Our timeline gets parachronics in 2022

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Within the same quantum level, a conveyor can jump from any world to any other world, given coordinates. However, it arrives at the "same point in space" in the new world as it left in the old one, as per p. B530.

That restriction is very important. If it did not exist, then nuclear-armed conveyors would be an unstoppable weapon, rather than just a very dangerous one.

Step 1: take nuclear conveyor to another world (preferably one with low TL. You wont want to be casually walking around with a nuclear bomb inside a dimensional traveller machine in a superscience TL 12 world)

Step2: inside the other world, transport your conveyor with the bomb to the corresponding location on Homeline that you wanna nuke. For example, enter the new world into the Beijing area, and move to the area o New York.

Step3: move back to homeline

Step4: detonate the bomb.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Willy

As far as I know you don´t need a projektor for travelling inside a quantum. In fact if I read Infinite worlds P 28 under conveyors right. Any conveyor can jump to any point inside a quanta. They bill for a subquanta conveyor is peanuts compared to what some nations put into their military.

Even if a projektor is necessary, the payload for a conveyor to deliver a nuke is quite small, which reduces the necessary costs and size of the projector, again look what a modern warplane costs and you understand what I mean.

Since everyone who can built such a thing can calculate the right coordinates, we will have a constant all against all threat of a anytime no warning, not to defend against nuclear holocaust.

Nah, nobody's going to nuke anyone anytime soon. The nuclear powers are pretty much all major trading partners, and there's no percentage in nuking the people who pay you on the regular.

[dcarson]

New Zealand was around 1200 for first settlement by humans about that same time as Hawaii and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Samoa was the start of Polynesian settlement around 800 BCE. Bermuda was 1609. Falklands 1764 although it was probably visited earlier by South Americans but not settled.

What other late settled areas are there?

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Nah, nobody's going to nuke anyone anytime soon. The nuclear powers are pretty much all major trading partners, and there's no percentage in nuking the people who pay you on the regular.

After the Ukrainian war do you still believe in that?

The idea that "commerce conquers anything" is essentially an anglic idea, which prizes social prosperity more than anything else.

Places like China and Russia do NOT think in those terms. Xi Jinping wouldnt blink into letting 500 millions of his own citizens to starve to death if he thought that could contribute to the "glory of China". Those tyrants think with the mentality of old Emperors and Tzars that thousands of deaths are worthy some dozens of square miles of land.

To them, trade is just a mean, not the end.

If China and Russia could nuke all the other nuclear powers without the risk of retaliation, they would do it, even if the result were the collapse of global logistic chains resulting in the deaths of millions of their own people, because for them that would mean that 100 years from now they would be the "Earth's Emperor".

[Astromancer]

One thing is certain, the whole contact situation will fall under strict quarantines. Both worlds would be seen as in danger. At least if the inventor is American or Western.

Many other nations would tend to plunge in. I could see several of this world's less savory dictators hoping for a genocide. Empty lands with resources comparable to the Earth would be very attractive. In spite of many nations lecturing the USA on our past and present treatment of the Native Americans, many nations would joyfully do the same to the population of this parallel world if it brought riches. And they'd likely call anyone who objected a hypocrite.

If America had the Nexial Gate, even if we maintained strict quarantines and restricted all panchromatic travel to scientific research carried out under strict safety guidelines. We'd face worldwide protests and demands to turn over all technology and give outside authorities total control over the entire project.

Violence is a likely outcome.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

What would happen if we invented conveyers and/or gates now?

There is no we. Everything, and I mean everything, depends on who develops the technology, who gets it from them, and it what order.

Imagine if the first conveyor is built by the US Airforce. Now imagine if it was built by the People's Liberation Army of China. Now imagine if its converged upon over five years by the western academic establishment. These all give different answers.

I think this is closest to what you want:

