Catalog of the Weird Parallels - Page 2

Flyndaran · 09-17-2016, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericthered

...

I can see this leading to a lot of unemployment and nepotism. Over time of course. right now its just the aftermath of a reality quake.
...

Imagine the poor few that realize that something is royally messed up. They may glom onto visitors as somehow seeming more "normal."
They may have the warrior skills endemic to this reality, but want something different. Recruit potential?

PTTG · 09-17-2016, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericthered

The big overturn here is age. Is there a mechanism to give people a chance at retiring rather than being killed when they are too old to fight, jungle-book style?

Can you challenge any superior, or do you have to fight your way up the chain?

I can see this leading to a lot of unemployment and nepotism. Over time of course. right now its just the aftermath of a reality quake.

--------------------------------------------------------

With the invisible world I'd expect recruiting would be mostly done through robots, cameras (I mean microphones), and quick snatch and grab operations. Throwing a team of PC's at it will get results. But tricky tricky. good one.

Thanks! As for Chandler, one can simply step down when challenged, but everyone recognizes that as total defeat unless the power disparity is immense. Simply retiring (complete with gold watch, benefits package, etc.,) before someone challenges you at all is also an option.

Once a challenge is proposed, however, you will win or you will die.

If you lack any claim at all to a position, those under you will be restive and very likely to challenge you in turn, and furthermore there is somewhat less loss of face if one turns down a challenge with someone who has no claim to your position. However, if you repeatedly turn down challenges from even the most irrelevant opponents, you will quickly lose all legitimacy.

Flyndaran · 09-17-2016, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTTG

...
As for businesses, sure you might hate your boss, but are you willing to fight him to the death for the pleasure of a small promotion? I think only ten percent of bosses are only alive because it's socially unpopular to kill them.

I don't think any of us know the percentage break down of why people don't kill. There are probably more reasons for why people don't than for why they do.
It's a well known joke that barbarous societies are polite societies because rudeness and passive aggressiveness gets your teeth knocked in.
Then again, overly passive try-to-please-everyone bosses aren't very effective either.
I imagine sociologists and psychologists would sneak into this world just to see all the subtleties in interaction play out.

TemporalNomad · 06-28-2023, 03:37 PM

Exodus

On the surface, this Q4 world is a normal empty world. It diverged with the extinction of great apes/hominids and is chronologically in the last ice age. However, it sports one major anomalous feature: a stable nexus portal in the middle of an Antartica cave network. The portal leads to what used to a close parallel of Homeline in the 2000s. This world is in Q1 and was obviously never discovered prior to the the discovery of the nexus portal. All this would be an academic curiosity for Homeline it weren’t for three things.

1. The portal is two-way, always active, and only requires the presence of a sapient lifeform to open.
2. The natives of the other side are aware of the portal. It was first found in the 1990s when satellites started picking up some strange energy readings from a location in the transantarctic mountains and explorers took a closer look.
3. The close parallel is probably going to turn into a hell parallel. An NEO asteroid capable of causing an extinction level event within a few years was discovered and this world’s astronomers are reasonably sure it will impact.

While the portal’s location makes it hard to reach, no one wants to ignore another habitable world on their doorstep and efforts are being made to start setting up outposts in Exodus to start evacuations. Currently, the asteroid is two years away and there are 10,000 people on Exodus. Societal order is being upheld for now but things will probably get worse as time goes on and people get more desperate.

Infinity is currently torn between assisting these people and staying away from a world where the secret is all but out. While some bright native minds are looking into quantum physics more deeply, mostly everyone is too focused on survival to make much headway. This may end up changing if their research on the portal starts to produce some interesting results. Creating more portals would increase the speed and scale of the evacuations. And of course, there is always a chance the asteroid will miss . . . or turn out not to be an asteroid.

SilvercatMoonpaw · 06-28-2023, 06:28 PM

Carcinization: This world resembles a parallel Homeline Earth in 1962.....but every animal species is a hybrid of its Homeline Counterpart and a crab-like crustacean, no matter how little sense that makes.

TGLS · 09-17-2016, 10:21 PM

Vacuole parallels are parallels where the entire universe an arbitrary volume, smaller than Earth, with an environment is comparable to Earth, despite the lack of plants for oxygen, planet for gravity, and sun for heat and light.

Vacuole-1: This parallel contains nothing but 47 kittens. The rest of the space is blank whiteness. The introns of each of the kittens is encoded with 2000 characters of Baudot. The first kitten was encoded with the contents of the Kryptos statue. The rest of the kittens have not been decrypted. There is no clear source of food for the kittens and they have not aged for the 3 years the parallel has been known for.

Vacuole-2: This parallel contains a number city blocks from different cities in different times all next to each other. When someone observes a block, it's as if everyone in the block suddenly disappeared. The blocks seem to replace and rearrange themselves when no one is looking. There have been cases where the conveyor was in the removed city block; searching is unproductive.

