Infinite question

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by tratclif

The vignette where the Centrum Interworld Service agent is daydreaming of her promotion to Grade 6 if she successfully contacts Reich-5 -- "Grade 6 Goldstein had a nice ring to it" -- is pp. 45-46 in Infinite Worlds.

Though reading it that way may involve a certain amount of Homeliner bias. Centrum after all diverges from Homeline centuries before European governments started forcing surnames like this, selected from approved lists, on the Jews.

[DryaUnda]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Same way you do in any other campaign. Most settings have implausible bits so you can run the standard adventures in that genre. Completely realistic settings tend not to have a lot of adventurer niches[.]

I should have stated my question more clearly (and tactfully, I knew I should've been more tactful). As I've ranted before, Infinity doesn't appear socially consistent. Is it protectionist? Philanthropic? Imperialistic? Hedonistic? Uncle Figgy* articulates my concern well:
(*Scroll down to near the bottom to read the whole thing.)

Uncle Figgy is reminded of the following exchange while talking to one game designer many years ago:

UF: Why can't wizards wield swords?
(after back and fourth questioning)
Designer [Now quite ticked at Uncle Figgy]: All of these decisions were made for the purposes of game balance. They weren't made to be realistic.

Now, in this case, I would have been willing to accept the game designer's explanations if they had made sense. They didn't. When writing a story, everything you write, whether it is unrealistic or not, at least has to make sense. Your readers are going to catch it if it doesn't; it hampers the "willing suspension of disbelief" that you need to maintain to capture your audience. The same is true of roleplaying.

"Realistic" doesn't have to mean "boring".

[GhostInTheMachine]

Well the thing is about the Secret is that it has to be a secret to the public. Period.

Think about it. Since Homeline is an uncontrolled society (for the most part) unlike Centrum anything could happen if you let it out.

There is a scifi book called, "The Getaway Special" that highlights this point perfectly.

In the book a 20-something genius creates a perfect warp drive, which effectively can transport you anywhere in the solar system if you know the coordinates. It however is a general rule not to warp from space to atmospheres cuz who knows what you might end up in, but from atmosphere to space is ok. He then procedes to email the blueprints of the simple, cheap warp drive to everyone in the planet and to a board of sci friends who proceed to advertise like nuts. World governments go crazy. Everyone rushes to prevent the release of this info to the public. The current political situations with the world are very tense and hostile with nuclear war very close to being reality soon. The cost of creating a spaceship goes from $1000's to the lb to pennies. People begin to create their own warp ships and travel to Alpha Centauri and other places.

Therin the problem arises...If you can go anywhere you want, why stay at the crazy planet you live in? The main concern of the governments is economic collapse, interstellar armies, aliens, etc. Things turn out well in the end but the planet almost enters nuclear armageddon.

To state my point (i kno its long) if you can go anywhere with the right coordinates and money to wherever you viewpoints want (it is inf worlds, inf probabilities...) then why should you stay at Homeline? That is why Homeline is concerned about the Secret.

[vitruvian]

To state my point (i kno its long) if you can go anywhere with the right coordinates and money to wherever you viewpoints want (it is inf worlds, inf probabilities...) then why should you stay at Homeline? That is why Homeline is concerned about the Secret.

Um... you do know that Homeline's public knows all about parachronic travel, right? They only try to keep the Secret from *other* timelines.

[jSarek]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Though reading it that way may involve a certain amount of Homeliner bias. Centrum after all diverges from Homeline centuries before European governments started forcing surnames like this, selected from approved lists, on the Jews.

Hmm, a bit of history I didn't know. It's unfortunate, since I think the intent of the story is clear, and that not having that reading robs it of much of its ironic power.

Where did the "approved" names come from? Were they taken from pre-existing names and simply disseminated on a broader scale, or were they handmade by the finest European linguistic craftsmen?

[Ludo]

Originally Posted by Matuku

The Alliance in Firefly feel that a perfect solar system is their one which they achieve by supressing and often murdering anyone who speaks against them. And in real life, think Tiananmen Square. This idea of functioning for the state, whilst good in practice, has been shown in many areas of literature to only be truly achieved by an almost totalitarian regime.

I get your point. And that is the problem: whilst in reality and in other fictional such communities, one faces totalitarism, with a lot of communication on top of it to make it look like it's paradise (everyone equal, no war, no racism, no bad things), which makes these communities (or at least their political regimes) well-fitting enemies, Centrum is described the way it works, and it's described without war, without racism, without sexism, with utilitarism, in a word, it seems to lack what makes other looking alike regimes bad guys.

[Matuku]

Originally Posted by Ludo

I get your point. And that is the problem: whilst in reality and in other fictional such communities, one faces totalitarism, with a lot of communication on top of it to make it look like it's paradise (everyone equal, no war, no racism, no bad things), which makes these communities (or at least their political regimes) well-fitting enemies, Centrum is described the way it works, and it's described without war, without racism, without sexism, with utilitarism, in a word, it seems to lack what makes other looking alike regimes bad guys.

I haven't got the book so I wouldn't know (its on my list I swear!) but is this described from Homeline's point of view or from an inside source of Centrum (from my reading of the chapter in the Basic Set it seems to be more along the lines of Homeline's view rather than Centrum's)?

[GhostInTheMachine]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Um... you do know that Homeline's public knows all about parachronic travel, right? They only try to keep the Secret from *other* timelines.

Oh shoot...I really got lost in thought there...Yeah I know Homeline does let the public know the secret...Just rephrase that thing as other worlds.

[Ludo]

Originally Posted by Matuku

I haven't got the book so I wouldn't know (its on my list I swear!) but is this described from Homeline's point of view or from an inside source of Centrum (from my reading of the chapter in the Basic Set it seems to be more along the lines of Homeline's view rather than Centrum's)?

It's actually described by an external narrator, I'd say it's described as it is de facto. It's not a wonderful land of happiness and freedom, but it's far from worse than Homeline.

I myself have had Infinite Worlds and Basic Set at hand, but it seems Centrum is described in even more details in Alternate Earths (2 ?) as is Reich-5, maybe someone who's got this book can add some interesting point of view?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by jSarek

Hmm, a bit of history I didn't know. It's unfortunate, since I think the intent of the story is clear, and that not having that reading robs it of much of its ironic power.

Where did the "approved" names come from? Were they taken from pre-existing names and simply disseminated on a broader scale, or were they handmade by the finest European linguistic craftsmen?

Well not that last one. I think the prototype of these is the Austro-Hungarian Empire's order that all Jews adopt a fixed surname in 1787. Some of them probably are drawn from names already in use, though even that late I'm not sure how universal surnames (as opposed to professions or towns of origins) were in Eastern Europe. Since part of the point would be to make sure Jews were easily distinguished, I'd imagine most of them were made up - after all if you used an existing town or profession derived name, there are probably Christians using it too. As I understand it, if you refused to pick a suitable one the commissions were charged with making one up. There are also stories circulating that sometimes you were assigned an offensive name and could buy a better one with a suitable bribe, I don't know how true that is, but it doesn't seem all that unlikely.

This isn't a phenomenon confined to Jews really. To be sure some families, particularly noble ones, used them well before that, but the idea *everybody* has to have a fixed heritable surname instead of a changable one of the form "of Somewhere", "the (Job-title)er", "son of X" or "father of Y" is relatively modern, and seems to follow along in the wake of the idea of absolutist governments. It simplifies the recordkeeping. Lots of groups found themselves assigned one, a process probably still ongoing in some post-colonial states. After the Renaissance a lot of European states adopt various name laws - I believe some of them still require you give your child a first name from an approved list too, if not the last repeals are quite recent.