GURPS - 4th Edition - Infinite Worlds

Plagues

Not all humans suffer equally from all diseases. “Pox Americana” (1775-1782): Smallpox epidemic
Mere childhood ailments in one area become deadly ravaged American soldiers during the Revolutionary
epidemics in another. Even whooping cough or chick- War, and spread across the plains to eradicate Indian
en pox can kill millions in a “virgin field epidemic,” if tribes as far away as Puget Sound. May have killed 25
none of those millions have any resistance to them. million people in North America.
(Whooping cough may have killed half of Japan in the
late ninth century A.D.) The clearest case of this in his- Urban Cholera Epidemics (1826-1837): Endemic in
tory is the nearly 90% death rate of American Indians Bengal, cholera spread via British ships to Cairo (1831),
after lasting European contact in 1492. Although the London (1832), New York (1832), Havana (1833), and
conquistadors certainly gave it the old college try in Canton (1835); and via Russian soldiers to Moscow
some places, they simply could not have physically (1830), Warsaw (1831), and Berlin (1831), killing tens of
slaughtered such vast populations. Groups too small thousands of people in each city. Sanitation reform
to bring Old World diseases with them settled the New ended the cholera threat in the West by the 1890s.
World during the Ice Ages, and few new diseases
appeared in the next 30,000 years. Other major “Spanish Flu” (1918-1919): Killed 675,000
plagues had a similar impact on history: Americans, and up to 40 million people worldwide
(more than World War I); it may have begun in U.S.
Plague of Sennacherib (708 B.C.): “The angel of Army camps in Kansas. An unknown strain of influenza
death” slew the Assyrian army besieging Jerusalem, 25 times deadlier than normal.
forcing Sennacherib to leave the Jews alive. May have
been typhus, a killer of armies (such as Napoleon’s in Any of these plagues might show up in an alternate
Russia) up to the 20th century. history; the GM who wants to avoid the Black Death
needs a clever explanation of why his Europe is
Athenian Plague (430-429 B.C.): Devastated Athens, immune. In the case of the Black Death, eliminating the
killing a third of the city, including Pericles. Athens lost Mongol conquests might have done it, since it may have
the Peloponnesian War as a consequence. May have been the Mongol unification of the steppes that allowed
been measles. plague carriers to spread a Central Asian disease to both
China and Europe in 20 years. Without the Mongols, it
Plague of Antoninus (166-180 A.D.): Brought back might have taken many more decades to spread, and the
from Persia by victorious legions, this epidemic killed 25 vector might have been through the Middle East, which
million people in the Roman Empire. Rome never recov- was not particularly affected by the Black Death in our
ered from this demographic disaster, which returned in history.
251-266 A.D. It may also have reached China in 161-185
A.D., and returned there in 310-322 A.D., when a plague The Disease Barrier
killed 25% of the population. Probably smallpox.
“Fear, fear, the Bay of Benin. One comes out for each 10
Plague of Justinian (542-543 A.D.): Arrived in that go in.” This old sailor’s rhyme, about the dangers of
Constantinople by ship from Egypt and killed 120,000 the Benin coast of west Africa, accurately conveys the
people; may have killed up to a third of the Byzantine impact of malaria and other jungle fevers such as dengue
Empire and southern Europe by 590 A.D., preventing and yellow fever on populations that have not evolved a
the reunification of the Roman Empire. Its spread to resistance to them. Until the isolation of quinine from
Syria and Persia paved the way for the Arab conquest. Peruvian cinchona bark in 1820, non-Africans simply
Probably bubonic plague. could not effectively colonize tropical Africa. Once
Columbus accidentally introduced the anopheles mos-
Black Death (1346-1350): Arrived in Venice from the quito to the Americas in 1493, the Caribbean and its
Crimea, having already (1331-1354) killed up to half of shores became similar death traps for Europeans;
China and disintegrated the Mongol Empire. Killed a Southeast Asia and the Pacific took a less deadly, but
third of Europe, and sporadically reappeared there for notable, toll as well. Only the promise of vast wealth from
the next 400 years, especially in the Plague of London gold and slaves could induce Europeans even to garrison
(1665-1666). Its last outbreak killed a million people in the few tiny outposts along the African coast. Before you
Manchuria in 1921. Almost certainly bubonic plague, send those Roman armies south of the Sahara, explain
although some historians theorize that the 1346 out- why they’re not all dead or delirious first.
break may have been anthrax.

DEVELOPMENT drought coming can spark ideas for pick which Great Man wins the next
the next decade or century of your round. This section gives a brief
The way to use such depressing timeline. Even if you’ve secretly built primer on some of these macrohistor-
concepts as the Great Moment and your whole timeline on the heroic con- ical concerns, with extreme prejudice
Great Motherland theories is as guide- tests of Great Men, applying these fac- in favor of those that make useful
lines for developing alternates. Just tors can give it that all-important tools for world design.
knowing that there’s a plague or veneer of plausibility, and help you

PRESENT AT THE CREATION 99

Politics People make their own history, but they do not
make it just as they please; they do not make it
A number of historians have postu- under circumstances chosen by themselves, but
lated a natural “pendulum” in political under circumstances directly encountered, given,
history between action and reaction. and transmitted from the past.
In 1949, Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.,
famously cited a 16-year pendulum – Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire
that sadly didn’t even explain the next
16 years without a lot of special plead-
ing. With that said, generational
models (see Generational Cycles,

Generational Cycles below) as used by the historian
Samuel Huntington (among others)
One model for studying both historical change and historical conti- present a plausible explanation for the
nuity is the generational model. The social impact of the Baby Boom in commonly observed 20-year life of
America (and in other nations) is a clear example of generational histo- many political movements. Radical
ry in action – and so is the “Greatest Generation” that survived the libertarianism began in America with
Depression, won World War II, and built the greatest economy in the the Stamp Act protests in 1765; by
world. 1785 it was mired in tariff disputes
and wrecking the Articles of Con-
In Generations, historians William Strauss and Neil Howe break out federation. Kennedy’s 1960 rebirth of
generational types, in order, as follows: American liberalism was convincingly
buried by Reagan’s landslide in 1980.
Idealists are born into a time of conformity, and come of age during The Republican Party destroyed the
social ferment. During adulthood, they pursue individualism while urg- Whigs in 1856 over abolition and by
ing a return to morality; they age into visionary figures. The Baby Boom 1876 was cutting corrupt deals with
generation (born from 1943 to 1960) are Idealists, as are the Southern whites to steal the
Transcendentalists (born from 1792 to 1821). Presidency. The young activists who
drive the issue become middle-aged
Reactives are born during social ferment, come of age in alienation politicians with their own interests to
and risk, shoulder a crisis, and age into dim respectability as society protect; the middle-aged politicians
becomes more conformist. The Founding Fathers (born from 1724 to they converted or frightened into
1741) are Reactives, as is Generation X (born from 1961 to 1981). agreement die or retire.

Civics are born during a return to morality, unite and come of age About twice that length (every 40 to
dealing with a crisis, found institutions in midlife, and build the society 45 years) is a peak riot period for
the next ferment will question and disrupt. The Greatest Generation oppressed minorities. This, too, may
(born from 1901 to 1924) are Civics, as are the Millennials (born from be generationally driven; perhaps it
1982 to 2003). takes two generations to forget how
societies increase repression after a
Adaptives are born during a crisis, relish social conformity in adult- riot. Toynbee claimed that it takes
hood, work for compromise during social ferment, and age into sensitive something like five generations (100-
elders. The Progressives (born from 1843 to 1859) are Adaptives, as are 125 years) for a new ideology to create
the Silent Generation (born from 1925 to 1942). a movement capable of changing soci-
ety, but that might be an underesti-
This model also implies that society-threatening crises occur about mate. Peter the Great’s intelligentsia
once in every four generations (every 80-odd years), followed by ages of took 136 years before they tried to
conformity, social ferment, and individualism each lasting about 20 overthrow Czar Nicholas I in the
years. Each age sows the seeds of the next. The stress of the crisis Decembrist Revolt of 1825. Puritan
produces conformity, Idealistic rebels against stifling conformity cause Massachusetts took 145 years to riot
ferment, and the resulting breakdown of conformity leaves risk and ram- against the King. The Civil Rights Act
pant individualism. Reacting against the alienation and atomization was passed 133 years after William
they see around them, the (now older and wiser) Idealists call for a Lloyd Garrison founded the American
return to morality, just in time for the next crisis to hit and cement those abolitionist movement.
demands.
It takes about eight generations
To make their model fit American history, Strauss and Howe have to (160-170 years), on average, for an
postulate that the Civil War was a “crisis too soon” that “aborted” a Civic empire to get strong enough to fight
generation, and place Thomas Jefferson (an Idealist if ever there was a civil war, and about three (60-odd
one) in a Civic generation. However cut-and-try the model, though, years) to recover from it. (Long
using it can help give a natural-seeming rhythm to an alternate society. enough for all the war veterans to
become tiresome old coots with

100 PRESENT AT THE CREATION

stories nobody wants to hear any
more.) By this reading, the American
Revolution was a civil war in the
British Empire established in 1607 at
Jamestown, 169 years earlier. After
1776, America took until 1836 (60
years) to start its own imperial
expansion into Texas and concomi-
tant disintegration over slavery,
while Britain spent almost that long
watching its monarchs go mad and
its population riot before the Reform
Act stabilized its political system in
1832. Rome went through three of
those cycles before finally collapsing
from the outside; an average
“really successful” Chinese dynasty
manages two of them.

Economics and are edged out by radio in the war or capital influx. Rapid inflation
1910s; microcomputers show up in causes increasing inequality and
Another field ripe for cyclical pat- the 1970s, and we just passed the social control of the economy until
terns is economics, either within a “peak” of their productivity growth in control and inequality both become
society or on a global basis. the Internet boom of the 1990s. A excessive, leading to (or contributing
(Controversial modern systems theo- similar pattern likely holds in any to) cults, pessimism, intellectual
rists believe that all economies have alternate history after TL3 and the revolt, addiction, imperial wars, and
been on a global basis since about 930 invention of banking. finally a vast crisis. In the aftermath of
A.D., when the Song Dynasty restored the crisis, prices stabilize in an equi-
the trade links between China and the On considerably firmer ground are librium and prosperity returns to start
West.) The “boom and bust cycle” is the Price Revolutions, which unlike the next slow inflation. Unfortunately,
familiar to most casual observers of Kondratiev waves are taken from the although the Price Revolutions have a
the modern business scene, for data themselves rather than statistical regular structure, they don’t have a
instance. models of the data. General prosperity nice regular cycle.
causes slow inflation, which becomes
In 1925, a Russian economist, rapid inflation during the next major
Nikolai Kondratiev, discovered
“waves” of roughly 50 to 54 years (27 [T]here are no correct alternate histories; there
years up to the peak, 27 years down to are only plausible alternate histories.
the crunch) in trends within the
Western business cycle. The global – Will Shetterly, “The Captain’s Story”
depressions of 1816, 1873, and 1929
seemed to match the theory pretty
well, and if you squint, you can fit the
recession of 1978-1983 in there, too.
Unfortunately, the other global
depressions in 1826, 1837, and 1893
don’t match the wave; nor did the
crash of 2000. (Kondratiev, ironically,
was sent to Siberia for making the per-
fectly Marxist observation that the
economy drove history.) Historians
still squabble over whether the
Kondratiev wave even exists; others
favor the “Kuznets wave” of 18-21
years, which fits the generational
framework better.

If the Kondratiev wave does exist,
it probably represents a two-genera-
tion lag in exploiting a new industrial
development. Railroads are intro-
duced in the 1830s and mature by the
1880s; telegraphs come in the 1860s

PRESENT AT THE CREATION 101

Civilization as Biology

From Ibn Khaldun to Malthus, historians have seen Absolutism (100-150 years): Aristocratic power
societies as essentially following biological patterns: becomes centralized, but the king and bourgeoisie seize
spring growth, summer florescence, autumnal decay, power themselves; society approaches a crisis. In the
and winter death. The German philosopher Oswald Classical culture, this is the duel of Pericles and
Spengler is probably the best-known theorist to apply Themistocles; in the West, it is the rise of Louis XIV and
the biological model to history. In The Decline of the West the Stuarts and Hanoverians. Cultural autumn has set
(first published in 1918), he proposed that civilizations in, with summer’s beliefs cast into doubt: examples
have individual personalities (Classical civilization was include the Enlightenment in the West, the Socratics in
Apollo, while Western civilization is Faust, for example). Classical civilization, or the Mutazilites in Islamic socie-
However, their inherently biological nature (being made ty. Confucius is the final “Indian summer” of Chinese
up of people, after all) constrains them to follow similar civilization, reaffirming order in the midst of chaos.
“life cycles” like any other organism. Spengler postulat-
ed only eight such civilizations, which he called “cul- Revolution and Napoleonism (30-50 years): Revolt of
tures”: Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Chinese (which he the bourgeoisie unleashes war and military dictatorship.
begins around 1000 B.C.), Classical (Hellenic plus The “Napoleons” – Alexander, Sun Tzu, Napoleon –
Roman), “Magian” (Iranic plus Islamic, with substantial sweep away the old order but usually cannot create a
Jewish influence), Indian (which he begins with the lasting empire. In Egypt, the crisis (Hyksos invasion)
Aryan invasions), and Meso-American. Although almost destroys the nation; in Islam the “Napoleon,” Al-Mansur,
no modern historians take Spengler seriously, his model was able to create an empire, the Abbasid Caliphate. Art
makes a great frame for alternate histories or future his- is autumnal, backward-looking, and fierce:
tories (James Blish used Spenglerian concepts for his Romanticism in the West, and the Shah-Nameh in
Cities in Flight series). In that spirit, Spengler’s “epochs” Magian culture.
of civilization are as follows:
Transition from Napoleonism (200 years): In the clear
Pre-Cultural Period (400-500 years): This is a period of space after the crisis, bourgeois interests and contending
tribes and chieftains; there is no state system or litera- mass states (some of them democratic, such as the
ture. For Western civilization, Spengler equates this era Roman Republic, the city-states of the Punjab, or the
to the Frankish conquests from 500-900 A.D.; for United States) dominate. The Hellenistic phase of
Classical civilization, the pre-cultural period is the Classical culture, the era of five warring states in China,
Mycenaean Era. and the imperialist phase of Western culture, are all
urban, mercantile, and pragmatic. Ethics replace reli-
Formation of Feudal Order (300-400 years): States and gion, from the Buddha in India to Sufism in Islam to
cities emerge and extend their power, as with Chou Stoicism in Greece to secular humanism in the West. Art
Dynasty China or Sassanid Persia. The “cultural spring” is experimental, but little of it lasts . . . final shoots as
begins with the first priestly (the Lives of the Saints, the winter falls on culture.
Rig-Veda, and Hesiod’s Theogony) and military (the
Arthurian tales, the Mahabharata, and the Iliad) myths. Caesarism (200 years): The masses in the victorious
Vigorous architecture, as with the Pyramids in Egyptian state eventually rally to force-politics, suppress the bour-
civilization or the Gothic cathedrals in the West. geois, and impose a unified empire to the limits of their
civilization’s reach. This is the age of Augustus Caesar,
Interregnum (100-200 years): The feudal order breaks Shi Huangdi, Alp Arslan (who founds the Seljuk
down in warfare, plague, and famine. The cultural Sultanate), the Pharaoh Ahmose (who founds the New
spring becomes summer, and reaction begins. In the Kingdom), Chandragupta Maurya . . . and the “military-
West, Aquinas perfects Catholic scholasticism, and the industrial-media complex” in the United States. Cultural
heresies that will lead to Luther emerge. In Classical cul- winter leads to artificial, syncretic, postmodern art
ture, the Orphic cults question the Olympian orthodoxy. forms imitating earlier forms.
Springtime art is exhausted.
Final Stasis (200+ years): The imperial state gradual-
Aristocratic State Formation (150-170 years): Major ly ossifies and decays. Classical culture enters final sta-
aristocratic states emerge and contend; this is the era of sis with Domitian, Magian culture with the Ottomans,
the Tudors and the Hapsburgs in the West, and of the Egypt with the Ramessids, China with Han Wu Ti. On
seven warring states in China. The passing of the cultur- Spengler’s schedule, Western culture is due for final sta-
al high summer is reflected in the Renaissance becom- sis some time around 2105. Frozen and dead, the cul-
ing Baroque, or Doric art giving way to Ionic art. New ture’s only expression is gigantism.
mathematics emerge: Classical Pythagorean geometry,
Magian algebra, or Western calculus. At the end of this Aftermath: The empire falls to barbarians, who plant
period comes a puritanical reaction: Mohammed, or the seeds of a new feudal order in its ruins.
Cromwell.

