[Infinite Worlds] Why is Infinity Unlimited using TL8-9 equipment?

[Phex]

Thank you for these detailed answers. Now it sounds more logical to me!

[Tzeentch]

-- It's not really covered in Infinite Worlds as it detracts from the setting tropes, but an entire world that relies heavily on parasitic reverse-engineering other people's IP probably has issues with scaling up their own R&D programs that don't deal with parachronics (they appear to even have some issues with that) - easier to just keep tabs on some other worldline and steal all their crap and sell it back home - which makes me wonder what the analog of our own finiancial crisis was on Homeline .... Of course, it makes your head spin when you try and figure out how Homeline works, which is why I wouldn't spend much time thinking about it beyond the availability of alll sorts of wierdness to certain Infinity Patrol agents.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Tzeentch

-- It's not really covered in Infinite Worlds as it detracts from the setting tropes, but an entire world that relies heavily on parasitic reverse-engineering other people's IP probably has issues with scaling up their own R&D programs that don't deal with parachronics (they appear to even have some issues with that) - easier to just keep tabs on some other worldline and steal all their crap and sell it back home - which makes me wonder what the analog of our own finiancial crisis was on Homeline ....

Probably a speculative bubble similar to tulip mania. It wouldn't have been as bad though, because Homeline doesn't suffer from shortages of any natural resource, not even real estate.

[sir_pudding]

I don't think it would be plausible that they'd completely bootstrapped the average TL of the Earth in short period of time that worlds like Shikuru-Mon have been available.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Centrum isn't even accessible by conventional parachronic tech from Homeline, Simple backdoors like portals can be assumed to be closely monitored though.

Technically you did forget one TL9 world: Reich-5. :)

Ooops, thought they were mostly TL8. Don't have my book handy. ;) I'll bet they'd be just a dandy destination to troll for goodies.

I assume that Centrum and Infinity attempt to infiltrate one another the old fashioned way: with world jumpers.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by wellspring

I assume that Centrum and Infinity attempt to infiltrate one another the old fashioned way: with world jumpers.

Isn't that covered in IW? IIRC Infinity has a program to do so, but it's in its infancy.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by wellspring

Ooops, thought they were mostly TL8. Don't have my book handy. ;) I'll bet they'd be just a dandy destination to troll for goodies.

Reich-5 is portrayed as consistantly having better military and aerospace tech than Infinity. The Japanese portion of the world has much better bio-tech as well.

I once did a sort of search through the IW book looking for places to raid for tech and it was not really that encouraging. A full TL9 is about the limit for places that may not be using superscience that would not work on Homeline. I mean you can get flying cars and death rays on Gernsback but who knows if they work anywhere else in the multiverse?

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by wellspring

I assume that Centrum and Infinity attempt to infiltrate one another the old fashioned way: with world jumpers.

Or the even more old-fashioned way: with traitors. Meet a contact on a quiet Q6 or Q7 world, exchange briefcases (or thumb drives) and vanish into the night.

As far as the tech, IU is bootstrapping pretty hard already with what they've got. Remember, absent dimensional travel, they'd literally be 15 years ahead of us; i.e., a more advanced TL8, but not spectacularly so.

Others have pointed out the other main factors: 1) The dearth of hyper-advanced worlds that don't have different physical laws and 2) the difficulty of reproducing tech that is too far in advance of your own. The latter strikes me as the biggest stumbling block. Sure, there's fictional examples of medieval kingdoms (TL3) getting uplifted to an industrial age society (TL5 or 6), but it's invariably with the conscious guidance of a native from the higher tech level. If King Arthur or Count Lambert have to puzzle out machine guns and assembly lines themselves from a couple of samples and some hastily grabbed manuals, it ain't going to happen overnight.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I once did a sort of search through the IW book looking for places to raid for tech and it was not really that encouraging. A full TL9 is about the limit for places that may not be using superscience that would not work on Homeline. I mean you can get flying cars and death rays on Gernsback but who knows if they work anywhere else in the multiverse?

Oddly, the most consistent "ultra tech" is actually magic. Most worlds with mana seem to support it. Assuming Merlin's brand of spellcasting is as portable as the Cabal's, and as far as I know there's no reason not to, if world-jumping ever becomes public knowledge there, they'd be a formidable power.

Quick question about Caliph... the version in AE2 is filled with cool superscience (reactionless drives, FTL gates, and forcefields, most notably, and the absence of AI-as-we-know-it). The one in IW doesn't mention the superscience technologies at all, except as rumor. But the TL doesn't actually specify superscience. So either this is unique physics of the timeline, or they're just that advanced.

Am I to conclude that whether the superscience is portable to other timelines or not is being left intentionally vague?

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Or the even more old-fashioned way: with traitors. Meet a contact on a quiet Q6 or Q7 world, exchange briefcases (or thumb drives) and vanish into the night.

To me, this is the other problem. A single man from Caliph or Transhuman, sufficiently smart/skilled/motivated/ruthless/lucky, who runs into some parachronics could bootstrap himself into an interdimensional superpower in a frighteningly short amount of time.

At least with Merlin, you've got natural spheres of influence. They take the normal and higher mana worlds (which Infinity mostly avoids anyway), and Infinity takes the low or no mana worlds.

[wellspring]

There's one other factor that we've also ignored up to now. Infinity has been trying to keep Homeline as a safe-tech world.

So technologies that are dangerous and/or socially disruptive are being intentionally avoided.