[ic]"So you're the new kid, huh?"
Uhmmm... Y-yess?"
"Where you from?"
"uhh... Seattle?"
"So are you a primer?"
"Primer? Oh you mean native to this earth? yeah.. Ho-ow did you guess?"
"Cause In my universe Seattle was nuked off the face of the earth in WW3."
"O-oh! Wow that expl-plains how come you.... look... uh... scary?"
"....Ever faced down a raging sovi tank with nothing more than a pocket knife, and nuke blaster?"
"..nNnnnNnnnnoooo-ooo-oo......"
"............Hahaha! You know string theory?"
"Huh?"
"String Theory.... reality is happening all at once across several realities?"
"Uh yeah I know that string theories a thing... why else wouldh I be here, the pretzels?"
"Just remember, theres two types of string out there kid. Silly string... and Piano Wire...[/ic]
Britain defeats the American Revolution,
Jules Verne kicks off a space race in his time,
Hitler dies as a child,
Aliens invade during the crusades,
The roman empire never falls,
The nuke is never invented,
Japan never attacks Pearl Harbor,
Germany wins WW1,
The South.... will okay there was no realistic way for the south to win the Civil War.. They just sort of lucked out on the negotiation table.
The point is, there are endless possibilites, and endless ways that history could have turned out... and not all of them are peaches and cream... if you're from a history where peaches didn't go extinct. We all have watched "Man in the High Castle", so we all know what happens when Hitler pulls his head out of his ass for about two consecutive seconds and has good ideas... Or better yet the universe where someone other than Hitler leads the Nazi's... Yeah those never end well...... Seriously did you know the Nazi's had jet's? JETS???? JEEETTTSSS???? Okay back on point. And sometimes these alternate universes discover how to cross between multiverses, and discover things about other earths. Some more advanced than others, and some less so.
Take the The Collective of the Soviets, for instance, a universe where the entire world became Communist, and then accidentally stumbled onto Multidimensional Travel. Then they began conquering earths in other Universes.
That's where the Rogue Initiative comes in. An organization devoted to guarding there specific verses from the wrath of the evil multiverses called "Rogue Dimensions".
They come from countless walks of life, some from this earth (Earth Prime), and some come from worlds where Technology never progresses beyond steam, humans evolve telepathy, Dinosaurs never went extinct and some form of raptoroid beings evolve. The point is is that the Rogue Initiative protects the Multiverse from being enslaved by the more technologically advanced, yet evil alternate dimensions.
You the players will take control of a character who is a member of the Rogue Initiative. You could be a human from Earth Prime, or be someone from another dimension. The possibilities are countless for character creation.
Three Rules:
All universes are set to the same time, and there is no time travelling, so the year 2015.
No Kryptonians. This is in a sense a superhero setting, but no "ultra" superhumans.
No aliens. You could be from a universe with technologically advanced dinosaurs, super simians, etc, but no one from other planets.
First of all, love the idea. Dimension-hopping is never not great and it's even better when there's no reason not to totally wreck stuff along the way.
So from what I can tell, the Rogue Initiative is more like a multiversal NATO than your traditional "Dimensional Police", in that they're more reactive than proactive. Is there a reason that nobody's jumped into one of the Naziverses and carpet bombed the Reichstag with nuclear weapons? Honestly, I could see why anyone would be hesitant to establish a precedent of destroying an alternate Earth for political reasons: the citizens of an Amerindian superpower would probably view us in the exact same way that we view the Nazis, so there's that whole moral quandary of whether or not you should try to stop genocide or imperialism as long as it stays within the borders of its own reality.
How exactly is the multiverse "charted", so to speak? Is it easier to travel into a timeline the less divergent it is compared to your native one? When you have points of divergence as far back as the Cretaceous, it raises the question of why we're not colliding with 65 million year's worth of alternate histories.
I like the idea. It sounds bonkers, but in the best possible way. I also agree that there would probably need to be some sort of "Dimensional Prime Directive" to keep things from getting completely out of hand, and this could quite easily lead to some interesting ethnical conflicts, especially when the culture of different timelines leads to a completely different idea of what is "good."