102 PRESENT AT THE CREATION

Alternate histories can ignore the War Spanish Succession put England and
Price Revolutions, react to them, or Prussia on the global stage; the
include Revolutions of their own, at Which brings us to our next cycle, Napoleonic Wars did the same for
the designer’s whim. Again, including the war cycle identified by Quincy Russia; the World Wars introduced
them or something like them vastly Wright. He found that, statistically, a America. In your alternate history,
increases a timeline’s plausibility and major war breaks out between the keep a running tally of great powers; if
realism – two or three centuries of great powers every 75 to 85 years. In they have passed their sell-by date,
prosperity without consequences have other words, every four generations, drop them off in the next big war.
never happened in human history. just long enough for everyone who
remembers how awful the last one was Ecology
The major Price Revolutions are as to die off. This great-power war usual-
follows: ly lasts on and off for 25 to 30 years in The final major influence on the
several phases (like the two World course of history is climate. Like eco-
Medieval (1180-1350): Begins with Wars or the two Napoleonic Wars); nomics, people try to identify cycles in
the invention of banking and the loot long enough to kill a whole generation it such as the El Niño-Southern
of the Fourth Crusade. Ends with the off and get society thoroughly sick of it Oscillation cycle (ENSO), which caus-
Black Death and a century of warfare for another four generations. George es floods in China and Peru, famines
and destruction. The equilibrium Modelski has modified Wright’s theory in India (by wrecking the monsoon),
afterward is remembered as the by introducing the oceanic war, which bitter cold and snow in Russia,
golden age of the Renaissance. he claims is the only kind that actually drought in the American West and
shifts power structures, with a slightly Mediterranean, and general chaos
Sixteenth Century (1520-1620): longer cycle of 90 or so years. Neither every 8 to 15 years. Strong “mega-
Begins with the discovery of American cycle actually fits the dates involved, ENSOs” may have brought the wet,
gold mines and the war against the but if your alternate history has gone cold weather that bogged down both
Turks. Ends with the Thirty Years’ 80 or 100 years without a great-power Napoleon and Hitler in Russia. It’s
War. The equilibrium afterward is the war, toss one in. possible, in a Great Motherland way,
Enlightenment of Newton and Bach. that the reason northwestern Europe
On average, great power wars wound up conquering the world is
Eighteenth Century (1740-1800): result in at least one great power get- that it’s the temperate zone least
Begins with the rise of joint-stock ting the stuffing knocked out of it and affected by ENSO! Still little under-
companies and the sugar boom. Ends removed from great power status. The stood, ENSO may be the most impor-
with the French Revolution and Italian Wars knocked Venice off the tant single weather pattern in history.
Napoleonic global wars. The equilibri- list; the Thirty Years’ War bounced
um afterward is the Victorian era. Spain; the War of the Spanish On a larger scale, global climate
Succession made the Dutch and has fluctuated strongly many times in
Twentieth Century (1900-present): Swedish second-rank powers; the the history of civilization. Major
Begins with the full flowering of Napoleonic Wars knocked Spain back weather shifts may be the reasons for
industrial capitalism and the age of again and finished France demo- plague outbreaks, famines, and other
empires. The current Malthusian graphically; the World Wars pinned demographic crises – every civiliza-
diebacks in Africa, and the wars in the Germany’s ears back, and so forth. A tion in the world went through similar
Middle East, may represent its end great power can try to climb back, crises during the third century and
stage. If so, the mid-to-late 21st which takes about a generation, or set- 17th century, for instance, which
century looks pretty good. tle for decline. Some great power wars argues for global causes. Any of the
introduce a new great power to the following climate shifts probably still
There may also have been Price mix, as previous second-rankers occur in a parallel Earth, unless
Revolutions in ancient Babylonia mobilize to fight. The Italian Wars changing the climate is the point of
(1750-1680 B.C.), classical Greece marked the debut of France as a con- the alternate:
(500-300 B.C.), Rome (90-220 A.D.), tender; the Thirty Years’ War made
and early medieval Europe (850-1000 Sweden a great power; the War of the Laurentide Cooling (c. 6200-5800
A.D.). All of those periods end in B.C.): Four millennia of global warm-
devastating war. ing finally melted a glacial ice sheet in
North America, opening the St.
On average, great power wars result in Lawrence, spilling cold water into the
at least one great power getting the stuffing Atlantic, and shutting off the Gulf
knocked out of it and removed from great Stream. The end of this cold drought
power status. sparked the urban revolution in
Mesopotamia, India, and Palestine.

Boreal Cooling (3800-3100 B.C.):
Another cold drought forces the con-
centration of towns into cities in
Sumer; its end creates Egyptian civi-
lization with the return of regular Nile
floods.

PRESENT AT THE CREATION 103

Sub-Boreal Event (2200-1900 B.C.): Mediterranean air mass moved north Ages in Europe (with demographic
A major volcanic eruption triggers over France and Britain, supporting consequences such as the Crusades),
another cold drought, causing the end Roman wine and olive culture. and dooms the Anasazi as drought
of Egyptian Old Kingdom and Eventually, the warmth led to renewed grips the American Southwest.
Sumerian-Akkadian civic empires. drought, which shifted the air mass
back south. According to legend, the Little Ice Age (1316-1850): Global
Crisis of 1200 B.C. (1200-1100 Goths invaded the Empire over the cooling, possibly volcanic, sets off
B.C.): Major drought in 1200 B.C., frozen Rhine and Danube. famine and plague in Europe and
combined with the eruption of Mt. China. The glaciers advance in the
Hekla in Iceland in 1159 B.C., sends Catastrophe of 535 (535-600 A.D.): Alps during the coldest era (1580-
waves of nomadic invaders through A major volcanic event in Java (possi- 1760). This may also be tied to the
the Hittites, Babylonians, and bly an eruption of Krakatoa) causes a “Maunder Minimum,” a decrease in
Egyptians. This event may have global “nuclear winter,” wrecking sunspot activity from 1645-1710. This
helped trigger the war for Troy, to Byzantium, China, Teotihuacan, and in turn may have triggered the global
seize grain routes in a famine. “Arthurian” Britain. crisis of the 17th century, from the
Thirty Years’ War to the Manchu inva-
Classical Warm Period (300 B.C.- Medieval Warm Period (900-1300): sions of China to the first Indian Wars
200 A.D.): This was probably a shift in Global warming lets Vikings settle in America.
wind patterns; the warm Greenland, sparks the High Middle

ALTERING WORLDS

This section provides specific rules Tampering section on p. 86 gives some Roll on this same table to deter-
for shifting echo timelines, and guide- guidelines for this modifier. mine how long it takes Infinity to find
lines for altering the technological, a “lost” timeline. If the timeline is now
political, or cultural climate of any Any change can cause a shift in a below Quantum 3 or above 7, it can’t
timeline. The GM can require players random direction; a Centran plan be found by Infinity.
in a Centrum campaign (or a more sends the timeline higher 5 out of 6
aggressive Infinity Patrol attempting times, while a vigorous counterblow Modifiers: +1 if the timeline is now
to shift echoes downward before to a Centran plan still sends the echo in Quantum 4 or 6; +3 if it is now in
Centrum can steal them) to develop higher 2 out of 6 times. A thoroughly Quantum 3 or 7. Centrum can find it
their shift plans using these guide- random, accidental, or unplanned in one quarter of the time; modify a
lines, or simply leave things up to a change sends the timeline higher 3 out Centrum search roll by -1 if the time-
Cliodynamics roll. of 6 times, of course. line ended up in Quantum 7 or 9, and
by -3 if it is now in Quantum 8.
TIMELINE No shift is immediate, and if the Centrum cannot find a timeline below
SHIFTING change is effectively reversed during Quantum 6 or above 10.
the period of delay, it does not take
If outtimers, either PCs or NPCs, place. (If the change was severe The above assumes Infinity (or
do something that the GM thinks enough, however, there may be no way Centrum) is doing the searching. If
might “change history” on an unstable to negate it in time.) For the length of Infinity is not aware of the lost
echo, roll 3d. If the tampering was time before the shift, roll 3d6: timeline (e.g., if it was a secret
according to a Centran plan and development of some government or
occurred during a window of Shift Delay Table corporation) add at least +4 to the roll.
paratemporal instability (p. 86), add 3 Many clandestine operations would
to the die roll result. (Add 2 more if the 6 or less 1d days not have the facilities to find a lost
Centran planner scored a critical suc- 7, 8 2d days timeline if they had 20 years to do it.
cess on his Cliodynamics roll.) The 9 1d weeks
GM may also add from 1 to 5 to the 10 2d weeks This also assumes that a faceless
result, depending on the degree of 11 3d weeks team of researchers is doing all the
divergence of the change; the 12 3d¥2 weeks searching. If a PC scientist (or impor-
13 2d months tant NPC) is involved in the search, he
14-16 2d¥3 months may attempt one Physics (Para-
17+ 2 years, plus two more chronics) roll. For every point by
which he makes his roll, subtract 1
rolls on this table from the search roll.

Timeline Shifting Table

9 or less No result, but add 1 to any further roll made within a week.
10-11 No result, but add 2 to any further roll made within a week.
12-13 No immediate result – but if the change is not reversed, roll again in 1d¥10 hours, at +2.

14-15 This modifier is cumulative if rolled more than once.
16-17 Shift of 1 quantum, but not immediately – see below.
18 or more Shift of 2 quanta. See below.
Shift of 1d quanta, minimum 3. See below.

104 PRESENT AT THE CREATION

TRY TO CHANGE p. B473 cover this territory, and the the poor or on a rich minority;
THE WORLD Reinventing the Wheel box specifically holding ceremonial games.
refers to “pre-inventing” older, lower-
This rules system lets meddlesome TL inventions. Whether it’s a futuristic Average change: One that could
Infinity or Centrum agents attempt to grav-car or a geared-down watermill, happen anyway, but might not given
introduce changes into a timeline, a technological change must be existing interests and the political cli-
whether it is an echo or not. It can also designed, constructed, and tested for mate. Examples: war with a weak, rich
model Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen type failure points. The inventor needs neighboring country; appointment of
scenarios involving a stranded some degree of skill at an “invention a cabinet official; tariffs or trade
crosstime traveler trying to “modern- skill” to make any of these things hap- agreements; building a railroad.
ize” his new home, renegade time pen. These same principles apply to
travelers with a grudge against history, other changes. Complex change: One that is not
or Denarius Group brokers trying to likely, but possible, despite major
remake a parallel’s fiscal culture for Political Change opposition or public disfavor.
order and profitability. Examples: war with a powerful coun-
For political changes to a society, try; resignation of a major figure;
None of these rules should ever the agent must have some entrée into reform of tax structure or pension sys-
replace roleplaying or adventure. If the its political process. In an open tem; constitutional amendment.
GM and players would rather poison democracy, this can be as simple as
Frederick the Great than work to taking out ads in the paper, calling a Amazing change: One that could
refashion Prussia’s culture, feel free to Congressman, or staging a public only happen through staggering shifts
go ahead and do it. In general, a spe- rally. In a totalitarian theocracy, it may in opinion or major national emer-
cific player plan should trump any of involve overt displays of sanctity, gency. Examples: disarming unilateral-
these results, as long as the GM doesn’t heavy donations to the shrines, or ly; abdication of the ruler; complete
consider it abusive or ludicrous. What good old kidnapping and blackmail of change of economic system; complete
these rules can do is provide a frame- the sort PCs seem to specialize in. change of political system.
work for long-term campaigns, or a
“time limit” for countervailing action. With access either realized or pos- The GM now makes a “Concept
If the culture of the Mogul Empire will sible, the agent must come up with the roll” in secret against the agent’s rele-
shift dramatically in six months unless change he wants to happen. The GM vant political skill (which depends on
the program of social change is should determine how significant a the political system – Politics,
stopped, the GM can determine change this is to the system: a Simple Administration, Savoir-Faire (High
approximately how many attempts the change, an Average change, a Complex Society), Theology, etc.) to see if the
bad guys (or good guys) can make to change, or an Amazing change. (This agent’s proposal has any chance of
shift things back the other way or parallels the Complexity of a new working. Some systems or issues may
otherwise thwart the alteration. invention, as on p. B473.) An Average require two or more skills: a corrupt
change usually has a degree of diver- Medici city might require Savoir-Faire
Technological Change gence of +1, a Complex one +2 or +3, and Streetwise, for example, or a
and an Amazing change +4 or (if the banking reform proposal might
GURPS already has a guideline for society to be changed is a great power) require both Politics and Finance. Use
introducing technological change into possibly even +5. Definitions, and a the lower of the relevant skills. Timing
a society, on p. B511. According to few examples of each, follow: and failure work as the New
these general guidelines, uplifting a Inventions Concept roll on p. B473.
culture by one TL in one broad field of Simple change: One that would
scientific or technical endeavor (trans- likely happen anyway, but not as soon Modifiers: -6 if the proposal is
portation, weapons, power, or medi- or as favorably as the agent would Simple, -10 if Average, -14 if Complex,
cine, for example) takes two years, like. Examples: saber-rattling against or -22 if Amazing; +5 if the change is
given favorable conditions and suit- a rival nation; promotion for a visibly working well somewhere else
able technical know-how (12 or better favored courtier; increasing taxes on in the world; +1 to +5 if an established
in all relevant skills at both TLs) by the interest group absolutely supports it;
uplifter. This system is extremely -5 if the concept is entirely new to the
abstract, and can be taken as an “out- world or civilization (representative
side limit” for games – few campaigns democracy in ancient China, a
can spare two years of down time, or national bank in ancient Rome).
even spend two years in a “backstory
montage sequence” before resuming The second roll against the agent’s
the action. political skill is the Proposal roll. This
roll lets the concept get a fair hearing
The other way to change a culture’s in the government (or by the people,
technology is at retail: inventing stuff in a democracy). On a success, the
until the locals catch on and the tech- proposal is made in suitable fashion (a
nical revolution becomes self-perpetu- thoughtful article in the New York
ating. The New Invention rules on Times, fortunate-character wall poster,
or witty kenning by the court skald).
On a failure, the concept is presented
hamfistedly or unfairly; any future

