[IW] What happens after an echo shifts?

[cptbutton]

GURPS Infinite Worlds details echos and how to shift them, when you can't shift them, and how to unshift them.

What happens if they get shifted and stay shifted?

Do they stop being echos and just become parallels where the PoD is the current date on the echo?

Do they drift back into compliance with Homeline history but stay in their new quantum?

[David Johnston2]

While echos are to some extent self-correcting I'd think any change sufficient to cause a shift would probably give a Point of Departure.

[Flyndaran]

Imagine the hassle if they remained echoes. How could you tell an alternate from an echo that had simply diverged due to cross time influence from before you discovered it?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Imagine the hassle if they remained echoes. How could you tell an alternate from an echo that had simply diverged due to cross time influence from before you discovered it?

Would there be any reason to? I suppose if you somehow managed to force it back into parallel with Homeline history it might shift on you again, but really if it's diverged to any significant degree that's probably impossible.

And of course you can force it back before the divergence gets very large, that's right there in the rules, so it certainly remains in that state for a while. Why not forever?

[Flyndaran]

Echoes are special, because they can be moved, AND they match identically to Homeline's history... or each of the quanta's version of Homeline where projectors work like Centrum and possibly Shikaku or however that's spelled.
Messing with one messes with the other.
If they remain mobile, then that devalues the word echo as there should be loads of realities unlike Homeline that can be moved due to past hypothetical interference. Or more likely, they would assume that similarity to Homeline doesn't really matter much as there would be no way for them to know that interference is really mandatory.

I suppose one could keep the label Echo for gaming, but I don't see how anyone would use it in setting as anything other than vague layman's term for very similar to Homeline history.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Echoes are special, because they can be moved, AND they match identically to Homeline's history... or each of the quanta's version of Homeline where projectors work like Centrum and possibly Shikaku or however that's spelled.

My point though is there is no Echo Detector, you can tell it's an echo if you do something that would alter history and it changes coordinates. If it's already diverged from Homeline history, that can't be make it more different, it won't move if you do that, and for something substantially diverged, well, you can't reprogram the brains (and genetics!) of the entire population of a timeline that diverged from Homeline history a century ago back into alignment and cause it to shift "back", so how would anybody ever know?

[Flyndaran]

If it's mobile, then it's mobile, something non-echoes aren't supposed to be.
Are you saying that once they diverge, they are no longer mobile? If so, then by definition, they aren't echoes.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

If it's mobile, then it's mobile, something non-echoes aren't supposed to be.
Are you saying that once they diverge, they are no longer mobile? If so, then by definition, they aren't echoes.

Uh...I'm not sure at all that non-echoes can't move although they won't move because you mess with their history. But if they diverge then by definition they are no longer an echo. It seems to take a lot to cause a true divergence though. Minor alterations are just damped out.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Uh...I'm not sure at all that non-echoes can't move although they won't move because you mess with their history. But if they diverge then by definition they are no longer an echo. It seems to take a lot to cause a true divergence though. Minor alterations are just damped out.

Another aspect making echoes quantifiably different.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

If it's mobile, then it's mobile, something non-echoes aren't supposed to be.

How do you know? The condition under which they would be mobile - near complete "correction" of their differences from the history of Homeline - are effectively unachievable.

If current conditions on Caliph were magically transformed to be almost identical to those on Homeline in the 17th century, maybe it would move. That would require replacing the entire population with a rather different genetic mix of people with suitable false memories, reengineering the planet to remove all traces of technological civilization, replacing the expended natural resources, and who knows what all else, but if the Q Continuum came along and decided to spend a few years on the project, maybe it *would* shift. How would Homeline know?

Making some other major change would not cause a shift, because in this model it already has shifted. To get it to move again, you have to *undo* the shift that already happened at the divergence point, making further changes away from Homeline history has no further effect, to get it to move you have to make it back into a copy of the history of Homeline.