Vacuole-3: This parallel is nothing but a large buffet. There are always just enough tables for the number of people in the parallel and there is always more than enough food and drink.

Vacuole-4: This parallel is small mansion surrounded by an acre of forest. If the inhabitants are to be believed, this parallel is a virtual reality (evident by they're insistence in removing "rogue programs").

Vacuole-5: This parallel is a building with a confusing, and often impossible layout. Most of the doors are locked someway or another; a huge amount equipment is broken, but all of the components are somewhere in the complex. Infinity has a team trying to sort out the mess because there is allegedly some kind of parachronic device sealed inside.

Vacuole-6: This parallel is a pool hall with only 10 pool tables. Each of the pool tables has non-standard balls arranged in a very particular order, all identical. It's probably a coincidence that a scout sank the 6th ball on the 4th table the same day a quantum 4 world's Saturn vanished.

Flyndaran · 09-17-2016, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TGLS

...
Vacuole-4: This parallel is small mansion surrounded by an acre of forest. If the inhabitants are to be believed, this parallel is a virtual reality (evident by they're insistence in removing "rogue programs").
...

You could have ValHalla as what natives believe they're in. That leads to them gleefully attacking any intruders quite intensely regardless of odds.

Flyndaran · 09-17-2016, 11:54 PM

Hell World - Candyland... or at least it became a hell world once humans visited.
Their very bodies covered in virulent consume-all yeasts and bacteria. Natives watched in horror as these man-monsters from beyond started to bite into the very buildings with glee. What creatures could possibly chew, let alone digest, structural gingerbread? Gum drop bullets had no effect!

Varyon · 09-20-2016, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTTG

Duplicate:
Starting in 2001, every human being became sterile. However, people occasionally duplicate asexually during sleep. The effect is unpredictable, but works out to be a 2% chance of duplication per year, resulting in about the same growth rate as before. The resultant clones are totally indistinguishable. The present year of 2021 is mostly adapted, but is still struggling with the long-term consequences.

The result may be something similar to Children of Men, even being around the same amount of time since the Event (Children of Men is set 18 years after). I suspect people will be engaging in even more violence and suicide, as there are more of them around to die.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RageWalrus

These two worlds should be utterly unrelated, but when they people of Hardrade-6 sleep they dream of a specific other person on Strieber-5, and vice versa. Since the population is larger on Hardrade-6, multiple people dream about the same person from Strieber-5.

Dreamless had a similar concept, although there the two characters existed on opposite sides of the same world, and each was aware that the other actually existed.

PTTG · 10-06-2016, 05:59 PM

Doy, can't believe it took me this long to think of it:

Metempsychosis:

There are about 100 million "souls" that are constantly reincarnated around Earth. Memories are not recovered until one reaches the same age as that memory dates from.

The current year is about 1000 BCE, but the the world is a mature TL 5 with a single, global language. Assignment of souls to bodies is apparently random.

About one in a thousand births is a "new soul" rather than a reincarnated one, but that varies. It seems that "new souls" only appear when the population reaches a new high point.

Death is seen as an inconvenience -- there's no telling how long you'll "wait" timelessly to be reborn if less than 100 million people are alive -- but suicide is nonetheless an accepted means of dealing with maladies (in fact, medicine is only TL 3 as a result, with the exception of anatomy, which was studied carefully since bodies are seen as essentially disposable). Something not unlike psychotherapy does exist, and it is very effective, since treatment of the mind and maintenance of the soul is paramount.

Here's the problem.

Dr. Rouwhorst went on a sociocultural expedition there, and no sooner did he arrive than he killed himself. Belated examination of his medical record showed some signs of early-onset Alzheimer's. This, you understand, was very early in IW history. It was 27 years ago, in fact. Dr. Rouwhorst got his first PhD at 29. While have no idea if he was reincarnated, we do know he was politically quite active. Protect the secret.