Since you mentioned using Fate as a system, I'm of course intrigued about that, too. I assume you mean Fate Core?
Quote from: Rhamnousia
1. First of all, love the idea. Dimension-hopping is never not great and it's even better when there's no reason not to totally wreck stuff along the way.
2. So from what I can tell, the Rogue Initiative is more like a multiversal NATO than your traditional "Dimensional Police", in that they're more reactive than proactive. Is there a reason that nobody's jumped into one of the Naziverses and carpet bombed the Reichstag with nuclear weapons? Honestly, I could see why anyone would be hesitant to establish a precedent of destroying an alternate Earth for political reasons: the citizens of an Amerindian superpower would probably view us in the exact same way that we view the Nazis, so there's that whole moral quandary of whether or not you should try to stop genocide or imperialism as long as it stays within the borders of its own reality.
3. How exactly is the multiverse "charted", so to speak? Is it easier to travel into a timeline the less divergent it is compared to your native one? When you have points of divergence as far back as the Cretaceous, it raises the question of why we're not colliding with 65 million year's worth of alternate histories.
1. Yeah, this is what happens when I watch Avengers, Man in the High Castle, and Rick and Morty more times than I should.
2. Actually, thank you for pointing this out. The Rogue Initiative is more like the SHIELD of the United Multiversal Worlds Protectorate. The UMWP is basically a collective of Alternate realities who look out for each other, and when a multiversal army proves to great for one dimension, then you'd better have back up. But sometimes the threat is to small for an entire to handle it logically, yet just as fearsome and horrific as any army, and that's where the RI comes in.
As for the whole moral ambiguity thing, no universe is perfect. Originally this was going to be a PbP game where we all had to represent an alternate nation, and be diplomats to other alternate countries. Each of you had a scenario, an advantage and a tragedy. No nation isn't created without blood, what would be the bad thing your nation did? But yeah, there is a rule that basically states "What happens in your reality, stay's in your reality." However no one said you can't immigrate to other realities. But that'll be for later.
To quote Rick Sanchez: "What about the reality where Hitler cured cancer, Morty? The answer is: Don't think about it."
3. The multiverse is infinite, but so far there hasn't been a computer that can quantify infinity. So far the best that we can scope out is about say 700, Trillion, Trillion Earths? But that's not that amazing when You realize that most of that is just microverses, universes that are based on small tiny changes that only exist for about 2 seconds, but are constantly appearing, only to be reabsorbed into there respective realities. In order for an alternate reality to occur something drastic has to change in the historical dynamic. These Alternate universes give off a huge, distinct signal when picking up AU's.
Quote from: sparkletwist
I like the idea. It sounds bonkers, but in the best possible way. I also agree that there would probably need to be some sort of "Dimensional Prime Directive" to keep things from getting completely out of hand, and this could quite easily lead to some interesting ethnical conflicts, especially when the culture of different timelines leads to a completely different idea of what is "good."
Since you mentioned using Fate as a system, I'm of course intrigued about that, too. I assume you mean Fate Core?
Well I have FATE Accelerated, And I think that's good enough. Honestly I don't feel like using a system like GURPS or M&M. I haven't had a chance to make a setting for FATE yet, and this seems like the perfect concept for FATE.
Quote from: Love of AwesomeBut that's not that amazing when You realize that most of that is just microverses, universes that are based on small tiny changes that only exist for about 2 seconds, but are constantly appearing, only to be reabsorbed into there respective realities. In order for an alternate reality to occur something drastic has to change in the historical dynamic. These Alternate universes give off a huge, distinct signal when picking up AU's.
The whole idea of the butterfly effect seems to run contrary to this. Every divergence starts off as a small event, but those events add up into a different timeline-- there is no "reabsorbing" because the reality is and remains different. And yes, this means there are is an almost unfathomable number of alternate universes, but the general way a setting like this works is that the rule of cool says we only focus on the interesting ones, and we kinda ignore the fact that whatever we want to change about an AU probably already exists in some
other AU because every AU is itself continuously diverging. Which may be what you were getting at, in a roundabout way, now that I think about it.
