There's a book called Down the Bright Way or Along the Bright Way or something that is right up your alley. Parallel Earths. But more like a Stargate type of thing. If I can remember the right name, I'll post it.
Scout
Scout
Parallel Earths and Superspace Subsectors
- Thread starter TKalbfus
- Start date
The 10,000 years for category 1 divergences includes the recent as well as the distant past. A change that occured in the last 50 years would fall into this category. 20% chance it occurred in the last 2000 years. 20% chance it happened in the BC era of recorded history. The other 60% is prehistory. Civilization might not have arisen at all, or it might have risen earlier than in our world producing a higher tech level with an unrecognizable culture. Almost like another planet with the same physical features but a different society of humans living on it.
Its hard enough to map a bunch of parallel Earths in Superspace. If were were to do this with the OTU, then it would be impossible to map since we would have to map all the worlds and all their parallel realities in a subsector of superspace. I think it works better as an alternate setting to the Official Traveller Universe rather than an addition to it. The characters in this parallel universe campaign move from Universe to Universe as easily as those in the OTU move from planet to planet. Since the regular jump drive is not available in the parallel universe campaign, the other star systems are ignored. Only the Earth and its Solar System are colonized and their many parallel universe counterparts. Many of the parallel universes are aware of each other, and trade is common between them, so its not quite like Sliders. In Sliders there are very few Sliders, most of the Parallel Universes are blissfully unaware of them. In my proposed campaign, their are contacted parallel universes and uncontacted ones. The uncontacted ones are like the ones usually encountered in Sliders, their inhabitants think their universe is the only one in existance. The contacted ones are somewhat spoiled as their are immigrants and travellers going from universe to universe. Their are merchants who bring trade goods to sell, and Roman Imperial navy ships out on patrol. Most of the aliens are humans, since the campaign focuses on different versions of Earth. The animal encounters tables in T20 can be pulled out of the Animals sections of the D&D Monster Manual, MM2, and the Tomb or Horrors which also lists a bunch or ordinary animals. The advantage is, the referee doesn't have to say your party is attacked by a carnivore, he could say it was attacked by a wolf for instance.
I've seen this idea before, but I'm damned if I know where... No I'm not: The book was called The Infinitive of Go by John Brunner. In it, the idea was to invent essentially a teleportation booth (called a "poster" in the story), but something goes wrong during the tests, and they ultimately discover that the "posters" cross the boundaries of the universe in their functioning - and that where one ends up exactly depends in part on one's mental state and subconscious desires. It's a good read, and an interesting treatment of the concept.
marginaleye
SOC-12
Yeah, it's an idea that's been kicking around for a while. I'm pretty sure I picked it up from Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series. I suggested it because I think it's a good compromise between (a) being able to travel between parallel universes routinely, as easily as one travels between star systems within a single universe (which, in my opinion, strips the concept of too much of its intrinsic mystery), (b) being absolutely unable to return to a particular parallel universe, after one has left it (which makes significant, stable interaction between universes basically impossible).
Of course, in the O.T.U., the Zhodani would probably inherit the multiverse -- if they can use clairvoyant telepaths to direct teleporting strike-teams, they can probably use telepaths to debrief one "navigator," and transmit the "subjective" portion of the instructions to another. The sneak-attack potential would be enormous. Just think: a Zhodani fleet could jump into a "barren" parallel universe deep within the Consulate, spend a couple of years navigating through uninhabited star systems, and then jump back into "our" universe in, say, the Capital system. Of course, if they could do that, why would they want to, or even need to?
Actually the world is Tekumel from Empire of the Petal Throne fame. The world was larger than Earth and would have had a higher gravity except that great gravity engines had been installed lowering the effective gravity to something humans were comfortable with. The native races were not impressed!
Keklas Rekobah
SOC-14 1K
Sure! The theory is called 'Quantum Chronodynamics' or QCD. One of the concepts under QCD is that all stars are Sol, just at different stages of evolution and with different initial conditions. 
[MUSIC SWELLS: 'FOOLED AGAIN', BY YANNI]
Now, if you would like a tarot reading with your next physics lesson, I have a cousin who could accomodate you...
[MUSIC SWELLS: 'FOOLED AGAIN', BY YANNI]
Now, if you would like a tarot reading with your next physics lesson, I have a cousin who could accomodate you...
