New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

I read The Question of Hu recently. It seems to me that the early sections of the book, were one Jesuit is trying to bring a selection of Chinese texts to the West, and some educated Chinese people to translate the texts and teach Europeans Chinese, and another is fight to stop him, is a festival of reality seeds.

Have the one man win and start a cultural exchange between China and Europe a century early, let the other man win and slow down cultural understandings with brutal force.

[Astromancer]

Try this, steal from Margret Murray and Montague Summers and have a Witch Cults, or cults. Murray saw the witches as pagans and Summers saw them as demonic Satanists. Throw in the Cabal as a third force trying to clean up the mess and take over the parallel, and either Homeline or Centrum would have their hands full.

Hey! Who's gonna save the Maid of Orleans from the stake?

[PTTG]

Three days ago, about 20,000 unvanished.

That is to say, over the past few millennia, a lot of people on this echo disappeared without a trace, usually when they were sickening or indeed legally dead, but occasionally in the apparent prime of life. Not a small number disappeared from secure prison cells or institutions. It's basically assumed that for the most part great political leaders, scientists, and artists just want a little privacy in the last days of their lives, and it's an accepted tradition. Now, they're back.

The list of persons is long... Of course Amelia Earhart was one, she disappeared right before her attempted flight over the pacific. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson came back. Napoleon, Peter the Great, Caesar, and and Samuel Clemens are other well-known individuals. Elvis is back, and he seems to have taken to the internet spectacularly; he already has more than a billion twitter followers.

Certain religious figures haven't appeared, and this has lead to some rather unproductive arguments.

Rumors abound that certain other figures have also re-appeared. The most obvious is Adolph Hitler; if he's back, he's lying low. More worrying is Stalin. North Korea is in turmoil following Kim Il-Sung's public return and vociferous opposition to the current government.

As far as the metaphysics of the return, each individual arrived somewhere fairly safe, near where they disappeared, and dressed as they were last. Every one of them was in perfect physical health (which came as something of a surprise to the ones that had died), although in some cases mental issues remained. Nobody has reported recollecting anything from the "missing time."

The oldest currently-known individual to have resurrected is believed to be Sargon of Akkad. It's not known for sure because he is one of the two thousand people who arrived arrayed in grave-goods or battle armor and not speaking any modern language.

Additionally, about three thousand people of varying era are... not obviously important. Sweepers, footsoldiers, clerks, serfs, monks... It is unknown, as of yet, why they were chosen, or indeed why any specific individuals were chosen.

Oh, and the people who showed up aren't immortal, given that Genghis Khan showed up and got shot to death pretty much immediately.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Three days ago, about 20,000 unvanished.

That is to say, over the past few millennia, a lot of people on this echo disappeared without a trace, usually when they were sickening or indeed legally dead, but occasionally in the apparent prime of life.

Well, this just got designated as a weird parallel, retroactively and with great firmness. And all outtimers will be checking very carefully if any of their people have vanished or died on this world.

Finding out what, if anything, the reappeared remember about the time they were absent will be a high priority for everyone, native to the world and outsiders alike.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Well, this just got designated as a weird parallel, retroactively and with great firmness. And all outtimers will be checking very carefully if any of their people have vanished or died on this world.

Finding out what, if anything, the reappeared remember about the time they were absent will be a high priority for everyone, native to the world and outsiders alike.

Good points. It is a high-inertia world, and everyone who disappeared did so shortly before their death in Homeline- people who disappeared while "apparently healthy" were either doomed to accidents or else just had illnesses that were undetectable in their time.

I made a slight change to clarify that nobody has reported remembering anything while they were gone. If the PCs started hunting people down I suppose one could invent hypnotically-hidden memories, but I prefer it being about what's happening then. It's a little like Riverworld in that it's about the big personalities that exist all at once.

Anyone have good ideas for individuals to get rezzed?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PTTG

It's a little like Riverworld in that it's about the big personalities that exist all at once.

I was trying not to mention To Your Scattered Bodies Go... There's a difference, in that it was immediately obvious to the resurrected of Riverworld that they were dealing with godlike power, although some things seemed a little too technological for simple "God did it" explanations.

For this, there are a more possible rationalisations, especially to outtimers. Have the reappeared been lifted from other timelines, or stored in one with a vey fast time rate? Are they in their original bodies, or newly-made ones? Are their stories definitely incompatible with history at any point?

