Why no FTL and Infinite Worlds together? An explanation

[Kymage]

I hope I don't get in trouble for posting this here. I got a chuckle when I came across this short story and I thought I would share it to the forum. It does a pretty good job of explaining of why you may not have FTL and Infinite Worlds in the same setting.

https://www.geeksaresexy.net/2023/01...g-short-story/

[Refplace]

Ok, that was funny. Also seriously worth considering.

[mburr0003]

Ah, a good old r/HFY "Humans Are Weird" story.

[cptbutton]

See the "Where Are the Starships?" box in "GURPS Infinite Worlds" page 72 for another explanation.

[thrash]

In my Time Traveller variant, I proposed that the jump equations had two solutions: one space-like, one time-like. The first "starship" discovered it was the space-like solution that was unphysical and should be ignored...

[Anthony]

In a more meta-game sense, FTL and Parallel Worlds accomplish the same narrative purpose (providing a ready source of new places to explore) so there's not a lot of motive to have both in the same campaign.

[Walden]

All that said, Caliph in canonical Infinite Worlds does have FTL travel. Remember, they even have a offworld state that calls itself the Star Caliphate (I may not be remembering the name quite correctly.)

[warellis]

Originally Posted by Walden

All that said, Caliph in canonical Infinite Worlds does have FTL travel. Remember, they even have a offworld state that calls itself the Star Caliphate (I may not be remembering the name quite correctly.)

They do not quite have FTL yet. They're just putting the finishing touches on a stargate (an artificial wormhole) and haven't activated it yet. And that actually isn't FTL (technically).

You may be thinking of Caliph in 3e's Alternate Earths, where they had spread to at least one or two other star systems via stargates, but Infinite Worlds retconned that to them not having finished building them and still being in the Solar System.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

In a more meta-game sense, FTL and Parallel Worlds accomplish the same narrative purpose (providing a ready source of new places to explore) so there's not a lot of motive to have both in the same campaign.

Worse: If you have access to a nearly infinite number of Earths, many of them empty of humans or otherwise freely useful, all them already human-habitable, where you usually know where to find the useful resources and so forth, with travel time between them comparatively negligible...parallel travel outcompetes star travel fairly easily for most purposes.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Worse: If you have access to a nearly infinite number of Earths, many of them empty of humans or otherwise freely useful, all them already human-habitable, where you usually know where to find the useful resources and so forth, with travel time between them comparatively negligible...parallel travel outcompetes star travel fairly easily for most purposes.

See Pratchett and Baxter's "The Long Earth" and many sequels for this.

tl;dr: Someone invents a sideways in time machine that almost anyone can build with stuff around the house, and there are endless uninhabited Earths easily available.