PRESENT AT THE CREATION 105

The Cost of Social Change Reputation to a public figure; a new
patron saint or demigod.
Nothing is free, in politics or culture. Although the GM should adjust
these figures at whim, PCs looking to get political changes passed should Complex change: A major, poten-
expect to shell out for bribes, campaign donations, catered lunches for tially permanent change to daily life at
the intelligentsia, full-page advertisements, fawning documentaries, substantial variance with cultural
commercial air time, and so forth. The same is often true of a social expectations. Examples: An unusual
change; expenses add up, whether for marketing, feeding missionaries, new crop; a new art form or major
or buying all those jackboots. Use the following change to an existing one; adding or
table as a guideline for the outlay per citizen removing a -5-point or -10-point
affected: Social Stigma for some group; a
heresy or revival movement.
Significance Base Cost
Simple $1 Amazing change: A revolutionary
Average $2 change in social expectations with
Complex $4 strong opposition. Examples: Vege-
Amazing $10 tarianism; iconoclasm; revolutionary
equality or freelance genocide; a new
Modifiers: Double these costs for a relatively mass religion or conversion to a
wealthy society, or one with a high degree of foreign faith.
mercantile or corporate control. Double them for highly corrupt
political systems (such as 21st-century Nigeria or 1780s France). Costs Use all the same rules and tables as
are set at TL8 levels; modify them as per Starting Wealth by TL (p. B27). above, with the exception of the result
of the Proposal roll. Cultural changes
rolls are at -2. On a critical failure, the more gives any opponents a chance to tend to damp out over time unless
concept seems treasonous, sacrile- delay by 1d-3 weeks (minimum 1); any they are reinforced. A critical success
gious, or cowardly; this reduces the other success means the measure on the Proposal roll makes the change
agent’s local Reputation by at least 4 takes 2d-2 weeks to pass. During this permanent (barring revolution, war,
points (from +2 to -2, for instance). time, the GM should set up at least or other major cultural stress); success
There may be other legal or social one adventure seed, or a dramatic by 3 or more on the Proposal lets the
penalties such as banishment from scene, between the agent and his change last 2d years; any other suc-
court, or danger from angry mobs. He opponent(s) requiring a skill roll (usu- cess lets the change last for 2d
can never present such an idea again ally a social roll such as Diplomacy, months. Further rolls may be neces-
unless he has first cleared his name Public Speaking, or Savoir-Faire). A sary to reinforce success; each such
(e.g., by military victory, royal critical success on that roll ends the roll is at +2 to skill.
marriage, or public abasement). opposition immediately.
Social Gadgeteering
Modifiers: All modifiers listed for Cultural Change
the Concept rolls; +1 per assistant As these rules parallel the New
with skill 20+ in one of the skills Most of the same rules apply to cul- Inventions rules on p. B473, the GM
required for the proposal, to a maxi- tural changes: new religions, cuisines, may wish to allow a Gadgeteer
mum of +4; +1 for each level of Status pacifist or militarist movements, and (Social) advantage that would reflect
above 3 in the local culture held by the so forth. The relevant cultural skill characters from fiction who seem
agent’s Allies, or +1 for each such level may be Propaganda (Advertising), unusually adept at mastering political
held by the agent’s Patrons; -1 to -10 Performance, Poetry, or Writing, for structures and altering cultures
(GM’s discretion) for the level of pre- example. wholesale. (The hero of Harry
existing opposition to the proposal. Harrison’s Deathworld trilogy pops to
Double all penalties for cultural unfa- Some examples and definitions for mind, as does Conrad Stargard from
miliarity! The GM may also add the levels of cultural change follow: Leo Frankowski’s Crosstime Engineer
bonuses for the agent’s Reputation on series.) Costing 25 points, the same as
the subject matter; for example, a +2 Simple change: A simple change to Gadgeteer, it would allow modifica-
Reputation (successful general) a small facet of daily life with obvious tion of the above rules as per the
improves the odds that a military attractions. Examples: A tasty new Gadgeteering rules on p. B475 – lower
proposal will get a fair hearing. snack; a new tune or song; a new rea- penalties to the Concept and Proposal
son to hate a despised minority; a new rolls, and treat all success on the
Any proposal inspires debate and prayer. Proposal roll as a success by 3 or
some level of opposition. Critical suc- more. (A critical success still has the
cess on the Proposal roll means that Average change: A noticeable same effect.) The GM may wish to
the opposition can be ignored or change to daily life, but one not out- come up with his own entertaining
steamrolled and the measure passed side cultural norms. Examples: A new Bugs Table, suitable for the specifics
as soon as possible; success by 3 or cuisine style; a smash hit song or play; of the Social Gadgeteer’s proposal.
adding a negative or positive
There is no Quick Gadgeteer
(Social), as that would be just silly.
Buy psionics instead.

106 PRESENT AT THE CREATION

CHAPTER FOUR

WORLDS
ENOUGH . . .

Although the Atlantic waves sent the deck pitching and Merubaal was like a wisp of fog; visible at a
yawing under his boots, Robert Giancarlo barely noticed, distance, but dissolving into droplets up
his hips and shoulders balancing subconsciously. His entire close. It was nothing but a lucky break that
attention was on the bright purple awning spread from the ’Carlo had stopped in Olispo and heard two
mainmast, and on the stocky merchant sitting cross-legged Dahomeyan longshoremen talking of
beneath it. He had heard rumors of Merubaal’s tent in every Merubaal’s tent being loaded up for the
port from Mobile (although they called it Murgha on this autumn convoy. A quick jump back to the
world) to Carthage, but it had eluded him until last week. Patrol base, a nighttime flight to the Azores,
and then back across to Melkart-2 to catch
the galleass just leaving Funchal harbor.

Merubaal was not going to just vanish
again, ’Carlo swore to himself.

The merchant certainly looked solid
enough now, sitting on his cushions in the

shadows. ’Carlo could see muscle under
the layers of fat that a merchant
required to advertise his prosperity.
’Carlo could also see no guards, which
told him that Merubaal had the whole
crew in his pocket.

“Greetings, prince of merchants.”
Although the phrase was just a formali-
ty, Merubaal somehow seemed to
embody it, from his oiled auburn locks
to his fine calf-skin sandals. Only a
spiky forest of tattoos on one arm
spoiled the effect of urbane luxury. “And
to you, greetings, noble sir. How may
this unworthy one assist your lord-

ship?”
’Carlo knew realities where this

rigmarole could go on for hours –
including at least two meals – before
getting down to business. Fortunately,
on Melkart-2 the Carthaginians had
discovered that time was money. He

dropped to his haunches and pro-
duced the coin he had found in the
ruins of Rome, sliding it across the
silk to Merubaal. “I am interested in
such coins.”
Merubaal stared at his customer for some time before
replying. “Surely the noble lord would prefer finer speci-
mens. I have here hexagons of silver cash from the courts
of the Dragon Empire, and a few of the gold staters of
Baktria, which even the finest sculptors today swear cannot
be matched.” He spread them out next to ’Carlo’s coin, and
indeed the Patrolman’s sample looked somewhat drab and
flat next to their harsh splendor.

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 107

“Yes, those are wonderful pieces,” Merubaal answered in English, Divergence Point
’Carlo admitted, dropping his voice with an incongruous Tennessee lilt to
to a whisper and leaning closer. “But it. “It’s better than you deserve for The year in which this worldline’s
they don’t have George Washington blowing my operation here, Agent history diverges from Homeline’s, and
on them, now do they?” Giancarlo. But you’re Patrol, and I a brief discussion of the resulting
don’t like killing Patrolmen outright. change.
Merubaal was silent for another It’s bad luck.” His fingers uncon-
long minute, but when he replied, his sciously caressed the amulet of Major Civilizations
tone was hearty. Tanith he wore, but he continued
without a trace of Melkart-2 formali- The major civilizations on this
“Is that the name of this king? He ty. “The banestorm will take us some- worldline, roughly in order of cultural-
must have been a poor sort, to adul- place you can’t follow, not without a military dominance. As per p. 90, other
terate his coins with nickel and cop- ship or a seer. And it will take you civilizations almost certainly exist, but
per thusly. I would not give two somewhere else; I’ve sailed this one play only regional or local roles. The
snaps” – and the merchant snapped before, and it’s funny like that. So unity level (p. 91) of each listed
his fingers twice – “for such a king.” you get the glory of discovering an civilization appears in parentheses.
unknown world for Infinity. Sounds
To Giancarlo’s credit, he almost like value for your quarter to me.” Great Powers
instantly recognized the signal to the
nearby sailors. Also to his credit, he The following chapter gives a sam- The great powers on this alternate,
crippled four of them before they got pling of some of the Earths among the per the definition on p. 92. Some “near
the ropes around his legs. This was Infinite Worlds. (Reich-5 and great” powers appear as well, listed in
little comfort, chained up the stink- Centrum received comprehensive italics, either because they are rising
ing blackness of the bilge, but it was writeups in Chapter 2.) Major world candidates for great powerhood, or
some. entries have basic data boxes because they add flavor to the world
providing the following: writeup. The government type (see
When ’Carlo saw daylight again, it pp. B509-510) or political structure of
was a watery green color, shot World Name and Current Year each power appears in parentheses,
through with lightning flashes of along with the general Control Rating
actinic blue, and he was standing on The colloquial name of this world- (p. B506).
the deck with some very sharp spear- line to Infinity personnel, along with
heads inches away from his spleen. the local present year on this parallel. TL
Away from the spearheads, a long
plank stretched over the side of the Current Affairs The tech level of the dominant civ-
ship and out toward the approaching ilization on this worldline, with any
banestorm. A brief summary of the current divergences or split technologies
state of this worldline. If there is an noted.
He craned his neck around to see ongoing global war or other major
Merubaal – or whoever he was – crisis, it appears here. Mana Level
standing on the quarterdeck. “Walking
the plank? Are you serious?” The mana level of this Earth
(p. B235).
Unlike Newton and Schopenhauer, your
ancestor did not believe in a uniform and Quantum
absolute time; he believed in an infinite series
of times, a growing, dizzying web of divergent, The quantum in which this world-
convergent, and parallel times. That fabric line exists (p. B526).
of times that approach one another, fork,
are snipped off, or are simply unknown for Infinity Class
centuries, contains all possibilities.
The World Class and Access Rating
– Jorge Luis Borges, assigned to this worldline by the
“The Garden of Forking Paths” Penetration Service of the Infinity
Patrol (see box, p. 83).

Centrum Zone

The Zone into which Centrum’s
Interworld Service classifies this
worldline (see box, p. 51).

The GM should feel free to adjust
the quantum, mana level, or any other
factor of the worlds involved to suit
his campaign. He can either create a
“new” world (a variant on Campbell
might be Campbell-2, on Quantum 4,
for example), rule that a convenient
reality quake has restructured the
world to his specifications, or just
decree that “this is how it always was”
and go on with the game.

108 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

After the Victorious Armada sailed, ARMADA-2 and Spanish dominions, and sparked
for over 200 years Spain’s naval mas- a brief Protestant rebellion in
tery has guaranteed the dominance of flooded into Madrid, buying the alle- England. The far-seeing policies of
Catholicism, order, and conservatism. giance of princes and dukes in Italy Richelieu and Olivares managed to
As that mastery shreds, the nations and Germany; spices from the Indies stem the tide with financial reforms,
once cowed by Spanish guns have likewise. centralization, and the Canadian safe-
stealthily equipped privateers and ty valve that allowed Huguenots,
buccaneers to contest the seas. The During the next century, turmoil in
explosive growth of steam power in Bohemia, Poland, Russia, and
Egypt and Huguenot Nouvelle-France Germany threatened to the French
creates new economies and new tech-
nologies outside the embrace of Armada-2, 1812
Madrid. Spain’s great rival Sweden,
meanwhile, is arming Indian princes Current Affairs
and Turkish pashas, setting the stage
for another global showdown. An overstretched Spanish realm battles pirates and corsairs all along
the fringes of its empire, as the aggressive Swedes look on.
The Spanish
Ascendancy Divergence Point

When Philip II of Spain died in 1588; the Invincible Armada lands in England, deposes Elizabeth,
1598, he ruled a Catholic empire on and puts Henry Percy on the throne of England as Henry IX. A resurgent
which the sun never set. The Spain puts down the Dutch Revolt (1589) and deposes Henry IV of
Netherlands were once more united France (1591) in favor of Charles du Mayenne, who becomes Charles XI.
under the liberal and tolerant rule of
the Duke of Parma, whose policy of Major Civilizations
tax relief for Catholic merchants had
brought a flood of conversions from Western (fragmenting empire with rivals), Orthodox (empire),
the heretofore staunchly Protestant Islamic (multipolar), Chinese (empire).
burghers of Amsterdam. Missionaries
from Florida had converted heathens Great Powers
as far north as the Penobscot Valley to
Catholicism, and founded missions Spanish Empire (dictatorship, CR4), Swedish Empire (dictatorship,
from Roanoke to Manhattan. Gold CR3), Ottoman Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Russian Empire (dictator-
and silver from Mexico and Peru ship, CR5), Manchu Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Nouvelle-France (oli-
garchy, CR3).

