours from working.

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Or it's not a feature of Homeline itself, but merely the life evolved there.
If you go to a world where eyes never evolved, it wouldn't stop yours from working.

Well, there are 2 possible scenarios for a "There is no X here"

1. X works, but was never developed. X brought from outside will work.
2. X does not work and cannot be developed. X brought from outside does not function.

And being a game world, X can be anything and can be handwaved to prevent the heroes from expiring the moment they arrive. Magic, psi, eyes, electricity, gunpowder, liquid water, etc. I enjoy scenario 2 more than scenario 1 because I think it leads to more interesting developments, but that's personal preference.

[Flyndaran]

I like either in different situations.
Castrating a PC's main shtick every other world would get irritating fast. It would also likely lead to players refusing to check out new worlds and stick to only a few where they know their stuff works.

[Phantasm]

I like to toss in worlds where the usual stuff does not work as a once-in-a-while deal. On most worlds, everything works, though magic occasionally takes a slight penalty due to low mana, but every so often a world will pop up where magic doesn't work, or one where electronics don't work but magic and psionics get a skill boost, or one where psionics doesn't work but everything else does. Once in a great while, there's a world that is 100% normal (*gasp*! the horror!) where nothing special works!

90% of the worlds, though, everything works as normal, even if the worlds themselves don't have magic/psionics/super-powers/cybernetics/chi/etc. as a thing.

[ericthered]

Corco's Villa

The villa itself is a pocket dimension run by one "Corco" and his seemingly innumerable family. Built like a Mediterranean Villa, Corco and his family seem unable to leave the place but have godlike powers within it, excellent intel on other worlds, and the ability to pick up and drop off voluntary travelers from the rest of the multiverse.

Other worlds are accessed through an extensive library full of books on other worlds (some kept magically up to date), globes, maps, models, and so forth. The methods of travel are varied, but all keyed to some object.

Corco takes an active interest in the multiverse, and is constantly ferrying people from one place to another. His actions are generally just giving transportation and information to the others he moves. He usually confines movement to "heroic" types, but he has a wide range of worlds (and thus heroes) to choose from.

There is much speculation on his motives. He could just be looking out for the best interests of the multiverse. He could he trying to generate psychic energy with all of the heroic acts he enables and using it for some purpose. He could just enjoy the company of the folks he moves around. It is known he portrays himself differently to different individuals.

--------------------------------------------

Corco's villa was designed as a more "universal" base for ISWAT to operate out of. It has heavy elements of the crosstime saloon, but with a very different flavor. While designed to be heroic, very little needs to be changed to turn the villa into a villain. Possibilities involve him being just as willing to move around necromancers and rouge AI's as heroes, just as long as a good conflict/story result, or him supporting roman/italian dominance through the multiverse.

[PTTG]

Ah, of course. He likes heroics. And you can't have a hero without a villain.

[patchwork]

Maintenance

Maintenance are normally encountered in twos or threes, in nondescript coveralls with clipboards and toolboxes. In an industrialized world, no one looks at them twice, and they seldom venture to preindustrial worlds. Their full keyrings are essentially tiny portalmakers, with each key opening a door to a specific world if the technique is executed properly in an appropriate lock ("y'gotta jiggle it.") The trading or granting of a new key is an important social rite to them. The manufacture of keys is thus far a mystery to anyone outside of Maintenance. They are technological in nature, although nothing absolutely precludes Maintenance from hiring a mage or psychic.

Maintenance work according to what appears to be physical aesthetics. They fix broken objects. They make it easier, via new tools and plans, for people to create interesting new objects. They seem to care almost nothing for politics or religion, except insofar as those things impact industrial economy (they don't like trade guilds; they do like unions; they have no problem with monopolies or planned economies; they dislike pure consumerism because it leads to shoddy workmanship via planned obsolescence). They tend to avoid unnecessary social interaction with locals, declining a meeting when leaving a file on someone's desk will likely do the job. Minor jobs can be as simple as misrouting an ore shipment or replacing someone's tires with self-sealing ones; major ones can include overhauls to water and public transit systems, which require interaction with local authorities (in which case Maintenance lies about exactly who they are or where they're from).

(Maintenance are from a world very like Stephenson's Anathem post-contact. Their scientific revolution was in 5th-century Christian Egypt, the industrial revolution followed as Byzantium stood against the Arabs and Turks, and around the time of the Great Schism, their 'Praxic Wars' ended with a strict regulation of scientific and engineering knowledge. They've been at TL8 (with TL9 in monastic labs but never released to the wider world) and zero population growth for centuries, with almost no progress or change. Centrum lost a scout on their world in the dawn of their parachronic exploration about a century ago; their scout was detained and interrogated by the Ita, Centrum wrote the world off as unimportant, and the Ita began exploring the multiverse while giving the church a distorted and incomplete view of the big picture and telling their governments even less. They often follow Centrum or Homeline agents to get information about new worlds and samples from them; for all their engineering, they seem weak on the fundamental science and cliodynamics.)