The theory that all stars are Sol at different times is depressing and disturbing when I don't need it! I thought I signed on so I could go to another, different star system! Though I will admit that that Quantum Chronodynamics theory makes it possible for stars to be and not be Our Home Sun.
Jame said,
Does it really matter? A parallel Earth can be just as alien as any other alien planet. A parallel Earth campaign is all about differences rather than similarities. The main difference from an interstellar space opera is that you get to fine tune those differences without requireing alot of suspension of disbelieve. For instance, in the Official Traveller Universe, Earth's first contact with an alien race was with another branch of humanity. Now weren't they expecting creepy bug eyed monsters? Now if you are going to have humans on an alien planet before Earth's humans actually got there, you are going to need a good explaination for that. Traveller uses the Ancients to explain why humans are there. Star Trek has something similar. Putting humans on distant planets saves the Referee from the trouble of inventing a new kind of alien for each different planet, but it does make the setting less believable. You got to have alien abductions in the past and secret human colonies established in the stone ages, and finally you got to give the Ancients a reason for doing this. Are humans supposed to be their slaves? You'd think the Ancients would have machines to do their dirty work. having a parallel Universe campaign eliminates the need for such elaborate explainations for humans on distance worlds with their own cultures. You simply create a parallel history where humans evolved, and then a historical departure point allowing the humans to establish a unique culture and history from our own. No Ancients need to be conjured up. You also don't need to conjure up explainations on why the planet's air is breathable or why the planet's food is edible. Otherwise a parallel earth campaign can be just as varied as the traditional interstellar campaign. You could even have aliens if you want. Just establish a world where some other intelligent creature evolved instead of humans, and they'd be sufficiently alien for all intents and purposes.
Keklas Rekobah
SOC-14 1K
... or posit an alternate Earth where humanity never arose at all - a 'beastworld', if you will.
Ref: "As the Balluchatherium breaths it's last, you and your crew come to the realization that you may be the only humans anywhere in this universe. Plus, the world that you know as 'Earth-Theta X-867-000-0' is wide open for development and exploitation..."
Ref: "As the Balluchatherium breaths it's last, you and your crew come to the realization that you may be the only humans anywhere in this universe. Plus, the world that you know as 'Earth-Theta X-867-000-0' is wide open for development and exploitation..."
Yes, its much more likely to have a world where humanity never evolved. Of course once humans land there, build towns and colonize the place the point becomes moot. Looking back on Earth's history, you don't see any other animals arising to the point of civilization building. After traveling a few thousand hexes, or perhaps a few hundred, you might encounter a parallel Earth where some other creature evolved to the point of intelligence and built a civilization, such a civilization might also have developed the technology to travel to parallel Earths, and this multi-hex civilization is the sort of intelligent "aliens" humanity would most likely be to encounter. There is another sort of parallel Universe available in the T20 campaign, that is what I'd call the Category -1 universe. Category -1 is where ships that misjump end up or what happens to ships whose jump field collapses while in transit through transitional superspace. These universes exist between the cracks in the hexes of the superspace subsector. These parallels aren't alternate histories although the do tend to absorb the features of the hexes on either side of the crack. In the Old Alternity Tangents sourcebook, these universes where part of the fantastic division, the laws of physics a somewhat different from the standard Traveller parallel Universes. Magic can exist in them, and not all high tech equipment will function, so these universes often act as traps for starships. A typical parallel would use D&D rules and sometimes electronic equipment won't work. Some sort of magic is required to get the Traveller Starship back into a universe where it can operate. The Starship usually appears on the surface of such a fantastic Parallel Earth, possibly because some diety took pity on them and transported them to the planet's surface. Starship visitations are rare enough to get a local diety's attention, but its hard to say how many starships simply perish, since most do not return from a category -1 universe, its just too hard to aquire the magic. A powerful wizard could send them back as might a god, they have no influence in the real physics universes, they can just send things there. Such objects appear at the 100-diameter limit just as if they emerged from jump space. Perhaps the Referee could include just such a tale about a long lost starship that suddenly appears at the 100-diameter limit 20 years older and perhaps half of its crew missing. Powers capable of sending them back might want the PCs to undertake a mission for them in return prior to their departure.
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