Worldline Data

TL: 5 Mana Level: low

Quantum: 6 Infinity Class: P9 Centrum Zone: Yellow

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 109

Other Armadas former Dutch model, and to sign a
treaty of alliance with Sweden. Finally,
Infinity has discovered two other worldlines where the Armada won. the Albanian mercenary Mehmet Ali
On Armada-1 (Q5, current year 1833), Philip II united the Spanish, climbed to the Ottoman throne in
English, French, and Imperial crowns under a single Holy Roman 1804 and dealt the Spanish fleet a
Empire ruled from Madrid. This ramshackle contrivance exploded in crushing defeat at Navarino. Pirates
revolt during the 1620s-1680s, returning Europe to a patchwork of from Sweden, Scotland (a disaffected
squabbling feudal states. None of them have the economic muscle, intel- former French client state), and
lectual vibrancy, or spare capital to spark the Industrial Revolution; the Nouvelle-France (and corsairs from
world remains at TL4. the Sultanate of Segu in Senegal) prey
on the Spanish Main. As Sweden,
On the low-mana TL4 world Armada-3 (Q3, current year 1602), Spain, Turkey, and Nouvelle-France
English and Dutch rebellions erupted on Philip II’s death in 1598. begin the climb to industrialization
Spanish broadsheets claim that an “invisible college” of sorcerers, (slower and later than on Homeline,
witches, and Rosicrucians is behind the rebellion. but broader-based in more countries),
it may be only a few years before the
Dutch Reformers, and Puritans alike (Olivares and Richelieu may not have armadas sail again and the world is
to settle that wasteland rather than been too disappointed to see the plunged into war.
stay in Europe and make trouble. Austrian emperor forced to turn his
Spain even felt strong enough to push own attention to his alarmingly power- Outworld Operations
the Turks out of Morocco and Algeria, ful Swedish neighbors, rather than
although an invasion of Greece fal- to Franco-Spanish activities in The Patrol is keeping a weather eye
tered in 1683. The Turks, shocked at Germany.) on this alternate, concerned that it
their near escape, began to modernize could slip into a global conflagration
in earnest under their Albanian viziers Over the next century, some of the endangering the generally lucrative
the Koprulus, seen (not incorrectly) as luster came off the Spanish ascendan- trade in fur and auroch meat White
the saviors of Islam. cy. Sweden began to field better, and Star enjoys. The Patrol also suspects
better-equipped, armies against that some Homeline traders have been
Sweden managed to unify Austria and Russia, conquering Silesia slipping the Swedes improved
Scandinavia and the few Lutheran and Novgorod. Swedish traders firearms and ship designs, and
states of north Germany, but wisely founded Christiania in south Africa, possibly even blast furnaces and other
transferred its expansionist aims east and began to poach on India. Swedish crucial war-fighting and industrial
rather than face the combined cannon turned up in the armies of technologies. Tourists primarily visit
Catholic armies of France, Spain, and Spain’s enemies overseas, such as the windswept Stuart Scotland, the
Austria in Germany. Although Nawab of Bengal (whose Swedish immense Lacota trading post near
Gustavus Adolphus’ conquest of artillerists broke the Spanish square in Fort-Nicholas on the upper Missi-
Poland removed a Catholic monarchy the monsoon rains at Barisal in 1763). ssippi, or the steam-powered cotton
from the stage, it forced the Swedes to Spain’s ally France began a steep mills rising under the Pyramids of
tolerate Catholicism in their domains decline, punctuated by famines and Egypt. Centrum’s activities, if any, on
as the Swedish army rapidly absorbed unrest, forcing King Charles XIII to Armada-2, remain mysterious,
and professionalized the endless sup- abdicate in favor of Charles of although the 1809 disappearance of
ply of Polish peasants in its frontier Lorraine in 1789. Nouvelle-France the Spanish colony of Bahia Teresa (on
wars with Russia and Austria. took this opportunity to declare itself the site of Homeline’s Sydney,
an independent Republic on the Australia) is suspicious to say the least.
The horsetail standards of the
Mongol khans wave across grasslands ATTILA his lead. Subotai leveled Venice,
and forests where kingdoms and cities Cologne, and Paris; Mangku crushed
once rose. A vicious cultural cycle, and Dreams of the Alexandria, Constantinople, and
the power of Genghis Khan’s prece- Devil’s Horsemen Isfahan to powder; Kublai destroyed
dent, keeps the horse barbarians on Canton and filled in the Chinese
top of a world without cities. Only According to Mongol tradition on canals, and although the “divine wind”
where the Mongol ponies cannot ride this worldline, when Genghis Khan saved Japan, he was able to add
– Japan, tropical Africa, the New captured Beijing in 1215, he dreamed London and Mecca to the Mongol toll
World – do men build walls and dream that a weed grew out of the city to of destruction.
of progress. choke his horse. The Great Khan
decided then and there to raze the city Kublai reputedly rode from the
to the ground and to forbid the great camp at Karakorum to the ruins
Mongols to ever build cities; he put of Venice and back, but upon his
many more cities to the torch during
his career, and his successors followed

110 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

death the Mongol Great Khanate fell Attila, 2004
apart; it was too big to be ruled by
even the most mobile of khans. His Current Affairs
successors warred among themselves
and adopted non-Mongols such as Descendants of the Mongols still ravage a thoroughly rural Eurasia.
Turks and Hungarians into their clans
to add horsemen to their armies Divergence Point
after the Black Death ravaged the
Khanates. With new cities inevitably 1215; Genghis Khan levels Beijing, and the Mongols continue to
falling to plague or nomads, Europe destroy cities as policy.
has mostly returned to forest; the
Khans of Magya and Potu hunt the Major Civilizations
primitive woodland tribes of England,
France, and Germany for sport. Steppe (diffuse empire), Japanese (unitary), West African (diffuse),
Andean (unitary).
Japan has unified itself under the
Tokugawa, raids the Chinese barbar- Great Powers
ians for slaves, and trades with the
increasingly urbanized tribes from Mongol Khanates (clan/tribal, CR2 for Mongols, CR6 for subjects),
Puget Sound to Peru, most of which Shogunate of Japan (dictatorship, CR5), Great Kongo League (feudal,
are falling under the sway of the sun- CR2-3), Intipu (theocracy, CR6).
adoring, coca-chewing missionaries of
Intipu, the theocracy that succeeded Worldline Data
the Incas in the 1780s. In Africa, the
Bantu nations have urbanized and TL: high 4 (in Japan, Peru, and Africa), 3 (in Khanates)
their city-states squabble within the Mana Level: low
expansionist Great Kongo League. Quantum: 5 Infinity Class: P4 Centrum Zone: Inaccessible
The Oyo (in Homeline Nigeria) have
invented the first steam engines, but Outworld Operations Hungarian horde that nearly killed the
their growing wealth makes them a Scout survey team charting the ruins
tempting target for the militaristic Discovered in Homeline’s year of Rome. Most Homeline visitors to
cities to the east and south. 2001 (local year 1978) by an early Attila are historians, and the Patrol
Scout mission, this worldline was still loses one or two civilians a year on
named Attila due to confusion about this dangerous parallel.
the identity and allegiance of the

Other Mongol Conquests

In 1241 on Homeline, two hordes under Batu and as England reconquers Europe from the White Horde.
Subotai had just eradicated the armies of Poland and The Patrol suspects Centrum involvement behind the
Hungary at the battles of Liegnitz and the Sajo River, Crusaders, possibly within the very influential (and
bringing the Mongol frontier to the heart of Europe. English-speaking) Order of St. Thomas of India.
Mongol scouts had ridden to the gates of Vienna and
Venice, and in the next year’s campaigning, Batu On Cham (Q4, current year 1902), the Mongols not
planned to conquer Germany, France, and Italy. That only ravaged Europe but successfully captured Japan
winter, however, the Great Khan Ogotai died, and by and, following Japanese fishing routes, discovered
the laws of Genghis, all Mongol generals were required America in 1290. The Mongols conquered Toltec
to return to Karakorum to choose a new Khaghan. Mexico and the Incas, while some European refugees
Batu and Subotai rode back to the east, and the Mongol settled in Vinland. The Black Death wiped out 80% of
empire never expanded out of Russia again. Eurasia but left the Americas mostly alone; TL4-5
Mongol-Chinese-Siouan-European hybrid states rule
On Homeline, that is. On several other worlds, such from the Great Plains, and the cities along the
as Attila and Ezcalli (p. 122), the Mongol invasions con- Mississippi are developing steamboats.
tinued their seemingly inevitable course. On San
Tomas (Q6, current year 1580), European refugees On Tengri (Q7, current year 1588), the Mongol con-
from the Mongols fled to the Crusader States in quests forcibly joined Western and Chinese civilization
Palestine, perhaps hoping to be saved from this obvious in a global economy that traded ideas and technology
apocalypse. They gave the Crusader kingdom a big at a fantastic rate. The Scientific Revolution occurred
demographic boost, and by allying with the Mongol at Bokhara in the late 14th century as Italian, Greek,
Ilkhans against the Muslims, the Crusaders survived Arabic, Indian, and Chinese scholars all met; the
and flourished, seizing Egypt in 1380 and sacking World-Khanate is at TL7 and rapidly on the way to
Mecca in 1409 with Venetian ships built on the Red becoming a Zone Green world as the Uplift Service
Sea. TL4 Crusader Egypt dominates the Indian Ocean consolidates its control.

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 111

Many worlds have Industrial AZOTH-7
Revolutions. A few have Alchemical
Revolutions. Infinity uses the “Azoth” ended decisively with the Duke of
designation for them, using the Marlborough installed as Governor of
alchemical name for the “philoso- France, and the French and English
pher’s mercury,” a key ingredient in thrones unified for the first time since
the Philosopher’s Stone. On Azoth-7, the Plantagenets.
Isaac Newton found the keys to the
Stone in the words of the angels. In Gottfried Leibniz had deciphered
1693, he shared those keys with his Newton’s codes and allusions, and
world. derived the Stone (and its attendant
harmonies) himself in Berlin, which
Ad Astra Per Angelis kept Prussia independent, as it har-
nessed Zuriel, the angel of Germany.
Newton unlocked the crystalline The Inquisition announced that it had
harmonic code of the universe, creat- awakened “the holy angel of Spain,”
ing a system of mathematical equa- which it called Barachiel, although
tions that gave man mastery over the English broadsheets trumpeted the
lower orders of angels, including the charge that it had merely made a pact
material spirits of the Earth. Initially, with Samael, one of the Fallen. Before
his discovery merely meant an ever- Spain could subdue all of Italy, the
full English treasury, as gold mines Doges of Venice unleashed their own
erupted in Warwickshire and fish spirits, having somehow obtained the
catches set records from Aberdeen to services of Dobiel and Uzzael, the tute-
Sheerness. The hubristic speculation lary angels of Media and Egypt. A
that followed nearly wrecked the rough parity established itself as the
British economy, and Louis XIV man- four angelic powers took the “four cor-
aged to unite Spain, Austria, Prussia, ners of the world”: England, the
and Sweden in a war against a sud- North, ruled North America; Spain,
denly all-powerful England. Newton the West, took South America and the
was able to summon Amnitziel, the Indies; Venice, the South, took Africa
tutelary angel of Britain, who swept and Turkey; Prussia, the East, took
away the Allied invasion fleet. The war Russia and (eventually) China.

As the angelic-alchemical economy
heated up, and new devices were built

Azoth-7, 1780 that depended upon Stones to work,
the four powers fell to disputation
Current Affairs over supplies of gemstones, which
provided the necessary crystalline
Alchemically powered Britain, Venice, Prussia, and Spain compete to quintessence. Lesser angels could not
harness angels and mine magical gemstones from the far reaches of the move such stones, since the gems’
zodiac. quintessential power resisted such
weak force – the four powers began to
Divergence Point charter first pirates, then privateers,
then mercenary bands, to seize ships
1693; Isaac Newton achieves the Philosopher’s Stone, preparing the on the high seas or even loot mines
way for the rise of angelic alchemy. from each others’ client states. French
“sky dogs” left penniless Paris to
Major Civilizations swoop down on Spanish emerald
shipments from New Granada; Dutch
Western (multipolar). and Hessian homunculi clashed in
Cochin-China; subtle Milanese poi-
Great Powers soners lifted stones from Indian rajahs
and Russian countesses alike. In 1752,
British Empire (oligarchy, CR3), Venetian Republic (oligarchy, CR4),
Prussian Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Spanish Empire (theocracy, CR5).

Worldline Data

TL: 4+2 (space travel and weapons are TL4^)
Mana Level: normal
Quantum: 3 Infinity Class: Z4 Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

112 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

just when the four powers seemed Other Azoths
about to plunge the world into angelic
apocalypse, the immortal but ever On other worldlines, the Alchemical Revolution takes different paths,
more reclusive and peculiar Newton based on their variant magical and physical laws as well as the roll of the
revealed a new discovery. historical dice. (All these worlds are low mana unless otherwise noted.)
On Azoth-1 (Q3, current year 1632), the worldline is TL(4+3). Bernard
The Ritual of Qauqabel allowed the of Treves isolated azoth from quicksilver in 1488; da Vinci developed the
angelist to commune with one of the azothic flyer four years later, which the Medicis used to unite Italy.
Heavenly Virtues, angels who ruled Austrian flyers and azothic cannon drove the Turks out of Europe in
(or personified, the math is not clear) 1571. In 1617, Sir Walter Raleigh became the first man to land on Venus.
the stars of heaven. Each star, Newton
revealed – based on the uncredited On Azoth-2 (Q4, current year 1558), Nicolas Flamel discovered the
work of Giordano Bruno – had its own Red Elixir in 1382; the French and English used it to destroy each other
worlds, and those worlds had gem- in the last stage of the Hundred Years’ War, and the TL(3+2) Italian
stones with unique powers granted by cities, Aragon, Norway, and Burgundy now compete for colonies in the
their ruling angel. Rubies from Americas.
Regulus, for example, made cannon
that fired lances of holy flame; the On Azoth-3 (Q7, current year 1634, high mana), an unknown
glow of emeralds from Spica could alchemist developed the Higher Metals in 1614; two decades later, TL4^
regrow limbs white and smooth; dia- 50-foot armored clockworks devastate Germany in the Thirty Years’ War.
monds from Rigel could erect impen-
etrable walls. Every nation, and every On Azoth-4 (Q6, current year 1010), a Chinese alchemist discovered
independent angelist, immediately set the True Cinnabar some time during the Han Dynasty, which has ruled
out for the stars; colonies grew up China in splendid TL2^ isolation ever since; the rest of the world
under other suns, and soulless aliens remains essentially unaffected.
were brought back as curiosities and
slaves. The four powers found their On Azoth-5 (Q6, current year 854) both the Arabs and Byzantines
rivalry increased, but on a vaster systematized the universal solvent alkahest (which releases Elemental
scope; although the piracies and raids Fire from naphtha, among other things) in the late seventh century, lead-
grew to span the stars, the threat of ing to an alchemical arms race currently at TL(3+4).
war with the new weapons keeps the
peace of Europe intact . . . for now. Azoth-6 (Q4, current year 1903) is a hell parallel rimed with frozen
alkahest and choked with clouds of Elemental Sulfur. Desperate
Outworld Operations Cabalists sometimes prospect there for trans-sublime elements.
Researchers would like to discover if this is the aftermath of an alchem-
Azoth-7 is one of the most exten- ical war, an experiment gone wrong, or what passes on that timeline for
sive pocket multiverses that Infinity a natural disaster.
has ever stumbled across, including
not just Earth and the Solar System balls of hydrogen tens or hundreds of on stealing Bruno manuscripts for this
but scores of other “stellar systems” light-years away from Earth.) reason. The rest of the Patrol’s mis-
somehow tangent to it. (Paralabs is Infinity’s great concern is that some sions on this parallel usually involve
adamant that wherever – and whatev- angelist may burrow further into attempts to balk the trickle of greedy
er – this worldline’s “Polaris” and Giordano Bruno’s research and Cabalists who pop up here and
“Sirius” may be, they aren’t glowing attempt to reach a parallel Earth; attempt to steal manuscripts or Stones
most Patrol missions on Azoth-7 focus of their own.

