 Goto [ Index ] |
Stu;e 4 Substance 5
Infinite Worlds (IW) is the first post 4th Edition GURPS Sourcebook, though it’s as much a specific Worldbook as well in that it details the workings of their core campaign, also called Infinite Worlds.
History: In 1991, SJG published GURPS Time Travel, which introduced several time travel campaigns, The primary one then was Time Corps’ in which the PCs were agents of a time travel organization which battled their opposite numbers from an alternate future with the prize being the one future to continue to exist. Several others were briefly touched on until Time Travel of a different sort was introduced. Instead of moving backwards and forwards through nearly fixed time, it covered sideways movements and travel to worlds where Brutus joined Caesar’s enemies just to be able to betray them at the right moment, worlds where Abraham Lincoln had a guard who didn’t go out for a drink or seven the night John Wilks Booth acted, and so on.
Infinite Worlds incorporates Time Travel, by Jackson & Ford a good deal of the Alternate Earth books by Hite (and others). Hite appears to be the author of all new materials though this isn’t specified.
The Infinite Worlds campaign proved the most popular of these time travel settings, spawning two Alternate Earth books and Technomancer, a world originating from an Infinite Worlds published adventure. It allowed campaigns to be linked tp the extemt tjat Infinity agents could drop by, if nothing else. Nor were you restricted to alternate historical timelines. The campaign promoted the concept of worlds where physics didn‘t work quite the way it does else when, where flying cars have been around since the earlier 1920s for instance. .
At this point the sourcebook and worldbook aspects of Infinite Worlds split apart. The Infinity campaign defaults to our near future and for campaign stability purposes, there have been no really advanced parallels encountered. It’s 2027 and travel only reaches to 2027 or earlier worlds. Why this is the case is left to the GM. Later worlds haven’t ‘happened’ yet, or maybe conveyors simply can’t catch worlds moving ahead of it.
This has a serious drawback with regard to uniting all your GURPS campaigns. SJG is not planning to officially let you connect future based settings such as Transhuman Space let alone the licensed Traveller material, so you’ll have to venture out on your own to do that.
The Soucebook element deals with travel to the future, but only briefly, about 1 & 1/5th pages, which was about 1 & 1/5th pages ,pre tjam was a;;pted fpr the subject back in Time Travel, but still not a whole lot. Certainly the biggest shortcoming of the book. At least half of all Time Travel stories deal with travel to the future.
The first four chapters of the book deal with Infinity Campaigning in general, with occasional digressions into moving sideways in time in general. The first chapter introduces us to the Infinity Unlimited world called Homeline.
GURPS acknowledges that the timeline is greatly inspired by the Paratime Cops stories by H. Beam Piper, not that anyone familiar with Homeline and Piper’s work would doubt it for an instant. The biggest difference is that Piper’s time travelers come from an Earth where all the right people got all the right breaks the first time out. They were enjoying GPS equipped cell phones when most other Earths were peopled by hunter/gatherer societies. Some of their closest technological rivals never had the parachronic secret but did have better interstellar travel tech. Piper’s time travel devices were exceptionally advanced even if the typical paracop was outfitted with equipment no more futuristic than a century from when he wrote.
Homeline is blessed with parachronic travel at a much earlier stage in it’s technology. Infinity Unlimited became an IPO in 1997. It was a given that most worlds in Piper’s stories couldn’t hope to duplicate the tech if they got it. That is not the case with Homeline. It’s tech is less than 30 years ahead of our own. If a homeline conveyor was captured intact here, we certainly could duplicate it.
Parallel worlds lie in a multidimensional space Homeline scientists call a Quantum, the plural of which is Quanta. Quanta travel is part and parcel of the original discovery. Quantum traversing Projectors work hand in hand with dimension crossing Conveyors. The only problems with this are that Homelline’s Projector technology only works on it’s Quantum and Projectors have a two Quantum range. Homeline defines it’s Quantum as #5 thus it can reach down to Q3 and up to Q7.
By contrast, Homeline’s rival in parachronic travel, The Centrum, has it’s location on Q7 giving it access from Q6 to Q10. If they cooperated they’d have access to 8 Quanta.
They don’t exactly cooperate.
Centrum is actively attacking Homeline by ‘stealing’ specific parallels found only on Q6 known as ‘Echoes’. Echoes are specifically copies of Hoemline’s timeline found as long as 3000 years ago and as recent as 2001, without apparently making the Parachonic discovery in the mid 1990s.
The worlds are stolen by making a change in history at the right moment. If done correctly the world tumbles to another Quantum. Centrum agents usually get the world to tumble their way. If it jumps to Q7 it’s closer to them and more difficult for Homeline to reach. If it jumps further upwards only Centrum can reach it. It’s theres.
(There’s a nastier reason for this too but it’s GM specific knowledge so I’ll keep the secret.)
Echoes may be a Projector created phenomenon. Centrum seems to have one known echoe but no worlds without Projector technology seem to have their own echoes.
Centum isn’t Homeline’s only headache of course. Down on Q3 are three worlds that worry them a lot. Reich 5 is a world where the Nazis won hands down. They have the BEST known military tech and are colonizing the Moon and Mars with it. A small faction, Himmlerian occultists, know the paratime secret and through psionic and mystical practices have sent invasion forces into other worlds. They can’t reveal this to Berlin. Their higher ups would take over and likely have them shot for knowing too much.
Even with those restrictions, they’re doing alright. They’ve made contact with Freidrich, a world currently in 1219, where Barbosa succeeded in building a German state, literally the First Reich. Exchanging machineguns and cannon and advisors for a few regiments of soldiers they’d train in advanced warfare, the Raven SS Division is the terror of nearly every world they can reach.
Then there is Merlin, the world of the Technomancer sourcebook, when the first nuclear blast opened up Magic particulary to mountain time zone Mexico and the US. Merlin’s CIA is using planar travel spells and largely staying under the radar of Homeline and Reich 5, so far…
And finally the Cyberpunk world of Shikaku-Mon is high on the worry list. It has no clue about the greater universe around it, but aside from Reich 5 military hardware it has the greatest technology of any world known. It’s also on the same time frame as Hiomeline and Centrum and it’s possible they not only can duplicate Conveyor tech if the idea occurs to them, but Projector tech as well.
And in between are commercially exploitable worlds where humanity never developed a few dead worlds where the sun wasn’t warm enough, PERFECT places for polluting industries and a host of worlds where trade can be done.
And weirder worlds. Worlds where evolved dinosaurs live in nations called Sweeden and Austria. Worlds where cars fly, cops carry ray guns in their holsters and engineers still use slide rules. Worlds where maps read “Here be dragons” and they’re accurate.
All in all, a good strong base for building a near futuristic paratime travel game.
After finishing the Infinity campaign, IW goes on to deal with Time Travel, giving the Time Corps campaign and a good overview of time travel problems PCs can encounter.
Finally the book ends with alternate time travel campaigns, one for a militaristic ‘fix’ of historical changes, an occultic drug taking 1920s time travel circle and a mysterious club where going through certain doors takes you to interesting locales.
Finally the book gives an extensive bibliography on the subjects of time travel and one-dimensional crossings and the author STILL gripes about the TV show Sliders. Enough already!!!
On the whole an excellent book though travel to the future, and dealing with worlds far more futuristic than the traveling character(s) is undeveloped here and probably should be released as an e23 pdf file if nothing else.