1. A researcher publishes a ground breaking paper laying the groundwork for the technology
2. Research programs all over the world investigate
3. A joint research initiative including the US Military and European Universities concludes that there is another world to reach
4. A treaty locking down the world for scientific use only is signed. a few prominent loopholes and/or conspicuous non-signatories are left.
5. A working conveyor is made. It dominates headlines for months. Very little actual data is returned by ultra-cautious scientists. Huge philosphical and Religious Debates rage over the internet.
6. Actual reports on the world finally come in. Demands are made by conservationists that the project be shut down, Later, groups will demand that severe human rights violations be adressed (its TL3, I don't think more than half the cultures they have is going to make human rights folks here happy, and I suspect it will be a lot less)
7. A handful of other teams will reach the world. One of them will be china.
8. A crisis of some sort will demand that the slow pace of research be abanndoned. This is probably an earth-native pathogen becoming a plague, but it could also be naked aggression by someone on earth, them figuring out something is up and being clear about wanted to talk to us, or something else.
9. In the initial deployment after the crisis, military zones will be declared. These will probably be less territorial claims and more declarations of protection. Powerful nations will want to patrol the area "adjacent" to their territory. Scrambles for areas adjacent to the suez, taiwan, and north korea will also occur. A lot of this will be in open ocean. A few nations will perform unexpectely well, and a lot will be embarassed.
10. Controversial Policies will try to balance keeping earth culture, diseases, and invasive species out while pressuring governments to stop things like human sacrifice, various flavors of slavery, and million-death famines. They will only partially succeed at any of those objectives, and will be reversed periodically by swings in political climate. Few boots will be on the ground. I don't expect that much real trade or mineral extraction will be allowed. Scientists will publish lots of papers based on a steady but small stream of missions.
11. A series of wars will break out on the world as they inevitably get their hands on disruptive technologies like the printing press and germ theory, and as their power structures collapse in the face of obviously superior technology.

Originally Posted by Willy

Just consider that this just means that nukes can be delivered with next to no chance to intercept them.

I mean, does that really change things in the grand scheme of things? we can't block them with 100% effectiveness right now. When only one additional world needs to be considered, its easier to defend as well.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Anaraxes and ercithered have already put what I wanted to say better than I probably would've, but my hot take is this ain't gonna be pretty.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by ericthered

SNIP

I mean, does that really change things in the grand scheme of things? we can't block them with 100% effectiveness right now. When only one additional world needs to be considered, its easier to defend as well.

Sorry I added the reason for it in a later post above.

Yes it changes everything. The whole MAD strategy of nuclear deterence bases on the idea that the attacked can strike bake and kill the attacker too.

If there is no warning, a attacker can strike at the target eliminate the whole nuclear potential of the emeny in on beheading strike with impunity. At the end of the old cold war the US and the Russians knew where every nuke of the other side was. Now we have better surveilance equipment and satellites and it is 100% clear that this is still true nowadays.

The actual real ultrasonic missiles are not a real problem because they are difficult to intercept, but because they reduce the time we have to decide how to react. The old 30 min warning was barely enough, 7 min are nearly impossible, 0 seconds means the other side is dead before knowing it.

For this reasons russia is reported to have a system called dead hand aka a dead mans switch on a part of his arsenal.

So yes conveyors would be a gamechanger making the whole world totally instable.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Within the same quantum level, a conveyor can jump from any world to any other world, given coordinates. However, it arrives at the "same point in space" in the new world as it left in the old one, as per p. B530.

That restriction is very important. If it did not exist, then nuclear-armed conveyors would be an unstoppable weapon, rather than just a very dangerous one.

If this is still standing it would be another GM fiat by SJG besides van Zandt / UN deal, The patrol to avoid opening a real can of worms.

I thought I read somewhere that conveyors can change local positions with a little help, but are unsure if it was in Infinite Worlds or in the old 3rd Ed books.

[Astromancer]

It occurs to me that in our real world there were parts of the Earth that weren't settled until fairly late TL3. If you had large temperate climate islands, that were isolated enough to be hard to reach at TL3, and this parallel lacked equivalents to the Polynesian navigators, then you might have an area to have a safe base.

For maximum scandal have the USA get these.islands. For sinister plot elements allow a dictatorship to get these islands.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

It occurs to me that in our real world there were parts of the Earth that weren't settled until fairly late TL3. If you had large temperate climate islands, that were isolated enough to be hard to reach at TL3, and this parallel lacked equivalents to the Polynesian navigators, then you might have an area to have a safe base.

For maximum scandal have the USA get these.islands. For sinister plot elements allow a dictatorship to get these islands.

I just remembered the Maldives. These islands are facing catastrophe. Even a few inches of sea level rise will make them uninhabitable.

If they had a chance to get to an uninhibited island with a viable climate, they'd go to survive. Picture a corporate CEO, an Elon Musk type, with a soft spot for the Islanders and a desire to have a reputation for nobility and charity, who gets a projector and conveyor to the Maldives so they can flee to safety.

How would you get them back? How would you quiet the fury? It would be a vast screaming fest for months.