BONAPARTE-4

In Homeline history, Napoleon Clash of Eagles and Friedland, Bonaparte was master
Bonaparte made his name with a of Europe by 1807. He dedicated the
bold, but ultimately disastrous, inva- With the Hibernian Republic bris- next two decades to reforming and
sion of Egypt in 1798. Outwitting the tling with French troops, Britain’s realigning European laws and sci-
British and outfighting the Turks, his strategic position was untenable. ences on the Napoleonic model, and
romantic exploit fired the imagination Although the Navy fought gallantly, unified the French and Spanish
of Europe. In this world, he sacrificed the need to divide the Home Fleet crowns under his son Napoleon II.
romance for results, slipping out of guaranteed Bonaparte’s invasion of The Portuguese monarchs fled to
the Breton ports in a fog and taking 1802 would succeed. (An opportunis- Brazil, which thus became an inde-
his 40,000 veterans to Ireland. With tic American President Burr invaded pendent Empire in 1820.
one bold stroke, he had broken the and annexed British Canada at the
British blockade forever and made same time.) Polishing off Austria, France and the United States
himself master of the continent. Prussia, and Russia at Austerlitz, Jena, fought three border wars over
Louisiana over the next century,

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 113

Bonaparte-4, 2024 propaganda and posturing student
movements, and the maglev trains
Current Affairs never run on time.

The decadent Bonapartists rule a cyberpunk empire threatened by a Outworld Operations
militaristic United States and Japan, and by the slow disintegration of
their own society. Infinity is hampered on this world-
line by the insistence of the Homeline
Divergence Point French government that nothing be
done to destabilize the French
1798; Napoleon invades Ireland instead of Egypt, leading to British Empire, despite clear evidence that
defeat in the Napoleonic Wars. Centrum is busily infiltrating the
Bonapartist military and scientific
Major Civilizations establishments. As an end-run, the
Patrol turns a blind eye to the massive
Western (empire with rivals), Japanese (empire), Islamic (empire White Star trade in advanced comput-
with satellite states), Orthodox (empire). er and other technology to the United
States, Brazil, and Russia, strengthen-
Great Powers ing their relatively free economies.
Nobody on Homeline has any great
French Empire (dictatorship, CR5), United States (representative love for Bonaparte-4’s Japanese
democracy, CR4), Japanese Empire (military oligarchy, CR6), Ottoman Empire, which still embraces a fanati-
Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Russian Republic (anarchic oligarchy, CR1), cal militarist ideology of twisted
Brazilian Empire (oligarchy, CR4). bushido.

Worldline Data Mana Level: no mana
Infinity Class: P5
TL: 8 (9 in some areas)
Quantum: 7
Centrum Zone: Red

always while the Empire was distract- Other Bonapartes
ed with outside rebellions (Mexico in
the 1820s, India in the 1850s, Spain in Other parallels with a Napoleonic victory include:
the 1880s). The United States never
kept New Orleans, but did take Bonaparte-1 (Q6, current year 1895), a TL6 worldline in which
Florida, Oregon, and Cuba as it grew Nelson died in an attack on Boulogne in 1801. Without Nelson, Trafalgar
stronger and more militarized after ended as a Franco-Spanish victory, and Napoleon dictated peace from
each stalemate. Meanwhile, Japan the Tower of London in 1806. France lost the War of 1812 trying to
invaded China in 1894, and defeated retake Louisiana from America, and the French Empire came apart in a
Russia in 1905, triggering a social- series of German, Italian, and colonial rebellions in 1848-1850; Russia
democratic revolution in the latter. and America (which annexed Mexico in 1853) are dominant powers
French attempts to destabilize the quarreling over China.
nascent Russian Republic led to the
Great War with Russia, Japan, Brazil, On Bonaparte-2 (Q7, current year 1863), Napoleon managed to rout
and the United States in 1937; the war and kill Wellington at Waterloo in 1815. The British stock market and
ended in the Stockholm Armistice of government fell, leading to a reforming Whig cabinet. Napoleon II is the
1942 after both sides invented atomic grand statesman of Europe, and makes noises about intervening in the
weapons. American Civil War.

Since then, the overwhelming Bonaparte-3 (Q4, current year 1913) saw Napoleon hang onto Minsk
French military advantage has been and Smolensk in Russia, and resume the war in 1813 for four more years
sufficient to keep the borders stable against an increasingly mad Czar Alexander. Russia eventually collapsed,
from the Niemen to the Mississippi, breaking the Coalition; a century later, the TL6 Kingdom of Poland is
and to keep the oil flowing from its threatening a global war against the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
Ottoman allies, but not to defeat the
endless rebellions in Latin America, In 1809 on Bonaparte-5 (Q6, current year 1921), both Napoleon and
Africa, and India covertly supported Wellington were killed in battle; Metternich negotiated a peace that left
by the Allies. Slowly drained and ossi- the half-Hapsburg Napoleon II on the throne of France. Austria fell to
fying, the French Empire has become Communist revolutionaries in 1919 after defeating Russia and Prussia in
a globe-spanning banana republic. the Great War; Napoleon V is rallying the West to destroy the new
The secret police is in bed with the Revolution; TL6.
Union Corse, the computer network
links to nothing but government And on Bonaparte-6 (Q6, current year 1969), the Corsican revolu-
tionary Paoli died in 1759, allowing Napoleon to be born Genoese.
During the Revolutionary era, he unified Italy in the Roman Republic,
and conquered Egypt and Greece. Rome allied with Britain and the
United States in the War of 1914 against Germany, Turkey, and Austria.
Fermi’s atom bomb and Caproni’s jets made Rome the first superpower
in the 1940s; TL8.

114 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

BRITANNICA-3

In Homeline, the Protestant Duke Britannica-3, 1984
James of Monmouth rebelled against
the increasingly autocratic (and dan- Current Affairs
gerously pro-Catholic) King James II
in 1685. His followers claimed that as Centrum operatives tighten their hold on a decent, well-run British
Charles II’ bastard son, he was entitled Empire where the sun never set.
to the crown. Monmouth’s rebellion
ended in disaster, and the “Bloody Divergence Point
Assizes” swept his supporters out of
England’s west country and into the 1685; the “Protestant Duke” of Monmouth becomes King James III,
Caribbean and America. It was left to overthrowing James II, and conciliating the American colonies.
a later group of rebels to remove
James II in 1688, in the “Glorious Major Civilizations
Revolution.” On Britannica-3, though,
James of Monmouth was better Western (empire with rivals), Orthodox (empire), Islamic (multipo-
advised, and James II was over-hasty lar).
in his repression. When the smoke
had cleared, the “bastard Duke” had Great Powers
become King James III of England,
and the gentry had learned a salutary British Empire (representative democracy, CR3), German Empire
lesson about royal power. (dictatorship, CR5), Russian Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Kingdom of
Italy (oligarchy, CR4), Arab League (feudal, CR5).
The Sun Never Sets
Worldline Data
Although James III was an amiable
fathead at best, his instincts were TL: 8 Mana Level: low
sound. Colonies were good, radical-
ism was bad, and it was best to keep Quantum: 7 Infinity Class: P9 Centrum Zone: Orange
the one away from the other. In the
American euphoria that greeted of colonial units into the British Army Russian Alaska. Again fought primari-
James II’s deposition, James III was (transforming it into the Imperial ly in France, Persia, and on the high
able to convert the colonial charters to Army) after his astonishing tactical seas, it ended inconclusively once
royal grants, while officially recogniz- successes in the Crimea. That defeat Einstein and Sakharoff invented the
ing colonial legislatures as “our marked the nadir of Russian power, fission bomb in 1947.
American Parliaments” in his happy however; Czar Alexander II’s long
phrase. His successors continued his reign and his visionary alliance with The last 40 years have seen
policy of tying local American elites to Prussia created a continental and German- and Russian-backed agita-
the fortunes of England’s elites – industrial rival capable of matching tion in Ireland, Argentina, and
Benjamin Franklin was knighted for Imperial production. German and Kwantung, and the anti-Italian
his lightning rods and post offices, and Russian backing for the Turks kept the “Gaulist” military coup in France, but
George Washington was granted first Ottoman War bogged down in no real change in the balance of
a Regular Army commission in the trenches for four years until the stale- power. A burgeoning space race, social
French and Indian War, and then a mate broke with the Arab revolt and turmoil and religious ferment, and
peerage for conquering Louisiana in Italian entry on the Imperial side. blossoming sexual license dominate
the Sugar War of 1779-1783. Lord Admiral Sir William Halsey defanged the newspapers and telescreens. The
Washington (later the Duke of the Japanese Navy with a startling sur- North American and Indian
Washington) became the first prise air attack on Formosa in 1941 Dominions lead the world in all three,
Governor-General of North America, that ended the threat of a Pacific War, as well as new industry and invention,
and his personal example defused the but the Alaska War erupted in 1943 under the wisely minimal direction of
Abolition Crisis of 1794 that nearly with the discovery of vast oil fields in His Imperial Majesty’s Government in
precipitated a revolt by Virginia and London.
South Carolina against the Crown.
The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.
By the mid-19th century, the – Oscar Wilde, Intentions
Dominion of North America exceeded
the mother country in all types of pro-
duction and manufacture save for
steel and chemicals. General Sir
Robert Lee pioneered the integration

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 115

Outworld Operations Other Britannicas

Like almost all the Britannica time- On all accessible worlds with a vigorous, globe-spanning British
lines below, Britannica-3 is a tempting Empire, Centrum’s Interworld Service busily attempts to subvert it to
plum for Centrum subversion and Centrum direction and control, with the goal of adding that parallel to
control. Their language handicap Zone Green (p. 51).
presents no difficulties, the British
Empire on this world is already On Britannica-1 (Q5, current year 2001), the American colonies
increasingly meritocratic, and the splintered after independence to become a zone of proxy wars between
Interworld Service operates with rela- the European powers. Undistracted and eventually economically pre-
tive ease on Quantum 7. How deeply dominant in America, the British Empire defeated Napoleon (1792-
Interworld’s tentacles penetrate into 1809), Russia (1854-1856), Germany twice (1910-1914 and 1936-1940),
the London, Philadelphia, Capetown, and the Soviet Union (1958-1963). The Bolshevist War ended with TL7
or Delhi governments (to say nothing Britain holding a near-complete monopoly on space travel and a new
of lesser colonial capitals from Pax Britannica unfolding before it; now TL8.
Havana to Stanleyville) is impossible
to tell from the outside – Centrum and The TL(5+2) Empire of Britannica-2 (Q6, current year 1936)
the Imperial Government have the diverges in 1824, with the death of John Quincy Adams. Prime Minister
same goals, after all! Infinity tries to Canning easily outmaneuvered President Henry Clay, and the British
increase the power and influence of obtained a full claim to Oregon, which they expanded into California in
advanced, decent, neutral countries 1846 to secure their Nicaraguan Canal. (The canal was very useful in the
like Japan (where the military govern- 1862 intervention that separated the American Confederacy as a British
ment fell after the Formosa Raid), puppet.) The Raj extends from Thibet to Persia, British capital domi-
New Granada, and Cochin-China . . . nates the factories of the Germanies through Hanover and Holland, and
but without revealing their presence a British railway runs from the Cape to Cairo. Infinity is unsure how
(and risking a parachronic break- much of this is due to Centrum manipulation; the timeline has been part
through by their beneficiary), there of Zone Green for over a decade. More worrisome are the hints that the
are limits to what Infinity aid can Empire has developed time travel, which if true would explain the
accomplish. The Patrol’s job is not unbroken run of British luck since 1824.
made any easier by the immense
popularity of Britannica-3 with On TL6 Britannica-4 (Q5, current year 1901), Washington was able
Anglophile Homeline tourists. to bring up enough troops to capture British supply depots in New
Jersey and besiege New York in 1777. France jumped in and stripped
Britain of its tropical colonies; George III went mad and the Prince
Regent formed a government led by Fox and his Whig cronies. England
industrialized and radicalized as France ossified; by the 1860s, it was
democratic and overwhelmingly prosperous. Its “freelance anti-imperi-
als” intervened in the American Civil War against slavery, intrigued with
the sepoys who overthrew French India, and ran guns to rebels against
Franco-Russian-dominated China. Prime Minister Rhodes and
President Roosevelt have suggested a democratic English-Speaking
Union with the Canadian and Australian Republics – almost certainly a
Centrum plot in some fashion, but hard to oppose for Infinity without
aiding Continental despotism.

Other Britannicas diverge more strongly still: Britannica-5 is a
steampunk reality absorbed into Zone Green a decade ago.

Britannica-6 (Q6, current year 1887) diverged with the survival of
the Princess Charlotte in 1817 to become Queen Charlotte in 1830 and
spawn a vast new royal family, all of whom continuously intrigue against
each other, exile each other to remote colonial fortresses, and sponsor
senseless, grandiose TL(5+2) engineering projects such as the Channel
Bridge, the Ice Dreadnought, and the Electrical Terror, while betting
immense sums on dromedaries or racing aerostats.

On Britannica-7 (Q4, local year 1141) Boadicea threw off Roman
rule in 60 A.D. and established a matriarchal Celtic tribal union, Brittia,
that spread into Ireland and Scotland over the next centuries. An Irish
cultural-technical upsurge in the sixth through eighth centuries extend-
ed Brittia across the North Atlantic and its influence deep into Europe;
it has alternated holy wars and very profitable intellectual exchange
(reaching TL4) with the Saracen Caliphate in Rome for the last 200
years.