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I was trying not to mention To Your Scattered Bodies Go... There's a difference, in that it was immediately obvious to the resurrected of Riverworld that they were dealing with godlike power, although some things seemed a little too technological for simple "God did it" explanations.

For this, there are a more possible rationalisations, especially to outtimers. Have the reappeared been lifted from other timelines, or stored in one with a vey fast time rate? Are they in their original bodies, or newly-made ones? Are their stories definitely incompatible with history at any point?

Well, the answer for GMs is "whatever fits your cliodynamics best," but as I picture it there's a nearby, independent magic user who wanted to mess with this universe- a Q-style troublemaker, possibly even a local god, although a wizard with time magic and the ability to remotely access a no-mana worldline is sufficient.

The reappeared are definitely from this timeline; their memories don't match recorded history perfectly, but that's hardly surprising considering the quality of "recorded history" for most of civilization. They more or less look the age they were when they "died," although they are extremely healthy considering what they've been through; they've been given the best treatment high-mana magery can provide, so I suppose that they are technically in the same bodies as before.

A small number of reappeared might remember a flash of light right before they historically vanished; this was caused by whoever took them stunning them before transporting the victim wherever.

[dcarson]

The GURPS Who's Who books would be a useful source. You need to convert from 3rd Ed but that is usually fairly easy. If I counted right that gives 106 NOCs.

[PTTG]

As a game world, PCs might do well as the substantial number of "nobodies," or even as a favorite historical personality. I think the best PC opportunities are appointed "handlers" dealing with a small cast of ressurectees. A suddenly stretched-thin Secret Service responsible for several additional ex-presidents, all of whom want to get out there actually tell people what they MEANT when they wrote that.

Of course, if there is a malicious (or simply meddling) cosmic force involved, stopping it would be the larger arc, but I think there's more interest in dealing with the consequences as it is.

---

So.

Homeline has a lot of big guns. Many guns it can't use because it plays a shadow-game, or because it isn't really threatened; Centrum can't directly hurt them, Reich-5 isn't a long-term threat, the Cabal is better at keeping the Secret than Homeline is. The goons on various crosstime worlds are yokels that a good agent should avoid rather than wipe out. When things get really bad, you leave, maybe even grabbing a few locals with promise. The worst thing they claim they can do ask the United States to put a nuke in a conveyor for them. That is not, in fact, true.

For one thing, they have their own nukes- it's amazing what you can find lying around in a Lucifer parallel. For another, simply heating and compressing a small part of a planet is hardly impressive. They move worlds. It's their job description. They have bigger guns- some of them so big it's hard to realize it's still a gun.

What does it take to cross Homeline's Godzilla Threshold? What does it take to make Homeline call in those favors the Mounties owe them? What does it take to get the commander to go to the jump console and enter the ten-digit code he's memorized ever since he got that damned promotion? What does it take for Homeline to open folder marked "SITUATION OPPENHEIMER?"

This does.

One of the earlier worlds to be explored. When the first team arrived in this echo in 1962, a small malfunction resulted in damage to the jump circuitry - and specifically at a critical part for trans-dimensional communication as well. At the time, there were fewer established protocols, and a combination of poor planning and plain bad luck left the team stranded for potentially months until they could get backup- only one projector was available for exploration, and they were over-extended as it was.

The agents started quietly seeking parts to do the repairs themselves. They didn't need much- just some osmium, a little bit of liquid nitrogen, a few million dollars worth of forging and photolithography equipment. Some of it didn't exist quite yet but they could just smelt the machines after they were done with them, and pay very well to the craftsmen making the machines to make the machines to build the parts...

They were unfortunate, for they were overconfident, and still held onto the lingering idea that echoes and parallels are "just" reflections of Homeline, populated by dull dopplegangers. The crosstimers claimed to be alien travelers taking the form of humans; perhaps they felt a sense of destiny, since their original mission had been in Roswell. At first they did so to cover accidentally-exposed technology, but soon they acquired a nearly cultish following. They planned on allowing "inertia" to repair any damage.

One of the four men found that he liked lording over the locals; with his technical knowledge and historical records, he could be quite comfortable and live a long life before history caught up with him. As they completed repairs, he prepared to fake his own death so the others would leave him there, and collected special tools.