Quote from: Love of AwesomeWell I have FATE Accelerated, And I think that's good enough. Honestly I don't feel like using a system like GURPS or M&M. I haven't had a chance to make a setting for FATE yet, and this seems like the perfect concept for FATE.
Fate Core is a free download (http://www.faterpg.com/resources/), so if you want to take a look, you should! I agree with not using something as heavy as GURPS, although you may want to look at GURPS Infinite Worlds for some ideas.
Quote from: sparkletwist
Quote from: Love of AwesomeBut that's not that amazing when You realize that most of that is just microverses, universes that are based on small tiny changes that only exist for about 2 seconds, but are constantly appearing, only to be reabsorbed into there respective realities. In order for an alternate reality to occur something drastic has to change in the historical dynamic. These Alternate universes give off a huge, distinct signal when picking up AU's.
The whole idea of the butterfly effect seems to run contrary to this. Every divergence starts off as a small event, but those events add up into a different timeline-- there is no "reabsorbing" because the reality is and remains different. And yes, this means there are is an almost unfathomable number of alternate universes, but the general way a setting like this works is that the rule of cool says we only focus on the interesting ones, and we kinda ignore the fact that whatever we want to change about an AU probably already exists in some other AU because every AU is itself continuously diverging. Which may be what you were getting at, in a roundabout way, now that I think about it.
Quote from: Love of AwesomeWell I have FATE Accelerated, And I think that's good enough. Honestly I don't feel like using a system like GURPS or M&M. I haven't had a chance to make a setting for FATE yet, and this seems like the perfect concept for FATE.
Fate Core is a free download (http://www.faterpg.com/resources/), so if you want to take a look, you should! I agree with not using something as heavy as GURPS, although you may want to look at GURPS Infinite Worlds for some ideas.
Yeah, for the record I'm just using Comic Book Logic for a lot of this. The point is there is a finite amount of alternate realities within our range, and everything else sort of doesn't really matter.
Thanks for the tip off, and yes I've looked at GURPS infinite Worlds. Great book. Love it!
What's the limit on how much can be transported between dimensions in a single go? Can you drop in an entire army if you have enough energy or does transporting that amount of volume require some sort of advance guard to set up a beacon or what have you?
A possible workaround to the whole "boring meaningless difference AU" problem might be that it's difficult or outright impossible to jump to a reality that you're within a certain degree of correlation with because the "background radiation" throws off the targeting system. Like a version of you that had tea instead of coffee with your breakfast five years ago exists but you're not going to run into them unless you both happen to be in the same distant dimension at the same time or something. Also, even if only one tenth of one percent of only one trillion observable universes are meaningful enough to access, that's still a billion universes: do they use some sort of coordinate system a la Stargate meets Ricky and Morty or did you have something else in mind.
It occurred to me that the non-interference mutual defense pact means that characters could easily end up having to cooperate with citizens of extraordinarily loathsome regimes that just happen to be slightly less bellicose than the extraordinarily loathsome regimes they're both fighting against.
If it seems like I have way too much to say about this, it's because I've thought about how to do a slightly more grounded version of literally this exact same idea before and that's all coming back to me now.
Quote from: Rhamnousia
What's the limit on how much can be transported between dimensions in a single go? Can you drop in an entire army if you have enough energy or does transporting that amount of volume require some sort of advance guard to set up a beacon or what have you?
If it seems like I have way too much to say about this, it's because I've thought about how to do a slightly more grounded version of literally this exact same idea before and that's all coming back to me now.
Technically not any limit, although at this point in the setting, you can't really put out that much energy without it being picked up by everyone else with the technology to do so. When it first began happening, sure, but if you're gonna do it now, you'd better have some serious firepower.
I'd love to learn more about your version of this. What stopped you in the past?