116 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

This timeline is almost 350 years CALIPH healed; universal prosperity brought
behind Homeline, but any visitors economic dislocations, which were
could be forgiven for thinking it cen- between the major powers. The Peace absorbed, and increasing longevity
turies in the future. In Caliph, howev- of Zanzibar ended the last war disrupted social assumptions in ways
er, the invention of the printing press between the great caliphates for that have yet to be entirely resolved.
in eighth-century Baghdad sparked an almost 350 years, although there were
Islamic Renaissance when the first occasional scares such as the fall of Fourteen months ago, an alliance
flush of Arabic expansion had hardly the Qi Dynasty in China and the sup- of old-fashioned imperialists in the
faded. Following its ninth-century pression of the totalitarian Umarites. Caliphate of Hind and a new sort of
Scientific Revolution, this worldline ideological state, the radical secularist
has advanced to universal prosperity The world had sufficient difficul- Jamahiriya in the Americas, launched
and space colonies. At present, a glob- ties even without warfare, as technol- a war of conquest. At first, it was hard
al war threatens its achievements, and ogy continued to advance and society to believe that such an inexplicable
perhaps its very survival. was repeatedly shaken and remade. atavism could pose a serious threat to
Technology brought prosperity and the modern world, but that illusion
The Great knit the Earth together in an increas- has been dispelled. The aggressor
Transformation ingly unified global society, even as it Alliance now controls a third of the
began to reach outward to space. globe, and the rest of the planet
By the time the Abbasid Caliphate Older political structures came to responded with a startling revival of
split into successor states in the 11th seem outmoded, with the decline of martial enthusiasm. The Zaghawi
century, the Muslim world was well national governments reaching its Associates, this worldline’s dominant
towards modernization, with personal apex early in the current century with space corporation, and the only
firearms and Newtonian physics. the formal dissolution of the Egyptian known constructor of djinn (AIs),
Egypt achieved naval control of the Caliphate. Religious sentiment ebbed responded by severing its ties to Earth
Indian Ocean, as far as southern as a universal system of law and eco- and declaring itself an independent
Africa and the island continent of nomics organized the secular world, caliphate – it has bigger fish to fry,
Djiba, while its rival Andalus estab- only to come flowing back as the building a stargate in trans-Neptunian
lished itself in the Mediterranean and approach of the millennial year (1000 orbit and (so they claim) carrying on
leaped across the Atlantic to the new A.H, or 1591 A.D.) tapped into reser- communications with alien species.
world of Talentis (hardly noticing the voirs of popular belief.
Christian colony in the far north). (See GURPS Alternate Earths 2
Persia fought with the Turks for con- Meanwhile, as technology for further details.)
trol of inner Asia, while to the north advanced, Caliph dealt with the side
their protégés the Bulgars expanded effects of success. Industrialization
from their Volga heartland to domi- damaged the ecosystem, which was
nate their Khazar and Russian neigh-
bors. The impact of Muslim culture Caliph, 1684
even reached the Khitans in northern
China, whose conversion revitalized Current Affairs
their state and led to the conquest of
Song Dynasty China. In an ultra-tech worldline, radical secularists allied with the expan-
sionistic empire of Hind have launched a global war against the Muslim
Egypt and Persia led the way into caliphates.
the Industrial Revolution, which
began with oil rather than coal. Their Divergence Point
rivalry for control of the Muslim
heartland lasted centuries, though 796 A.D.; invention of the printing press in Baghdad awakens an
ironically they fought together in the Islamic scientific and industrial revolution.
greatest wars. When the Global War
began with revolts in their Asian colo- Major Civilizations
nial empires, they fought Bulgaria,
Andalus and the African sultanates as Islamic (multipolar), Islamic-Indic (empire).
well as the rebels – and, ultimately,
were overmatched even with Khitan Great Powers
aid. This 10-year struggle introduced
Caliph to industrialized warfare and Umma (anarchic theocracy, CR1), Jamahiriya (technocracy, CR5),
was long considered to have demon- Hind (dictatorship, CR5), Zaghawi Associates (orbital corporate state,
strated the folly of armed conflict CR1), Persia (dictatorship, CR3), Andalus (dictatorship, CR3), Bulgaria
(dictatorship, CR3), Sofala (dictatorship, CR3).

Worldline Data Mana Level: no mana
Infinity Class: Z2
TL: 11 (biotech, TL8)
Quantum: 6
Centrum Zone: Red

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 117

Outworld Operations Oh Mankind, surely you are the ones who
have need of God; He is the All-Sufficient . . . if
Infinity only discovered Caliph a He but wills it, He can do away with you and
year ago, and it remains a top internal make a new creation: surely that is no great
secret of the Patrol and UNIC, neither matter for God.
of which wants to see Homeline idiots
gold-rushing into a deadly high-tech – The Koran, 35:15-17
war zone. If it weren’t for the Zaghawi
Associates stargate experiments (and Other Muslim Worlds
the threat of Centrum getting a jump
on Caliph technology), Infinity would Infinity knows of several other parallels where history diverged to
just quarantine this world and be done vault Muslim powers into predominant roles. Caliph is the only one
with it. High-tech worlds are danger- more advanced than Homeline, although Jihad-2 (Q5, current year
ous enough, without being caught in a 1429), in which Constantinople fell to the Arabs in 676 and Europe fol-
war of godlike energies and insane lowed, is well into a TL5 industrial revolution.
mobility.
In Jihad-1 (Q5, current year 1881), where the Arabs defeated the
Centrum’s reaction to Caliph is Franks at Tours in 732, Muslim Faranjistan is still stagnating with the
panic tempered by greed – it wants the rest of the world at TL4.
high technology, but really doesn’t
want to risk a world this powerful get- In Ottoman-1 (Q6, current year 1766), the Turks took Vienna in 1529
ting parachronics. One solution would and marched to Rome and the Rhine; the Anglo-Spanish alliance is gin-
be encouraging the conflict to turn gerly pressing back into the fragmented taifa states of France and
apocalyptic and sorting through the Germany; TL4.
ruins: the I.S. might try that if con-
vinced it could work, since it seems The Turkish empire in Ottoman-2 (Q6, current year 1766) extends
too late to save this worldline from its over a huge part of Asia, Russia, and India as the Ottomans turned east
Last War. Infinity has been trying to to swallow Tamerlane’s empire upon his death. The Europeans they neg-
negotiate a mutual interdiction to take lected are moving into TL5, however.
Caliph off both sides’ agenda, but
between the greed and the panic, it’s Ottoman-3 (Q4, current year 1640) also diverges with Tamerlane,
unlikely that Centrum will go along. who conquered China in the 1390s and forcibly converted it to Islam.
With Tamerlane occupied in the East, the Ottomans took Constantinople
Unfortunately for both sides, infor- in 1405 and swallowed Europe to the Elbe. Both TL4 Muslim empires
mation is harder to obtain during a (and the remainder of Muscovy) are wracked with revolts and famine
war than in peacetime. It is very diffi- from Germany to Manchuria.
cult to establish a false identity under
current conditions, and just about In Ottoman-4 (Q7, current year 1871), Mehmet the Conqueror sur-
impossible to operate without one (for vived long enough to complete his invasion of Italy in 1481, aborting the
starters, almost all money is electron- Renaissance. The TL6 Ottomans control the Mediterranean and
ic). Law-abiding citizens across the Caribbean both, and are racing the Moguls to African colonies.
Dar al-Islam are ready to point securi-
ty forces toward any sort of odd Other Muslim timelines include:
behavior.
Andalus (Q4, current year 1930), in which the Muslims of Spain
It may actually be easier to operate threw back the Reconquista and went on to discover America in 1484,
in Alliance territory – and certainly achieving TL6 in rivalry with Japan, Saxony, and Russia.
easier to recruit local help. Of course,
the personal consequences of detec- Isma’il (Q4, current year 1594) in which the Safavids defeated the
tion are heavier, but that might be an Ottomans in 1512 and built a millenarian TL4 Shi’ite empire stretching
advantage. Better any captured from India to Algiers.
Patrolmen should be killed on suspi-
cion than questioned deeply enough Khedive (Q6, current year 1941) in which Mehmet Ali’s moderniza-
to reveal The Secret. tion program in Egypt achieved industrial takeoff in the 1860s, allowing
Egypt to absorb most of northern Africa and the Middle East and
become a TL7 great power holding the balance between Britain,
Germany, and Russia.

118 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

Look both ways before you cross CAMPBELL powers begin to hit the wall of eco-
the intersection – the universe you save nomic performance and ecological
could be your own. On the worldline the survivors in concentration camps disaster. Even Russia’s German and
named for him, the science-fiction edi- of their own. Communist China Italian satellites, and China’s Japanese
tor John W. Campbell died in a traffic emerged from the toxic wreckage of and Korean ones, have sunk into
accident early in his career. As a result, Asia and began its own “scientific” Marxist toxic sloth and debilitating
many science-fiction writers from mass murders to build the World of famine. British, Indian, and American
Isaac Asimov to Robert Heinlein never the Future. American and British sol- draftees face renewed Communist
developed their talents, or developed diers who came back from the war aggression in the Middle East,
them in other directions. (Robert had been to the World of the Future, Indonesia, and Latin America, and
Heinlein, for instance, became a suc- and it was a blasted wasteland. Both thank their God (or gods) that at least
cessful writer of young adult mystery countries rejected all such thinking; they won’t be fighting “scientifically”
fiction and, later, TV sitcoms. The waves of pacifism and Luddism this time.
beloved Bob Anson Show was based on spread through the intellectual elite
this part of his career.) The field of sci- and common folk alike. In the 1960s, Outworld Operations
ence fiction didn’t advance much past tens of millions of young people
space opera. Apparently, this reduced embraced charismatic religion in Most Infinity operations on
the number of students who became massive outdoor revival meetings and Campbell fit into one of two cate-
interested in science and engineering, folk concerts, which continued and re- gories: attempting to promote science
because scientific development has emphasized the anti-technological (a real uphill climb in this world;
stagnated here since the end of WWII. bent of society. Environmentalism in White Star has seen four SF maga-
the 1970s and 1980s, and even the zines go bankrupt after being banned
Twilight newly militant anti-Communist senti- by church leaders), and intensive soci-
ment in Britain and America during ological research. The near-total
John W. Campbell’s death didn’t the 1980s and 1990s (which did pro- derailing of scientific progress (all
end all science fiction, of course. Hugo duce a modicum of military research over the world, not just in the United
Gernsback’s Amazing Stories contin- money), all fed into that same channel States) seems like such a dramatic
ued to publish wild utopian scenarios of religious technophobia. result from such a tiny cause that
and odes to antigravity machines; some Patrolmen suspect there’s more
Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers still Campbell remains a poor world to it. A secret society or conspiratorial
appeared in the comics; the dystopic without communications satellites or group might be deliberately retarding
The Shape of Things to Come still pre- personal computers, without robot- progress, or some transhuman entity
miered in movie theaters in 1936, with ized factories or advanced oil-drilling could be trying to remove any possible
its vision of grim, devastating warfare. technology or the agricultural revolu- competition.
Unfortunately, that was the only accu- tion that allowed India to feed itself on
rate prediction of the lot. Perhaps mil- Homeline. It grows ever poorer and
itary-technical decision trees had been more dangerous as the Communist
slightly skewed toward the optimistic
by a steady diet of Gernsback’s Campbell, 2004
pablum, or maybe Robert Heinlein, L.
Sprague de Camp, and Isaac Asimov Current Affairs
were working more productively with-
out writing distracting them from A world without SF becomes a world without scientific progress; the
their war research. (Other would-be impoverished globe girds for the final showdown between Communism
writers with scientific training went and democracy.
into military black programs, too.)
Either way, the Army deployed Divergence Point
radioactive dust bombs against
Germany in 1944, and responded with 1932; SF editor John W. Campbell dies in an auto accident, leaving a
advanced germ warfare when the dearth of positive images of scientific progress.
Nazis unleashed gas in retaliation.
Major Civilizations
A nuclear barrage finished off the
Axis, and managed to poison not only Western (multipolar), Orthodox (empire), Chinese (empire).
Europe and the North Pacific, but also
the American view of science. Science Great Powers
had let the West win the war, to be
sure – but it had killed 170 million United States (representative democracy, CR3), Soviet Union (dicta-
people doing it, and the “scientific torship, CR6), People’s Republic of China (dictatorship, CR6), British
materialist” Soviets were gobbling up Commonwealth (representative democracies, CR2-4).

Worldline Data

TL: 6 (military, TL7) Mana Level: no mana

Quantum: 5 Infinity Class: R6

Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 119

CENTRUM BETA

A newly penetrated Q7 timeline coming. Patrol operations on this their sensors report that Centrum
seems to be exactly like Homeline worldline are particularly reckless, Beta (which Centrum calls
researchers think the world of since they know they face a ticking “Speculum”) is, in fact, an unprece-
Centrum was in the year 1895. Could clock. And if Centrum Beta is an echo, dented Centrum echo, but its
it be an echo? If so, it has untold perhaps their “interference” will actu- paratemporal instability index has an
repercussions for paraphysics as ally move it closer to Homeline! odd geometry to it. Interworld walks
Infinity understands it. Even an ordi- on eggshells, worried that if it dis-
nary parallel has plenty of potential Interworld, meanwhile, finds itself turbs this echo, it will set up a chain
for revelation . . . or trouble. Either in the unenviable position of playing reaction throughout the continuum,
way, why is it the only one they’ve ever defense. Normally, the I.S. gets to pick producing a flood of new Centrum
found? Since Quantum 7 is more its battlegrounds after careful plan- echoes and possibly ejecting their
accessible to Centrum than it is to ning, and has the tactical advantage own world from 8-space altogether. In
Homeline, Centrum Beta swarms with resulting from picked targets and the last month or so, however, I.S. has
Interworld agents – but for once in the overstretched opposition. They have decided to massively increase its reac-
Infinity War, they’re playing defense. not, it must be admitted, adjusted tion team deployments on Centrum
very well to the change. Disagreement Beta – whatever happens, Infinity’s
The Plantagenet Mirror at the higher levels of Interworld free ride here is over.
exacerbates this lack of flexibility:
The history and geopolitics of
Centrum Beta are identical to those of Centrum Beta, 1895
Centrum up to 1895, as detailed on
p. 46-56. (See GURPS Alternate Current Affairs
Earths 2 for further details about
Centrum’s history.) Access to a possible echo of Centrum gives the Patrol a unique oppor-
tunity for research and sabotage.
Outworld Operations
Divergence Point
Since the discovery of Centrum
Beta earlier this year, the Penetration 1120; William the Ætheling’s ship doesn’t sink, and he becomes King
Service has launched several deep William III in 1135, eventually leading to English absorption of France
recon missions into this echo. The under Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Scouts’ goal is to trawl as much infor-
mation as possible about the other- Major Civilizations
wise inaccessible history of Centrum
before the inevitable Interworld Western (universal empire).
counter-operation moves it out of
Homeline’s reach. One particularly Great Powers
bold Penetration Service op cleaned
out every library in Penzance just Anglo-French Empire (semi-feudal dictatorship, CR3-5 depending on
before a tidal wave hit – the Patrol fief).
remains silent on the subject of just
how the Scouts knew a tidal wave was Worldline Data

TL: 7 Mana Level: no mana

Quantum: 7 Infinity Class: Z4 Centrum Zone: Red

Homeline’s United States govern- DIXIE-1 The Confederacy itself retains its
ment takes a particular interest in this particular charms, complete with
Quantum 6 parallel. This worldline stalemate with their old rival. Across Southern belles, riverboat gamblers
begins to diverge from Homeline his- the Atlantic, the German Empire and dashing cavaliers in butternut. If
tory with the conquest of Nicaragua retains the European hegemony it one is (or can act as) a “gentleman” or
by the Southern adventurer William won early in the century. In southern a “lady,” Southern hospitality is all a
Walker in 1856. In Dixie-1, Walker’s Asia, the Indian Republic supplies denizen of Homeline might wish, as
aid ultimately led to a Confederate vic- modern weapons to the rebels in hundreds of well-heeled tourists dis-
tory in the American Civil War – or, as German Indochina, while the newly cover annually. Only white tourists
the Confederates of Dixie know it, the industrializing countries of the and those who can pass for white, of
War of Southron Independence. 130 “Indian Rim” manufacture the cheap course – Southern gentility extends
years later, the Confederate States of electronics which find their way into only to those who belong to a race eli-
America remain locked in a nuclear Confederate dirigibles and Yankee gible for citizenship. Beneath even
stratojets.

