Inter-team agent friction

[warellis]

Infinity is an organization composed not only of Homeliners, but also of agents recruited from various worldlines.

Worldlines with their own histories, technologies, societies, and so on.

For worldlines where history is similar to ours, like any high-inertia ones, I imagine it's easier to get new agents from them to interact smoothly. Social mores, society, and generally technology are probably close enough that it is familiar.

But, for those who are from more divergent worldlines, how much do you think unfamiliarity with the general technology and society(ies) of Homeline may sometimes hamper inter-agent teamwork?

Heck, societies in the same worldline can have vastly different views and social mores, let alone foreign ones from entirely different histories.

For example, characters from Cyrano, Azoth-7, & Merlin-1, would all be used to divergent, paranormal tech, but their social mores, societies, ideas on technology, and possibly general outlooks would all be quite different.

So this got me wondering how confusing, and plain strange, might some characters regard each other in thought, and outlooks due to entirely different histories.

Has anyone here ever explored that?

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by warellis

Infinity is an organization composed not only of Homeliners, but also of agents recruited from various worldlines.

Worldlines with their own histories, technologies, societies, and so on.

For worldlines where history is similar to ours, like any high-inertia ones, I imagine it's easier to get new agents from them to interact smoothly. Social mores, society, and generally technology are probably close enough that it is familiar.

But, for those who are from more divergent worldlines, how much do you think unfamiliarity with the general technology and society(ies) of Homeline may sometimes hamper inter-agent teamwork?

Heck, societies in the same worldline can have vastly different views and social mores, let alone foreign ones from entirely different histories.

For example, characters from Cyrano, Azoth-7, & Merlin-1, would all be used to divergent, paranormal tech, but their social mores, societies, ideas on technology, and possibly general outlooks would all be quite different.
So this got me wondering how confusing, and plain strange, might some characters regard each other in thought, and outlooks due to entirely different histories.

Has anyone here ever explored that?

Sure, but there must be some basic training & cultural training to join infinity.
Also, if infinity's culture & outlook are so repugnant/alien to the character why would they want to join Infinity?

[warellis]

I just honestly wonder how much little differences in viewpoints, technology assumptions, & societal mindsets and assumptions, may cause some slight frictions or strangeness between missions.

I mean, to use an example, a person from a TL(5+3) worldline and one from a TL8 worldline may find each others' technology weird or may have incorrect ideas on what is and isn't possible with the other's tech.

And then there's possible societal differences.

I just find the idea interesting. To see different cultures in a team having to work together. Exploring relationships and all that.

Team members from various worldlines and societies, due to their differences, not getting caught in that mental trap where everyone on a team just thinks the same way and fall into the same assumptions.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by warellis

I mean, to use an example, a person from a TL(5+3) worldline and one from a TL8 worldline may find each others' technology weird or may have incorrect ideas on what is and isn't possible with the other's tech.

GM: OK, as you're looking up where the bad guy's ritual's going to be, three cultists burst into the net cafe!
TL 5+3 Guy: I know what to do! We'll shoot the computers and escape under a cloud of steam!
TL 8 Guy: I told you these run on electricity, not steam!
TL 5+3 Guy: Oh yeah? What else would that Steam program do?

[Willy]

Hell here in the EU we have trouble getting teams working together is they come from several nations. It´s shocking how easily simple gestures lead to misunderstandings. Even if ALL do their best to ignore it, you have frictions. At least in the beginning, once people get familiar to each other, this vanishes, but every new guy, can open the box of pandora again. All have different cultural traditions, and values, or ways to handle things. Having a standard language and the same TL helps a lot but doesn´t reduce this it completely.

A example may be a simple hand gesture which says in one part of europe come here and in another go away, this small difference kills now and than at the greece / turkish border people, who are mistaken for spys.

In a Infinite world setting Dai for example would have to learn the language, learn reading, to use computers, cars and so on, all while honing his skills as a trouble shooter. This would take years not month until such a team would be ready. It has a reason why spec ops and other jobs where you have to rely on your comrades are trained as a team from early on, often with retraining the whole bunch if a member drops out or is otherwise unavailable for further tasks.

By the way for refugees from far awy and less developped places, getting familiar with the modern world here in europe can take years. They can butcher a goat, plant a garden, know how to cook on a open fire, but neither can read or drive or use a car and so on. Just learning the language to a useful level can take half a year at least, if they are educated in small classes, give their best, are bright, have a good teacher and so on, a lot of ifs, if you ask me. A very rude politican once said integrating a civillian refugee into a modern western society costs around 200K euros and takes years. The people work earlier of course and want to be there, but still even after years there are misunderstandings, which can lead to severe problems.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Willy

By the way for refugees from far away and less developed places, getting familiar with the modern world here in Europe can take years.

The main value of refugees or immigrants from Low Tech or less developed areas comes from their ability as semi-skilled or unskilled labor, particularly as member of trades which don't change much at higher TL (e.g., entertainers, religious leaders, childcare, agricultural workers, artisanal food prep.). They act as "force expanders" to allow better educated natives to perform higher-skilled jobs. For example, an immigrant nanny can provide childcare allowing a parent with an advanced degree to work full-time, or an immigrant nurse's assistant might allow an elderly or ill "knowledge worker" to remain productive rather than retiring.

The "potential value" of young low TL immigrants comes from their ability to bear/sire/ raise children who can be trained to be full members of their adopted society.

