New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this one..

Reptilicus

Many worlds have rumors of reptiloids generally promoted by obsessed conspiracy mongers. Some worlds are know to have reptiloids, some of which are in the Cabal. But this Q5 low mana world has reptiloids that have gone public to expose the conspiracy!

Notes: Buddy Holly was a reptiloid too. The other two on the plane were supposed to die but Buddy figured out a way to have them put in suspended animation instead. Now all three are back. Buddy Holly, Elvis, Ann Margret and Carl Perkins have formed a supergroup. (Neither Anne or Carl are Reptiloids, and Anne is the drummer).

More as it comes to me.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Meanwhile Homeline hopes to interview some reptiloids and get intelligence on an important ally group of the Cabal.

"Important ally group? Oh, dear me, no. We may, at times, have allowed those foolish cacklers to believe that we were helping them, but our strategies were quite different."

[Phil Masters]

I hope that this timeline is being kept a high-level secret. Nobody wants the conspiracy nutters on Homeline to have their delusions reinforced. People running up to celebrities with knives and trying to hack their masks off would be the most trivial and comedic of the ensuing problems.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I hope that this timeline is being kept a high-level secret. Nobody wants the conspiracy nutters on Homeline to have their delusions reinforced. People running up to celebrities with knives and trying to hack their masks off would be the most trivial and comedic of the ensuing problems.

An interesting possibility. I suppose any timeline where a well know conspiracy theory is true would need to be kept secret. Maybe such timelines should be called Nestas after the famous reactionary.

[Micah Davis]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

An interesting possibility. I suppose any timeline where a well know conspiracy theory is true would need to be kept secret. Maybe such timelines should be called Nestas after the famous reactionary.

Homeline is the Illuminati on almost every world and its intentions are... not beatific. I feel like the primary conspiracy theories on Homeline would just be, "And there's an even bigger, badder cabal running Infinity!"

But I think Homeline would closely watch "real conspiracy" worlds wherever it could find them and try to, firstly, contain and, secondly, duplicate their means of maintaining mass conspiracies. After all, mass conspiracy creation would be a major edge against Centrum and Reich-5 and for undermining any undesirable governments from Shikaku-Mon to Dixie.

[Astromancer]

Conspiracy is less bloody than war. Value systems differ. We might see avoiding war and mass violence as a good thing. The people of Dixie believe in their society and its arrangements even if the CSA disgusts us. The people of both Dixie's CSA and Reich-5 see war as glorious and ennobling. And they see it as being these things for many of the same reasons we see war as horrific

Any game involving other cultures, even alternative versions of our own culture, brings us into the complex moral issues involving cultural contact. So lets stick to having fun and avoiding moral complexity...except when it adds drama and fun.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by Micah Davis

Homeline is the Illuminati on almost every world and its intentions are... not beatific. I feel like the primary conspiracy theories on Homeline would just be, "And there's an even bigger, badder cabal running Infinity!"

But I think Homeline would closely watch "real conspiracy" worlds wherever it could find them and try to, firstly, contain and, secondly, duplicate their means of maintaining mass conspiracies. After all, mass conspiracy creation would be a major edge against Centrum and Reich-5 and for undermining any undesirable governments from Shikaku-Mon to Dixie.

Earlier in this thread, I did write-ups for Conspiracy, the 2000 Conspiracy-X world, and Gothic-4, the 1996 World of Darkness timeline. Both have massive conspiracies (reptiliods are just one of many on Conspiracy...) that intrigue and frighten Infinity, as much for their firepower as ability to control worlds that, on the surface, are so like non-parachronic Homeline.

[Micah Davis]

The ever-skeptical Patrol has written off the theocratic governments of Templar (1968, TL7, Q3, Low Mana) as simply an instance of religious impulses gone off the rails. The timeline seems to have diverged during the Second Great Awakening with the even greater success of the Benevolent Empire and an enduring domestic charismatic tradition. But it didn't diverge only in America - Religion was vastly more powerful in the West. The strange correlation of these movements and the broad failure of secularism is a subject of intense interest by a few non-Infinity cliodynamicists from a variety of religions. State religions are still the norm and inquisitions and witch hunts have not been totally abandoned. Domestic cultures tend to be austere, upright, and pious, and the Sanctified States of America leads a coalition of Protestant Countries against the Catholic League in Europe in a cold war known as the "War of Prayers." The cause of all of this is something of a mystery to Homeline.

The Cabal and Merlin, on the other hand, only visit Templar long enough to discern the reason for its excessive religiosity. Locals appear to have real, faith-based power - Blessed and True Faith most commonly, but Power Investiture and Faith Healing are also not too rare. Much worse for out-time visitors, the local variation of Power Investiture, while generally fairly low key, seems to focus on inquisitorial abilities - Truthsayer, Detect Magic, and even morally coded magic that claims to see into the moral heart of individuals - and in many of its religions, magic use is a sin.

Few, if any, outtimers have realized what the governments of Templar know all too well - There are demonic forces at work in the world, offering profane powers and worldly wealth to those who would submit to them. Ministers of Inquisitorial Bureaus the world over are always hunting down these traitors to heaven. Players might run afoul of their suspicion of sudden wealth and ingenuity or they might meet or be one who has been marooned chasing down a Cabal member across the infinite worlds.

Divergence Point: 1800, the Revival of 1800 in Logan County Kentucky carries with it ecstatic visions with true holy insight into the future.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Micah Davis

The ever-skeptical Patrol has written off the theocratic governments of Templar (1968, TL7, Q3, Low Mana) as simply an instance of religious impulses gone off the rails.

(SNIP)

Divergence Point: 1800, the Revival of 1800 in Logan County Kentucky carries with it ecstatic visions with true holy insight into the future.

Egad. This is an absolutely fascinating horror-show.
It's a world in which Evangelical true-believers are actually mostly right.

Man, I'd lock it down with the most strict quarantine possible.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Micah Davis

the Sanctified States of America leads a coalition of Protestant Countries against the Catholic League in Europe in a cold war known as the "War of Prayers."

So what happened to the Orthodox Christians, the Muslims and the Chinese? I could buy that Africa got colonized largely on schedule (along with South East Asia), but Russia, Ottoman Empire and China would seem to be a tougher nut to crack.