120 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

“white trash” factory workers and Dixie-1, 1993
smallholders, nearly half the popula-
tion of the CSA lacks the right to vote, Current Affairs
own land, or move across a state line
without permission. Indeed, in nine of Nuclear stalemate keeps the peace between the increasingly strained
the 21 states of the Confederacy, slave-holding Confederacy and a libertarian Union wary of an apocalyp-
chattel slavery remains legal. tic war.

From Secession Divergence Point
to Superpower
1856; William Walker retains control of Nicaragua, and uses that base
Both the Confederacy and the to break the Union blockade of the CSA, allowing the South to win at
United States spent the decades after Antietam and become independent.
the War of Southron Independence
weathering its economic shocks and Major Civilizations
expanding on the continent. The
Confederacy picked up the pieces in Western (multipolar), Indo-Western (unitary).
Mexico after the French adventure
there failed, as the vengeful Union Great Powers
dismembered British Canada during
the Riel Rebellion of 1869 (the United United States (representative democracy, CR2), Confederate States
States annexed the resulting (oligarchy, CR4 for whites, CR6 for others), German Empire (dictator-
Republic of Manitoba in 1911). ship, CR5), United Republic of India (representative democracy, CR3).
Bismarck negotiated a U.S.-German
Accord to counter the British alliance Worldline Data Mana Level: low
with the CSA, leaving the two Infinity Class: P9
American powers tied into European TL: 8 (aerospace, late TL8)
alliance politics. The Guiana War of Quantum: 6
1895-1897 and the Great War of Centrum Zone: Orange
1914-1921 pulled the knots tighter, as
the situation in Europe came to Europe ended with the German inven- the brink – and driven the “White
determine the outcome in America. tion of the atomic bomb, dropped on Circle” of South Africa, Australia,
With Bismarck keeping Russia neu- Elba in a demonstration shot; the Brazil, and the Confederacy ever clos-
tral, the first ended in a stalemate. In Pacific War ended with a bold rede- er to formal union or pre-emptive war.
1920, German armies (redeployed ployment of the Atlantic Fleet through
after the revolutionary collapse of the Nicaragua Canal and the invasion (See GURPS Alternate Earths for
Russia and the French army) of a fire-bombed Shikoku. In the tur- further details.)
bypassed Patton’s brilliant mobile moil, India had become independent,
defenses in the West and smashed and the Russian Soviet Republic had Outworld Operations
through the trench lines in the escaped the German orbit.
Shenandoah Valley, leaving the The Infinity Patrol has a relatively
Union victorious. The Confederacy The years since have seen an eco- large presence in Dixie-1, facing an
lost Oklahoma, Sonora, Maryland, nomic struggle in North America, even larger variety of problems. (Note
Delaware, and D.C. to the Union by proxy wars in South America and Asia that “large,” given the limited number
the Treaty of Washington. and a continual arms race that has of Patrol agents available, means a
impelled both powers into outer permanent staff of perhaps 20.)
Both the United States and the space. Both Northerners and Naturally, their bulk of work lies in
Confederacy fought new wars in the Southerners call this conflict by a observation and aid to Homeline
1940s, though not against each other name coined by a Richmond newspa- tourists, who flock to the Confederacy
this time. The Union had to rescue its per editor: “The Long Drum Roll.” A in droves. The Patrol’s biggest
German ally from a mechanized brief “Parade Rest” in the 1970s ended headache is nonstop smuggling, large-
Franco-Italian assault by the dictators as the Confederacy, feeling the eco- ly based in Dixie-1’s utterly corrupt
de Gaulle and Mussolini, and the nomic squeeze of its military Fascist Italy. For example, an informa-
Confederacy fought a brutal naval war programs (and inefficient apartheid tion smuggling operation succeeded
in the Pacific against an expansionist economy) clamped down on domestic in introducing spreadsheet programs
Japanese Empire that coveted British dissent and ramped up its military into the local computer industry,
concessions in China and Confederate space program to develop an anti- sparking a revolution in business pro-
oilfields in the Dutch East Indies. missile defense shield. In response, ductivity that has not yet entirely run
(Britain, mired in U.S.-backed revolts U.S. President Knox deployed missiles its course. Legitimate traders like
in India, dropped out of the Pacific to Puerto Rico in 1983. Ten years of White Star primarily export licensed
War early, leaving Australia a perma- tension, while the Union’s Indian and computer technology and software to
nent Confederate ally.) The war in German allies squabbled over territo- Dixie, importing hovercraft designs,
ry in the booming “Indian Rim,” have hypercotton, and intellectual property
left the libertarian North tired of the of all kinds back to Homeline (partic-
struggle but unable to step back from ularly Faulkner novels and bootleg
Janis Joplin CDs).

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 121

Of Homeline’s national govern- Other Dixies
ments, the United States, Germany,
India, Russia, and South Africa main- Dixie-1 was the first of the “victorious, surviving Confederacy” paral-
tain Dixie-1 bases known to Infinity, lels to be discovered. There are five more known to Infinity:
usually in the capitals of their Dixie-1
analogs. Homeline governments Dixie-2 (Q3, current year 1966) and Dixie-3 (Q6, current year 1937)
(especially the United States and both diverge at Gettysburg. In Dixie-2 the CSA dominates the Caribbean
South Africa) are constantly interfer- and the United States is an appendage of French and Japanese bankers.
ing in the Confederacy, despite a clear In Dixie-3 both the CSA and the U.S. are poor, corrupt satellites of
UNIC finding that racial instability in European powers. Both realities are high TL6.
the CSA could trigger a potentially
nuclear civil war. Dixie-1’s popularity In Dixie-4 (Q4, current year 1954), the Civil War occurred in 1844,
among illegal emigrants from the West is still Mexican, and the United States and CSA are allied
Homeline is notorious. Usually against the Mexican and German Empires. Britain is neutral; the world
romantic citizens of the southern is TL6.
United States, these individuals book
a tour to Dixie-1, and then attempt to Dixie-5 (Q6, current year 1943) diverged with Early’s Raid in 1864
disappear. The Patrol’s vigilant watch and turned into a long British quagmire in America that left the CSA an
for “new” inventions catches most of impoverished British puppet and the United States a fanatical garrison
the obvious expatriates, and keeps state between British Canada and the Confederacy. The U.S. military is
interference by outtimers to a mini- TL8; the rest of the world is TL7 or lower, including the Union’s TL6
mum, although the Patrol worries Soviet allies.
constantly that one of these
Confederate patriots might reveal The Dixie-6 (Q6, current year 1910) diverged at First Manassas when the
Secret. Both Centrum and Infinity CSA pushed on and took Washington; Texas and California have both
busily divert physicists on all sides declared themselves independent, and all four nations are rivals for the
away from research that could lead to Indian West.
parachronics. None are really close,
but the CSA is investigating some reaction respond well to Centrum the CSA (in exchange for concessions
backwaters of physics that could sociodynamics, while since the revolu- that leave Centrum in the saddle in
potentially mean trouble. tion, India has enforced church/state Richmond). With the Union and
separation with the express goal of Germany shoved over the edge,
Dixie-1, in both Zone Orange and maintaining egalitarian politics Centrum’s puppets would pick up the
the Quantum 6 battleground, gets despite the Hindu caste system. pieces, and their natural tensions
Centrum’s close attention. Interworld Interworld’s goal is to drive a wedge would allow the Uplift Service to
feels that the CSA is probably easier to between the Union and India, tying the implement some of the Education
transform to its kind of society than is United States tightly to Germany’s fad- Service’s decades of experience at
any rival power; with India the second ing strength, and then to offer ruthlessly enforcing racial equality.
choice. Confederate rigidity and overwhelming strategic advantages to
Birth of the New Sun
The Pan-American research team EZCALLI
that recently discovered this worldline Rome dissolved into civil wars fol-
named it Ezcalli, from the Náhuatl for begins with the Carthaginian discov- lowing the assassination of the
“house of blood.” Here, the Pyramid of ery of the New World and the Emperor Nero. With potatoes planted
the Sun continues to smolder with the Columbian Exchange of foods, dis- in the Gallic soil, the West was no
burning hearts of human sacrifice. eases and ideas occurring two longer dependent on Egypt for food,
Here, slave ships travel from Europe millennia early. Europe and Asia lie and looked across the Atlantic rather
to México groaning with their human somnolent under the placid, orderly, than back to Asia. The Roman
cargoes. Here, the harsh tropical sun static rule of the Mongol Khaghans. Mediterranean economy was split,
beats down on Tenochtitlán’s lakes Rome lies in ruins, its legacy pre- and the Empire split as well.
and factories, shining through the served in the West African Songhay Barbarians swept over Europe; Rome
haze on the Place of the Cactus, the Empire. The Tenochca navies take maintained its rule only in North
greatest city in the world. Here, the colonies overseas as they battle their Africa, by vigorous Christian Caesars
Aztecs rule an expanding empire of rivals the Hotinohsavannih League and cunning diplomacy. In the New
blood and glory. (Homeline’s Iroquois Confederacy) for World, the great empire of
domination of North America. Steam- Teotihuacán, stretching from the
The Tenochca Empire, known to powered industry is common in Africa Orinoco to the Illini, fell to its own
Homeline historians as the Aztec and the Americas, and the first barbarians, the Siouans and Toltecs,
Empire, dominates this world. Its tremors of the scientific revolution are
divergence point from Homeline stirring the Tenochca elites.

122 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

and to new plagues from Asia. Only in an empire based on military skill, eco- Homeline are still trying to decide on
Africa did civilization prosper, as the nomic diversity, and religious blood- a policy toward it. Since no one is wor-
Empire of Mali, centered on the great thirstiness. One after another, the ried about anyone in Ezcalli develop-
Romano-Christian trading city of rivals of the Tenochca from the ing parachronic technology, debate is
Timbuctu, supplanted the Christian Quechua in Peru to the Muskogea over exactly what form covert inter-
kingdom of Ghana. Mali fell to along the Mississippi fell to the Jaguar vention ought to take. While there is a
Songhay in turn, expanding Roman- and Eagle Knights of the Empire. broad consensus (even by the
African civilization from Spain to the Their only obstacle is the Hotin- Homeline Mexican government) that
Congo. ohsavannih League, another expan- something should be done to curb the
sionistic confederacy centered on Tenochca, no one can agree on exactly
The final barbarian wave brought Onondoga in the northeast stretching what to do or how to do it.
peace and one last great plague to the from the Free City of Manannán
warring states of Eurasia. The (founded by Irish traders in 200 B.C.) Infinity’s main worry is coordinat-
Mongol armies raced through to the iron mines west of the Five ing the activities of the groups that
Central Asia and poured into Europe, Lakes. want to “better the lot” of the natives,
crossing into North Africa, taking to avoid revealing The Secret. White
Roman Carthage and ending the last The Tenochca send their pochteca Star Trading is interested in some of
Roman kingdom in 1240. Later Great merchants across the oceans to forti- the unique artistic and cultural arti-
Khans added Persia, China, Japan, fied trading posts on every coast. They facts of Ezcalli cultures, but they
India, Indochina and finally Java to bring back European slaves for the really don’t want to have to disguise
the great Mongol Khaghanate. The fields and mines, and gems, spices, themselves as pochtecas and partici-
Black Death swept through Eurasia, and silks from the Mongol East. The pate in local religious practices. The
crippling the Mongols’ foes, and left Tenochca Empire is on the verge of its Duncorne Foundation has a similar
the Pax Mongolica supreme over two greatest wave of expansion – if it can interest in Tenochca astronomical
continents. beat back its Hotinohsavannih and records, and even more serious
Songhay rivals for the rich spoils of qualms about worshiping Huitzi-
In the New World, another barbar- the senescent Mongol Khaganate and lopochtli. Miracle Workers normally
ian tribe from the fringes of civiliza- the unclaimed riches of Africa and concentrates on relieving the effects of
tion founded a great empire. The North America. natural disasters. It frowns on politi-
Tenochca entered the Valley of México cal intervention except for the preven-
and founded their capital Tenochtitlán (See GURPS Alternate Earths for tion of wars, but many of their
in 1325. After the Black Death hit in further details, and GURPS Aztecs for employees are urging them to make
1361, the Tenochca overwhelmed background.) an exception.
their demoralized neighbors and
established a powerful kingdom. The Outworld Operations Centrum’s intervention in Ezcalli is
political genius and reformer Tlacaelel even more recent than Infinity’s dis-
built the Tenochca Confederacy into Ezcalli was so recently discovered covery of the timeline; the first reports
that Infinity and other parties on of what sounds like Centran activity
have only just appeared. Reports of a
Ezcalli, 1848 visitation of babbling demons at the
Tenochca colony in Knasgord (Home-
Current Affairs line La Rochelle, France) sound a lot
like parachronic travelers disrupting
An industrial Aztec Empire expands across the world. the sacrifice . . . and Infinity is quite
certain that there were no visits from
Divergence Point Homeline. Because of the suspicious
timing, Infinity suspects that some
508 B.C.; Carthaginians discover the New World and launch the source inside Infinity itself leaked
Columbian Exchange of diseases and food two millennia early. Ezcalli’s parachronic coordinates to
Centrum.
Major Civilizations

Meso-American (empire), West African (empire with satellite states),
Iroquois (empire), Steppe (empire).

Great Powers

Tenocha Empire (caste-based dictatorship with strong theocratic
component, CR4, CR6 for subject tribes), Songhay Empire (dictatorship,
CR4), Hotinohsavannih League (representative democracy, CR2),
Mongol Khaghanate (feudal dictatorship, CR4-5).