There are also "soft" benefits from a robust immigrant community, like improved cultural access to access to unusual languages & skills.

Initially, however, the hassles associated with bringing a TL5- person up to TL8-9 TL & teaching them the relevant Cultural Familiarities & Languages (at Accented/Native) level, limit their ability to fully contribute to a high-tech society.

It is relevant that the lower TL GURPS iconic characters of Dia Blackthorn, Dr. William Headley, Iotha, & Xing La not only have superior attributes & extremely useful TL-independent powers, but also special Infinity Patrol training which allows them to nominally function in TL8+ society.

They represent elite members of their society, rescued by Infinity Patrol & specially selected for relevant "subject matter expertise." Your average Yrth peasant or Lenin-2 factory worker would have a much harder time adapting to Homeline culture & would bring far fewer "value-added" skills to offset the time & trouble of training them.

[Pursuivant]

Consider the small changes in "baseline attitude" within Western culture which have taken place over the past 50 years, as people of different sexes, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, race, etc. have gained sufficient education & social status to demand full civil rights. Now multiply those differences across various different worlds.

Someone from a pre-modern or provincial culture is likely to assume that their local culture is the only "proper" culture & that foreigners are inherently suspect & inferior until they've proven themselves. Within that culture, there will be people who are inherently inferior due to sex or status & it is only "natural" that they defer to those of superior status.

A dominant member of a particular culture is going to inherently assume that those they assume to be "subordinate" will defer to them as a matter of course.

That might make for tense roleplaying, as people from different parallels learn to "check their privilege" & integrate themselves into the more egalitarian Homeline culture.

There will also be inherent problems with different assumptions about natural laws. People native to worlds where magic or psi works, or where the laws of physics work differently, will approach the universe differently. For example, they might instinctively assume that certain creatures or materials are magical or might forget basic physical principles such as F=MA or E=MC^2.

Creatures with magical powers which are negatively affected by materials such as cold iron might instinctively distrust any object made of steel or iron, even if it is harmless.

There will also be accents, food preferences, clothing choices, and other minor features which good roleplayers can exploit. For example, Dr. William Headley might be sorely disappointed that Homeline's H.P. Lovecraft only wrote fiction rather than xenobiology manuals, & Dai Blackthorn might regret that he hasn't had a decent Harding cheese & Woolen meat pie since he left Yrth.

[warellis]

Exactly. I hadn't thought on stuff like food or clothing but that is an especially excellent point as well. And what you guys talked about regarding tech, and even simple gestures, sometimes being confusing based on different societal mores, is what I was thinking.

I was originally pondering this question when thinking about cross-worldline romances/relationships, because the idea of two (or more) people from radically different societies still falling for each other sounded interesting, but then it soon got to wondering just how weird it must be for some recruited members of Infinity teams to work with an organization based on a TL8 Western(ish) society and such.

Yeah some offworldline recruits would be able to adjust more easily, due to potentially similar societies, but others might find our general societal mores and ideas to be plain weird or offputting.

For example, Louis from Cyrano is mentioned as being a devout monarchist. In his worldline, monarchies, nobility, etc are all powerful societal forces.

But if you talk with most TL8 people from worlds similar to Homeline (or even modern magic worlds like Merlin-1), they would most likely look at you strangely at having that political philosophy.

And that is just societal ideas.

Originally Posted by TGLS

GM: OK, as you're looking up where the bad guy's ritual's going to be, three cultists burst into the net cafe!
TL 5+3 Guy: I know what to do! We'll shoot the computers and escape under a cloud of steam!
TL 8 Guy: I told you these run on electricity, not steam!
TL 5+3 Guy: Oh yeah? What else would that Steam program do?

Hah! Great example. 😁

But yeah, this is an example of what I'm thinking. Imagine someone making a mistake because they didn't understand the strengths and weaknesses of a tech due to certain assumptions they have due to seemingly similar tech back home.

[Willy]

I can underwrite the last 3 comments to the fullest. They also go quite good along with my personal experience I have from local politics and a couple of friends in social services, Immigration, and so on. You needn´t 50 years for a significant change in public opinion or behavior, less than 20 can be enough. Just look at the world events in the last 21 years and there outcomes.

By the way even more than usual characters have trouble adapting, a certain real life person came to my mind here, willing to adapt, 3 languages fluently, 2 degrees from university in hard sciences, very bright and still under 35, even he had trouble adapting. He later married a western woman and I know how often a friend accepted by both had to trouble shot misunderstandings between them. And this 2 loved each other deeply and were able to make a compromise, or a modus vivendi.

So yes I find the way Infinite handles this and GURPS rulewise a bit overoptimistic. I would have liked for Dai something like a quirklevel " Has still problems to use XYZ or imagine why a plane can fly... " . Not to mention he has grown up de facto in the age of crusades.

It can be also a great plot device for players who love to flesh out there PCs and prefer less action but more roleplaying.

[warellis]

I suspect in the case of the iconic GURPS characters, they all have more flexible minds than most. And in some cases, like Iotha, lived in modern settings for several decades at least to give then more familiarity, or in Xing La's case were already used to TL 8-ish tech (yes I know she's from Lenin-2 and thus post-apoc but still her mindset is flexible and she was from an enclave where they were able to keep tech running still).

Then again, in order to operate in Infinity, especially as a troubleshooter or someone on the ground, you probably do need to be more mentally flexible than most.