06-28-2023, 03:37 PM	#4
TemporalNomad Join Date: Jun 2023	Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels Exodus On the surface, this Q4 world is a normal empty world. It diverged with the extinction of great apes/hominids and is chronologically in the last ice age. However, it sports one major anomalous feature: a stable nexus portal in the middle of an Antartica cave network. The portal leads to what used to a close parallel of Homeline in the 2000s. This world is in Q1 and was obviously never discovered prior to the the discovery of the nexus portal. All this would be an academic curiosity for Homeline it weren’t for three things. 1. The portal is two-way, always active, and only requires the presence of a sapient lifeform to open. 2. The natives of the other side are aware of the portal. It was first found in the 1990s when satellites started picking up some strange energy readings from a location in the transantarctic mountains and explorers took a closer look. 3. The close parallel is probably going to turn into a hell parallel. An NEO asteroid capable of causing an extinction level event within a few years was discovered and this world’s astronomers are reasonably sure it will impact. While the portal’s location makes it hard to reach, no one wants to ignore another habitable world on their doorstep and efforts are being made to start setting up outposts in Exodus to start evacuations. Currently, the asteroid is two years away and there are 10,000 people on Exodus. Societal order is being upheld for now but things will probably get worse as time goes on and people get more desperate. Infinity is currently torn between assisting these people and staying away from a world where the secret is all but out. While some bright native minds are looking into quantum physics more deeply, mostly everyone is too focused on survival to make much headway. This may end up changing if their research on the portal starts to produce some interesting results. Creating more portals would increase the speed and scale of the evacuations. And of course, there is always a chance the asteroid will miss . . . or turn out not to be an asteroid.

06-28-2023, 06:28 PM	#5
SilvercatMoonpaw Join Date: Jun 2017	Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels Carcinization: This world resembles a parallel Homeline Earth in 1962.....but every animal species is a hybrid of its Homeline Counterpart and a crab-like crustacean, no matter how little sense that makes. __________________ Pronoun: "They/She"

09-17-2016, 10:21 PM	#6
TGLS Join Date: Jan 2014	Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels Vacuole parallels are parallels where the entire universe an arbitrary volume, smaller than Earth, with an environment is comparable to Earth, despite the lack of plants for oxygen, planet for gravity, and sun for heat and light. Vacuole-1: This parallel contains nothing but 47 kittens. The rest of the space is blank whiteness. The introns of each of the kittens is encoded with 2000 characters of Baudot. The first kitten was encoded with the contents of the Kryptos statue. The rest of the kittens have not been decrypted. There is no clear source of food for the kittens and they have not aged for the 3 years the parallel has been known for. Vacuole-2: This parallel contains a number city blocks from different cities in different times all next to each other. When someone observes a block, it's as if everyone in the block suddenly disappeared. The blocks seem to replace and rearrange themselves when no one is looking. There have been cases where the conveyor was in the removed city block; searching is unproductive. Vacuole-3: This parallel is nothing but a large buffet. There are always just enough tables for the number of people in the parallel and there is always more than enough food and drink. Vacuole-4: This parallel is small mansion surrounded by an acre of forest. If the inhabitants are to be believed, this parallel is a virtual reality (evident by they're insistence in removing "rogue programs"). Vacuole-5: This parallel is a building with a confusing, and often impossible layout. Most of the doors are locked someway or another; a huge amount equipment is broken, but all of the components are somewhere in the complex. Infinity has a team trying to sort out the mess because there is allegedly some kind of parachronic device sealed inside. Vacuole-6: This parallel is a pool hall with only 10 pool tables. Each of the pool tables has non-standard balls arranged in a very particular order, all identical. It's probably a coincidence that a scout sank the 6th ball on the 4th table the same day a quantum 4 world's Saturn vanished. Last edited by TGLS; 10-31-2022 at 07:41 AM. Reason: Typo

09-17-2016, 11:54 PM	#8
Flyndaran Untagged Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon	Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels Hell World - Candyland... or at least it became a hell world once humans visited. Their very bodies covered in virulent consume-all yeasts and bacteria. Natives watched in horror as these man-monsters from beyond started to bite into the very buildings with glee. What creatures could possibly chew, let alone digest, structural gingerbread? Gum drop bullets had no effect! __________________ Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.

10-06-2016, 05:59 PM	#10
PTTG Join Date: Feb 2011	Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels Doy, can't believe it took me this long to think of it: Metempsychosis: There are about 100 million "souls" that are constantly reincarnated around Earth. Memories are not recovered until one reaches the same age as that memory dates from. The current year is about 1000 BCE, but the the world is a mature TL 5 with a single, global language. Assignment of souls to bodies is apparently random. About one in a thousand births is a "new soul" rather than a reincarnated one, but that varies. It seems that "new souls" only appear when the population reaches a new high point. Death is seen as an inconvenience -- there's no telling how long you'll "wait" timelessly to be reborn if less than 100 million people are alive -- but suicide is nonetheless an accepted means of dealing with maladies (in fact, medicine is only TL 3 as a result, with the exception of anatomy, which was studied carefully since bodies are seen as essentially disposable). Something not unlike psychotherapy does exist, and it is very effective, since treatment of the mind and maintenance of the soul is paramount. Here's the problem. Dr. Rouwhorst went on a sociocultural expedition there, and no sooner did he arrive than he killed himself. Belated examination of his medical record showed some signs of early-onset Alzheimer's. This, you understand, was very early in IW history. It was 27 years ago, in fact. Dr. Rouwhorst got his first PhD at 29. While have no idea if he was reincarnated, we do know he was politically quite active. Protect the secret.