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Old 09-11-2021, 07:02 PM   #11
Prince Charon
 
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

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Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 View Post
Nope and nope.

Centrum is an Anglophone Evil Empire. They have a fetish about their satrapies speaking English as a universal language, so they tend to use the British Empire as a catspaw. And in the GG-verse, that's ... not advisable.

For the same reason, Centrum and Infinity would likely give the whole reality a wide berth.
Of course, if Centrum didn't just stay away and did start trying to manipulate Albia's Empire, they might not realize that this was a bad idea until it was too late.
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Old 09-11-2021, 08:00 PM   #12
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

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Of course, if Centrum didn't just stay away and did start trying to manipulate Albia's Empire, they might not realize that this was a bad idea until it was too late.
Europa's weirdness seems like the kind of thing that would inspire even Interworld to act with caution.
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Old 09-11-2021, 08:42 PM   #13
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

Yeah, there are all kinds of ways this could potentially work out - ways the Spark and similar phenomena could interact with parallel-jumping, ways Centrum, Homeline and the others could approach it, probably other things, and you can pick whichever leads to a story you feel like running.

Even if the big organizations don't want to touch it on a large scale, if the Spark, or even the Sparks' inventions, continue to work off-world, or even just if things or people repaired using Spark-tech stay repaired off-world, then once it's discovered bolder or more foolish Swagmen are going to be going there to get impossible jobs done all ze time.
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Old 09-12-2021, 12:30 PM   #14
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

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Yeah, there are all kinds of ways this could potentially work out - ways the Spark and similar phenomena could interact with parallel-jumping, ways Centrum, Homeline and the others could approach it, probably other things, and you can pick whichever leads to a story you feel like running.

Even if the big organizations don't want to touch it on a large scale, if the Spark, or even the Sparks' inventions, continue to work off-world, or even just if things or people repaired using Spark-tech stay repaired off-world, then once it's discovered bolder or more foolish Swagmen are going to be going there to get impossible jobs done all ze time.
And when a Spark inevitably discovers world jumping, the big organizations won't have a choice.
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Old 09-12-2021, 06:26 PM   #15
Inky
 
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

True. In fact, another possible premise for an adventure is that they didn't know the parallel existed, and the first they know about it is when a Spark discovers world-jumping and starts leaving a trail of chaos across the parallels. Cue two objectives: catch this bloody lunatic, and track down just where the heck they came from.
The answer will not make Infinity feel any better. "There are how many of these guys?"
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Old 09-12-2021, 06:54 PM   #16
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

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True. In fact, another possible premise for an adventure is that they didn't know the parallel existed, and the first they know about it is when a Spark discovers world-jumping and starts leaving a trail of chaos across the parallels. Cue two objectives: catch this bloody lunatic, and track down just where the heck they came from.
The answer will not make Infinity feel any better. "There are how many of these guys?"
And to make matters worse, they captured one of The Other's bodies, and Barry Heterodyne is hot on her tail....
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Old 09-13-2021, 02:14 AM   #17
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

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How would Homeline/Centrum/The College react to/handle Europa and the Sparks?
Try to be very, very inconspicuous.

The mere idea of a reasonably powerful Spark getting their hands on time-travel technology would give powerful people on both Homeline and Centrum cold sweats.

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What's the mana level? Besides 'None', 'cause let's be honest...
Functionally, High/Normal, since it's fairly obvious that Sparks = mages and that "sparky" mad science is a form of magic. The plot arc where Agatha summoned up Genghis Heterodyne made this reasonably clear.

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How much of an 'oh no..'. is Europa figuring out the Secret?
Only slightly less than when Reich-5 discovered it. While Sparks are far less organized than the Reich-5 Nazis, their tendency to latch onto weird technology with both hands and use it to carve out an empire has the potential to cause massive chaos. Any Spark who discovered that parallel worlds existed would immediately go to the nearest undefended one, take it over, and use its resources to build an army.

The Leyden jar-lit orichalcum lining to all these potential storm clouds is that Baron Wulfenbach will take as dim a view of such activities as Homeline/Centrum. Tenuous alliances could be formed between House Wulfenbach and the major players, along the lines of "I'll keep my people out of your hair, as long as you respect my world's autonomy."

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How does the Spark interact with parachronics?
Experiments on the first 37 "volunteers" have been inconclusive, but the truth cannot hide from us forever! BWAH-HA-HA!

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How do parachronics interact with the Spark?
Running away is always a good option. Hiding is a good second best. There are already enough weird extradimensional critters running around in Europa that the odd parachronic beastie wouldn't be out of place. Assuming that it has a high tolerance for being put in a private zoo, vivisected, stored in a jar of formaldehyde, taxidermied, and/or subjected to horrifying experiments.

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Old 09-13-2021, 09:52 AM   #18
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

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Ordinary, non-Sparky mechanics are capable of repairing Spark-built machines, and Sparks insist that their achievements are scientific. Ergo, I would suggest that a Spark-built machine is technology, and like Homeline technology it functions anywhere except worlds that have specific restrictions such as electricity or whatnot.
Sparks seem to function similarly to the Tinker-class parahumans from Worm and Ward, being able to intuitively work backward from their desired end product. Their inventions clearly follow the rules of the universe, far more closely than those of Worm (where only a Tinker can maintain most Tinkermade gear) - otherwise, Klaus wouldn't have needed to test Gil so rigorously to confirm he had the Spark (it would have been obvious the first time Gil created something "impossible"), and he would have caught on to Moloch not being a Spark far quicker (note Moloch was creating new Sparky things, but they were cribbing from the work of the Spark he used to work for).

I'd expect the major players of IW to give this parallel a wide berth. The risk of a Spark reverse-engineering parachronics is very high, and the world has a small infestation of obscenely powerful extradimensional/extratemporal entities (such as the dreen). The slaver wasps - particularly given the sapient variant of those who are wasped (which I think has been indicated to actually be the bulk of victims of wasping) - are significant enough of a security threat alone to justify forbidding travel to that world.
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Old 09-13-2021, 11:00 AM   #19
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

I think there's a certain possibility that placing the timeline in the vicinity of Centrum may very well have the Centrans go full Strangelove and attempt to blow the timeline back to the stone age. No idea if that would work out well though.
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Old 09-13-2021, 12:17 PM   #20
Michael Cule
 
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Default Re: Girl Genius' Europa in the Infinite Worlds?

I suspect the Cabal would initially drool over the possibilities that recruiting Sparks would bring...

But the Sparks are very rarely team players. They mostly aren't in need of protection from the mundanes (though they are from more powerful Sparks) and I can't see the Cabal organising the place. I can see Sparks bursting out of their homeworld as soon as they find out the Secret. This would put a strain on all the 'police' organisations.
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