His plan failed; he was captured by American police, and he continued his working cover story as an Alien being- something the police and, soon, federal investigators doubted. Nonetheless, he was interviewed on television, where he repeated his claim before any further trial could begin. The catastrophy rapidly spiraled out of control; He informed the FBI about his team's location. The ensuring raid resulted in their deaths and Federal capture of the nearly-functioning technology. The FBI was certain that he and his friends were spies- specifically with alarmingly powerful technology. The US started a crash program to replicate the technology, and dropped to DEFCON 2, aware that if the Russians had technology anything like the ineffable technology they had found, they were a far more serious threat than previously believed.

Things rapidly spiraled out. The remaining agent died during questioning, and the conveyor and equipment were moved to a secret research facility. The USA planned a rapid attack to destroy the apparent Soviet advantage at any cost, including, say, Europe. The Agents final statements- wherein he claimed variously to be a communist spy, a nazi spy, a time-traveler, a fifth columnist, a loyal American, a traitor, and a member of a "socialist paramilitary group focused on intervention in the past," convinced his captors that the USSR was intentionally brainwashing its spies with gibberish to prevent them from being compromised.

Soviet intelligence had, by this time, grown worried about the lengthy period of American arms build-up, and when questioned about obviously fabricated stories about their spies, suspected a US attempt to build a casus belli. In the face of rising tensions, they refused to deal with the false accusations, increasing tensions.

Then the Soviet Union started moving missiles into Cuba.

Suddenly, everything made sense. Even as some scientists started explaining that the recovered "devices" might be able to transfer matter in certain timelike dimensions as was claimed, the United States declared DEFCON 1.

And then IU sent relief to the stranded team, dropping a conveyor on the still-active investigation site in Roswell.

The US troops there, expecting Soviet attack, were overawed by the sudden appearance of the conveyor and took heavy casualties- though, to be fair, they fired first, despite several overtures to peaceful contact. Nonetheless, they massively outnumbered the relief squad and shortly overpowered them, taking two survivors hostage. Of course, the combination of gamma-ray pulse (not exactly like a bomb, but possibly similar to a modified Soviet bomb,) confused military reports of soviet attack, hair-trigger tensions, and any number of small historical errors resulted in the United States starting a conventional attack against the Soviets. Soviets, outgunned conventionally, respond with tactical nuclear weapons on their European front against exclusively military targets, particularly the incoming troop formations.

Things fall apart...

When the bombs stopped falling, civil governments on both sides had been effectively beheaded (both sides had detailed intelligence on the top-level bunkers and simply saturated them,) leaving only the tattered remains of the military commands of both sides and a shattered world. Worst of all, one of the few remaining facilities was the US' sixth-tier research facilities in the depths of the New Mexico desert- too minor to bother bombing, current inventory: two badly beaten IU officers, two conveyors, and a collection of devices 60 years or more ahead of their time.

It took them years on the dying earth, but they did eventually figure out the conveyors. IW never sent any other explorers- by now, it shifted quantum levels fairly severely. Over the years, the reasearchers called out to fellow survivors, and they pieced together what had happened, and knew that it all started when these otherworlders- the theory was clear on that- arrived and started treating them like a museum exhibit. The recovered historical records in the conveyor computers showed that it didn't have to happen this way, and that it didn't have to stay that way.

It's been ten years now. The only human beings left on the world are warlords and serfs in the wastelands, trying to scrape by until the fallout clears. But there's a facility with one damaged conveyor and two crucified mummies, out there in the desert. Incidentally, the controls of the original conveyor are hooked to a hidden 500-lb bomb. And somewhere out there, there's thousands- maybe tens of thousands- of weary travelers looking for Homeline, looking for a way to show what happens when you treat people like things. They keep quiet for the most part, but where they can, they spread the idea of multiple worlds. They are tired, but they are going to keep searching until they find a way to Homeline, and they have a plan.

---

Homeline has made its own demons, and it knows that sooner or later it will need to face them. That's what's in SITUATION OPPENHEIMER: What they intend to do now that the Secret is out there, but they don't know where.

[patchwork]

Oh, Bravo. Have done Centrum's backfire on Gagarin before, but never thought to make a mirror image of it for Homeline. Outstanding, PTTG.