On the Infinite Worlds Setting and Cabal-style Cosmology

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by shkspr1048

Has anyone ever had any problems reconciling the cosmology set forth by the Cabal supplements with the physics of the Infinite Worlds setting? And if so, what sorts of alternatives have people come up with?

Nope. Infinity's physics connects you to a limited band of worlds and the Cabals metaphysics connect you to a partially overlapping band of worlds/places. Niether is particularly close to an Omniversal version of the "Triuth" if that even means anything.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nope. Infinity's physics connects you to a limited band of worlds and the Cabals metaphysics connect you to a partially overlapping band of worlds/places. Niether is particularly close to aen Omniversal version of the "Triuth" if that even means anything.

Does the setting books ever say that the Cabal is limited in the worlds it can go to? Indeed do they say that infinity is limited in the worlds that it can go to? Obviously infinity has trouble* reaching any world not in its local quantum band, and the Cabal's favorite travel method, magic, has trouble getting to a lot of worlds, but I'm not sure there are a whole lot of unreachable worlds. For Infinity at least I didn't see any mention of jumpers finding worlds that can't be conveyed too, or worlds that can be conveyed too that can't be jumped too.

*Not even impossible though, they have a super conveyer than doesn't need a projector.

[Flyndaran]

Since Cabal uses magic to world step other than traveling directly through the Astral Plane, I would assume no mana worlds are unreachable.

IW conveyers could just be like trains only allowed to stop at certain stations. It doesn't mean that there isn't anyone in between those places.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Lamech

Does the setting books ever say that the Cabal is limited in the worlds it can go to? Indeed do they say that infinity is limited in the worlds that it can go to? .

I find it difficult to believe that standard Cabal methods would send them to no mana worlds, and impossible to believe that parachronic travel could take you to a Heaven or Hell.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Lamech

Does the setting books ever say that the Cabal is limited in the worlds it can go to? .

A theoretical question that will never have a practical answer until the Cabal gets to the last would possible in its' metaphysics......if there is one.

If there isn't you'll never be sure. All you'll ever know is that the number is large and shows no sign of coming to an end. Infinity (the mathematical concept and not the corp) is like that. No one except Buzz Lightyear ever even gets to it much less beyond it.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

A theoretical question that will never have a practical answer until the Cabal gets to the last would possible in its' metaphysics......if there is one.

If there isn't you'll never be sure. All you'll ever know is that the number is large and shows no sign of coming to an end. Infinity (the mathematical concept and not the corp) is like that. No one except Buzz Lightyear ever even gets to it much less beyond it.

First note, there are definitely rare rule breaking worlds that can only be accessed by certain methods, for example a number of worlds can only be found by leaving from one specific worlds. But I'm talking about the more standard, vast majority of the worlds.

Cabal has ways of getting to worlds other than the astral. They also love nexuses, and think psionics are pretty cool, so they can jump between worlds too. Infinity also has jumpers. It seems to me that if the Cabal's astral could miss any significant fraction of worlds that jumpers can get too they would know. Furthermore if infinity jumpers could get to any significant number of worlds that conveyers couldn't get too they would also figure that out. And the reverse of both of those too.
Therefore since I don't see anything about jumpers or conveyers having a different world set, and ditto for jumpers and astral it would seem the set of astral worlds=set of jumper worlds = set of conveyer worlds. If the sets didn't match up well you would find that out. If every given world had only a 50% chance of being Astral findable, and a 50% chance of being conveyer findable, you would very quickly find worlds on conveyers that can't be reached via jumpers, or astral worlds that can't be reached via jumpers.

P.S. No mana worlds aren't strictly no mana. It can be raised in countless manners such as sacred architexture, reality shards, mana enhancers. Or the Cabalists could simply find dreamers via travel through Nod. So no mana =! not connected to astral.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Lamech

It seems to me that if the Cabal's astral could miss any significant fraction of worlds that jumpers can get too they would know..

Maybe if the The Cabal had a central clearinghouse rather than every Lodge and possibly even every Cabalist keeping secrets from every other oner.

The Cabal is not scientifically, logiically or even efficiently organized. Logical conjecturers about what they "should" know are unlikley to be correct.

Infinity keeps secrets too, but more importanl is it's limited track record timewise and even more limited number of Jumpers. Once you throw out the obvious exceptions your statistical pool gets even smaller. If you wonder, Centrum mioght ahve a bette rgrasp on theory but has even less expereince than Infinity in terms of numbers of worlds.

You have formed methematical postulates about what should be knowable which is okay, but when you move on to assuming that since X is knowable in a theretical sense then Infinity and/or the Cabal should know things get dubious.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

A theoretical question that will never have a practical answer until the Cabal gets to the last would possible in its' metaphysics......if there is one.

If there isn't you'll never be sure. All you'll ever know is that the number is large and shows no sign of coming to an end.

I wouldn't say this is consistent with infinity in the mathematical sense. There are an infinite number of values that can be obtained by repeatedly adding 1 to any given integer, for example, but each time 1 is added, an even greater number of intermediate values are skipped over, never to be reached only exceeded.