Quote
A possible workaround to the whole "boring meaningless difference AU" problem might be that it's difficult or outright impossible to jump to a reality that you're within a certain degree of correlation with because the "background radiation" throws off the targeting system. Like a version of you that had tea instead of coffee with your breakfast five years ago exists but you're not going to run into them unless you both happen to be in the same distant dimension at the same time or something. Also, even if only one tenth of one percent of only one trillion observable universes are meaningful enough to access, that's still a billion universes: do they use some sort of coordinate system a la Stargate meets Ricky and Morty or did you have something else in mind.
It occurred to me that the non-interference mutual defense pact means that characters could easily end up having to cooperate with citizens of extraordinarily loathsome regimes that just happen to be slightly less bellicose than the extraordinarily loathsome regimes they're both fighting against.
Thank You! That's what I was trying to get at! Radically different AU's just stick out more than ones that resemble our timeline, or vice versa.
If I wanted to go for a more comedic tone, there could be a cabal of activists who came from universes where Hitler wasn't evil, and if I remember correctly there was a story once written where Hitler wound up working for Walt Disney. Can't remember where I saw that though.
I meant to get back to this before finals week ended up knocking me for a loop. A big question I have is how do any of these people communicate? Obviously no modern language is going to be able to function as a lingua franca and there probably isn't a single language that exists across all timelines, but I'd day that a good candidate might be something like Sumerian or Akkadian - something sufficiently ancient that even otherwise wildly-divergent universes would have some version of it that you could use as a basis for a standard "business language." Not that I'm suggesting that you write everything in a fictional language; you could handwave it as "unless specified that they're speaking English-English, assume everything is being said in Sumerian pidgin."
Since it is an organization, they could just pick any one language from any one timeline/universe and have all their members learn it.
Quote from: Rhamnousia
I meant to get back to this before finals week ended up knocking me for a loop. A big question I have is how do any of these people communicate? Obviously no modern language is going to be able to function as a lingua franca and there probably isn't a single language that exists across all timelines, but I'd day that a good candidate might be something like Sumerian or Akkadian - something sufficiently ancient that even otherwise wildly-divergent universes would have some version of it that you could use as a basis for a standard "business language." Not that I'm suggesting that you write everything in a fictional language; you could handwave it as "unless specified that they're speaking English-English, assume everything is being said in Sumerian pidgin."
Quote from: Ghostman
Since it is an organization, they could just pick any one language from any one timeline/universe and have all their members learn it.
Again comic book logic. Let's just say that there's "Green Lantern" like technology that takes everyone languages, and makes it possible to comprehend everyone in the multiverse. Different technologies, different advancements.
I like the idea of a sort of dimensional SHIELD organization, though this seems a bit too vast at present for my taste. At least a setting. It hurts my brain thinking about how many different dimensions would be involved, and hopping between them all; trying to keep straight "who did what and when" in which universe. I personally would prefer maybe sticking to one or two universes, but maybe some weird event caused them to collide, so there are a bunch of weird things FROM alternate dimensions popping in and out.
Quote from: Seraph
I like the idea of a sort of dimensional SHIELD organization, though this seems a bit too vast at present for my taste. At least a setting. It hurts my brain thinking about how many different dimensions would be involved, and hopping between them all; trying to keep straight "who did what and when" in which universe. I personally would prefer maybe sticking to one or two universes, but maybe some weird event caused them to collide, so there are a bunch of weird things FROM alternate dimensions popping in and out.
Not a bad idea, honestly.
This idea came from my annoyance with AU comic books. I love Superman: Red Son as a concept, and as a comic it's not bad, but they could have done so much more with it. In fact they probably could have made a long running series out of it. The green lantern cop-out was horrendous to me. They could have had the Green Lantern Corps unite with luthor against Superman, but instead theres just an ancient space ship with Green lantern rings. They also could have had Captain Marvel be the the "Great American Champion" or something.
So really Rogue Initiative was sort of the result of a secret longing for a AU Justice League or something.
You might not have to restrict yourself to a single universe: maybe only a limited number of universes could come to an agreement and form the Initiative, enough to still reasonably blunt the tide of malign realities but not enough to form a unified government. More early NATO or Allied Forces rather than a transdimensional UN.