Worldline Data

TL: 5 (Tenochca agronomy, TL7; Mongols, TL4)

Mana Level: low

Quantum: 6 Infinity Class: R5 Centrum Zone: Yellow

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 123

In Homeline history, Emperor FRIEDRICH Outworld Operations
Friedrich I Barbarossa exemplifies the with their funds, he tamed the nobles
horseshoe nail, the changepoint that and declared a Crusade; with the pres- The Raven Division began opera-
almost happened. He almost brought tige he gained as the liberator of tions on Friedrich in 1214, moving in
the rich cities of northern Italy into a Jerusalem, he forced the Pope to back strength along the Chronobahn
common Empire, losing one campaign down. His policy of encouraging schol- (p. 79), which runs from the Cilician
thanks to malaria, and losing the arship may have made the difference Gates pass in the Taurus Mountains of
Battle of Legnano in 1176 only on this world, where a few court schol- southern Anatolia to the high scarp
through the defection of his vassal ars have access to subtle and terrible above Nicomedia, almost to the Black
Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. He magics. His good relationship with the Sea. On its southeast end, the
deposed Henry with the aid of many Knights Templar (reputed to be wiz- Chronobahn enters Nostradamus
German bishops, and almost broke the ards), through his court meistersinger (p. 138); on its northwest end, it shifts
power of the German nobles, which Wolfram von Eschenbach, may also into Agamemnon (Q3, local year 1189
(along with the tax revenues from have gotten Friedrich a little magical B.C.), which may be a myth parallel
Italy) would have unified Germany as support where it counted. based on the Greek heroic legends, or
a nation much as his contemporary merely a high-mana alternate Earth.
Philip II did for France. His struggle Be that as it may, when he died in Reality quakes are common on that
with Pope Alexander III almost ended bed in 1202, he left the unbreakable parallel, and some aftershocks travel
papal control over the national church- nexus of a German nation to his son along the Chronobahn in Friedrich, as
es, which might have allowed the Henry VI, who added Sicily to the well.
Church to reform gradually without imperial domain by marriage. In 1204,
splintering. And he led the Third allied with the Venetians, Henry VI The Nazis have recruited three reg-
Crusade in 1190, which almost took stripped the remainder of Anatolia iments worth of local German troops,
Jerusalem, except that Barbarossa from the Byzantines to add to the for- which they are training in modern
drowned in the Saleph River and the mer Seljuk territories Friedrich had weapons and military science as best
German armies dissolved. conquered on crusade. Henry’s son they can with the limited resources
Friedrich, the Crown Prince, already available to them. The main Nazi
A Ripple In The River shows signs of genius, and the New training base is the castle of Lampron,
Men from out of the East have brought an impregnable fortress overlooking
On this worldline, Barbarossa man- new methods of war and machinery the Cilician Gates and the
aged to cow Henry the Lion; with his that will further strengthen and enrich Nostradamus end of the Chronobahn.
support, he defeated the Italian cities; the German-Roman Empire. Surely, It lies on the border between the
Friedrich Barbarossa founded a Reich Kingdom of Lesser Armenia and the
that will last a thousand years . . . Kingdom of Iconium ruled by Fried-
rich of Swabia (son of Barbarossa).
Friedrich, 1217 The Nazis have major Raven Division
outposts in Regensburg, the Imperial
Current Affairs capital, Venice, and Messina in Sicily.
Armanen agents have already assassi-
A cadre of SS from Reich-5 seeks to transform the German-Roman nated Genghis Khan and bio-bombed
Empire into the First Reich, a breeding ground for Aryan warriors. Mongolia, which has thrown northern
China into total chaos.
Divergence Point
The Patrol has to work very dis-
1176; Friedrich Barbarossa defeats the Italian cities at the Battle of creetly here; it is imperative that the
Legnano, then doesn’t drown during the Third Crusade in 1190 but lib- Nazis not get their hands on another,
erates Jerusalem, returns and strengthens imperial power in Germany completely functioning, conveyor.
and Italy. Between the possible sorceries of the
Empire’s Templar allies and the psion-
Major Civilizations ic wild talents the Raven Division’s
Mules display, even the slightest hint
Islamic (multipolar), Chinese (empire with satellite states), Western of Patrol activity could bring down
(decreasingly multipolar). disaster. The Patrol also suspects that
some third force operates in this
Great Powers worldline; the Order of the Assassins
has kidnapped at least one Raven
Song China (dictatorship, CR4), German-Roman Empire (decreas- Division trooper, and may be responsi-
ingly feudal dictatorship, CR4), Ayyubid Egypt (dictatorship, CR3), ble for the loss of two Patrolmen from
Khwarizm (dictatorship, CR4), Venetian Republic (oligarchy, CR4). the Ayyubid court in Cairo.

Worldline Data

TL: 3 (plus some TL8 Reich-5 uplifting) Mana Level: normal

Quantum: 3 Infinity Class: Z2

Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

124 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

“Whether we remain in one con- GALLATIN After its own unification in 1871,
federacy, or form into Atlantic and Germany unified the European
Mississippi confederacies, I believe document): Connecticut, New York, Continent in the Great War of 1914-
not very important to the happiness Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New 1916, folding it into a common
of either part. Those of the western Jersey. Eight other American bureaucratic-economic union run
confederacy will be as much our republics checkered the continent: from Berlin. The British resented this
children and descendants as those of New England (rapidly returning to usurpation of their monopolies, but
the eastern, and I feel myself as the British sphere of influence), the could do little but mirror it in their
much identified with that country, in Confederation (in which the states own Empire, creating an economic
future time, as with this.” from Maryland to Georgia operate as Commonwealth dominated by
– Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, almost independent nations), the London. Both powers suffered set-
Louisiana Republic (between the backs in the Pacific War, when the
Jan. 29, 1804 Sabine and Mobile Rivers, having Japanese Empire (having allied itself
split Spanish Florida with Georgia), with Stalin’s Soviet Russia) threw the
Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter the Ohio Association (a Jeffersonian- Germans out of Indochina, the
in many histories (including libertarian confederacy in the Ohio Philippines, and the East Indies, and
Homeline’s), but not in the worldline and Upper Mississippi Valleys), the the British out of China, Burma, and
named for his Secretary of the Texas Republic (an expansionist the Sandwich Islands. (Texas’ refusal
Treasury, Albert Gallatin. In that slave state stretching deep into to open the Nicaragua Canal to any
worldline, Alexander Hamilton had Mexico and north into Indian coun- belligerent power made it difficult for
died taking a Hessian bullet at the try), Deseret (a Mormon theocracy in Britain and Germany to cooperate in
Battle of Trenton, like the one that the Great Basin), and the Bear Flag retaking the Pacific, even if they had
nearly killed future President James Republic of California (including the wanted to.) The Japanese atomic
Madison in Homeline history. company forts north past bombing of Calcutta ended the war.
Madison survived in both worlds to Vancouver). Although border wars Britain, Russia, Germany, and Texas
write his Constitution, but in this and skirmishes broke out from time all built their own bombs in the next
worldline, there was no Alexander to time, on the whole, their relations five years, resulting in a Pax Atomica
Hamilton to defend and explain it in were more peaceable than those in that lasts mostly unbroken to this day.
the Federalist Papers, or to knit the the outside world.
new nation together with a strong
economic policy. The United States Gallatin, 2004
splintered into many “confederacies,”
leaving Thomas Jefferson revered by Current Affairs
all of them, but president of only one.
A balkanized North America shelters under the Texan nuclear
E Pluribus Nullium umbrella as the Germans, Japanese, and Soviets duel for global control.

Without the Federalist Papers and Divergence Point
Hamilton’s oratory, New York refused
to ratify the Constitution of 1787, 1776; Alexander Hamilton dies at the Battle of Trenton. The consid-
dooming the pact. An open conven- erably more libertarian Albert Gallatin becomes the first Secretary of the
tion redrafted the Articles of Treasury, and the nascent United States disintegrates.
Confederation the next year, but ten-
sions over Western trade down the Major Civilizations
Mississippi drove the Ohio Valley set-
tlers further from the weak Western (empire with rivals), Orthodox (empire with satellites),
Philadelphia government. When Japanese (empire).
Napoleon acquired Louisiana in 1802,
threatening to choke off Western Great Powers
trade, Aaron Burr and Andrew
Jackson led a filibustering expedition Europaverein (military oligarchy, CR4 for Germans, CR5 for other
that captured New Orleans; their nations), Soviet Union (dictatorship, CR6), Japanese Empire (military
Louisiana Republic made its own oligarchy, CR4-5 for Japanese, CR6 for subject nations), British
trade treaty with the Ohio Country, Commonwealth (representative democracies, CR4), Texas Republic
ignoring the central government (representative democracy, CR3 for whites, CR5 for non-whites).
entirely.
Worldline Data
By 1860, only five states remained
in the United States of America TL: 7 (some military hardware, low TL8) Mana Level: low
(which adopted a centralizing consti-
tution in 1815 similar to the 1787 Quantum: 5 Infinity Class: P9

Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 125

Outworld Operations legal) to Homeline, but can barely against Sioux terrorism – it has a
make a dent in the traffic without over- remarkably robust set of local militias.
Infinity Patrol operatives on throwing the Ohio government (such Outtime tourism is also tremendously
Gallatin attempt to crack down on the as it is). Although Ohio has no army to popular on Gallatin, especially by
massive smuggling operations from the speak of – essentially free-riding on Homeline Texans eager to see the Lone
Ohio Association (where all drugs and Texas and the United States for its Star Republic standing tall.
many heavy weapons are completely international defense, and for defense

GERNSBACK

This Quantum 7 world follows the Nikola Tesla, the last of the mad scien-
same physical laws as Homeline, but tists, to the daughter of J.P. Morgan,
with some odd variations that led the last of the robber barons. In
technical progress into a number of Homeline history, Tesla and Anne
very bizarre detours. For example, Morgan became good friends, but
dirigibles plow the skies side by side Tesla died a bankrupt bachelor, the
with gigantic atomic-powered cargo majority of his inventions remaining
planes. The transistor is unknown, but in his head or sketched in his note-
rayguns and aircars are common. books. On Gernsback, Tesla’s marriage
Here, the slide-rule is king. stabilized him both emotionally and
financially, and he went on to revolu-
The first Patrolmen here saw the tionize virtually every aspect of
towering Art Deco buildings, the sleek modern life.
aircars, and the omnipresent power-
casting towers and named this parallel The World of Tomorrow
after Hugo Gernsback, utopian
technophile and founder of modern In 1902, the Morgan-Tesla Radio
science fiction. Much about the world Company began global radio broad-
does seem like something out of a casts from Wardenclyffe, Long Island.
1930s science fiction adventure, from The immense success of global radio
the personal jetpacks to the benevo- freed Tesla to concentrate on his life-
lent power of the World Science long goal: broadcasting electrical
Council. power without wires. After years of
arduous laboratory work by teams of
The history of Gernsback diverges
from Homeline with the marriage of

Gernsback, 1965 technicians, Morgan-Tesla introduced
Tesla’s system of broadcast power. The
Current Affairs result was global panic and a stock
market crash. Morgan firms stabilized
The World Science Council puts down all threats to techno-utopia in first America, then Germany; the
the fantastic World of the Future! Dawes-Morgan plan wound up rewrit-
ing the German Constitution to end its
Divergence Point chronic political and economic insta-
bility. Prosperity restored confidence
1893; Nikola Tesla marries Anne Morgan, the daughter of financier in European institutions, such as the
J.P. Morgan, and thus remains sane enough to invent radio and broad- League of Nations, and let the world
cast power with Morgan financing. weather another stock panic in 1929,
and crises in China and Ethiopia in
Major Civilizations 1933 and 1935. The League forced the
aggressors to back down in both cases,
Western (multipolar). further stabilizing the world order.

Great Powers The next crisis began deceptively,
when German physicist Otto Hahn
World Science Council (technocracy, CR4), United States (represen- split the atom in 1938. The League
tative democracy, CR3, CR5 for blacks), German Republic (representa-
tive democracy, CR4), British Empire (representative democracies,
CR4), Japanese Empire (military-corporate oligarchy, CR4-5).

Worldline Data

TL: (6+2) (weapons, up to TL(6+3); broadcast power, TL6^)
Mana Level: no mana
Quantum: 7 Infinity Class: R9 Centrum Zone: Red

126 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

placed the newly founded World The WSC produced an endless stream of
Science Council (WSC) in charge of a superweapons for the League, from tanks firing
program to develop atomic power particle beams to teleguided missiles.
plants. By 1945, the WSC was building
atomic power plants in Germany and shutting down all electrical power on The last I-Cops task is to assist
America. When the Soviet physicist the island and forcing the overthrow stranded tourists – even with the best
Andrei Sakharov defected and warned of the Castro regime. The world is uni- backups and safeties that the WSC can
the world of Stalin’s plan to build an fied and at peace under the benevolent devise, zeppelins do burn up and air-
atomic bomb, the League responded rule of the Great Powers, the League cars do crash. Tours to Gernsback
instantly and declared war on the of Nations, and the World Science seem to attract the oddest tourists in
Soviet Union in 1951. The war was the Council. Planning and technology will Homeline – some Patrolmen still
most massive conflict in world history, deal with the natural economic dislo- recall with horror the trouble they had
with millions of men fighting on both cations of the postwar era. Nothing rounding up all the stray Klingons
sides. The WSC produced an endless can go wrong. from a Homeline SF convention held
stream of superweapons for the in Gernsback’s New York. Other popu-
League, from tanks firing particle (See GURPS Alternate Earths for lar tourist attractions include the
beams to teleguided missiles. further details.) Skydeck of the Mile-High Building,
Eventually, Stalin’s scientists revolted the Cumberland Gap Aircar
against his mad plans, destroying the Outworld Operations Steeplechase, zeppelin cruises to the
bomb project and surrendering to Amazon Hilton, and the Orient
WSC paratroopers dropped from The I-Cops’ primary mission in Electrical Express (Paris to Peking in
League superwings. Stalin died on Gernsback is to oppose the large-scale 36 hours). The biggest draw, however,
April 30, 1953 in the confused capture Centrum operations here. Centrum’s are the Tesla Day (July 10) festivities at
of Moscow, and the world was once obvious strategy is to rapidly evolve WSC headquarters in Queens (cen-
again at peace. the WSC into a technocratic world tered on the 1939 World’s Fair
government mirroring Centrum’s own Perisphere and Trylon), which feature
The League of Nations and the gray elite. Then Centrum could easily parades, scientific demonstrations,
World Science Council were faced mount a decapitating coup and rule and some really spectacular fireworks.
with the massive job of reconstruc- the worldline. Gernsback is a favorite
tion. The League took over the admin- of the Centrum radicals who argue for White Star Trading sells light met-
istration of Russia and the “League partnerships with other timelines. If als in bulk, medicines, and seedlings
Taxes,” which had paid for the war in the dimension war were quieter, they from new crop varieties in Gernsback.
the member countries, now paid for might even win their point: the WSC is They primarily buy different plant
rebuilding and peacetime conversion. close to many “correct” Centran atti- varieties, superscientific alloys, and
The League placed all atomic power tudes and could be a formidable ally cultural artifacts – there is a big
research under control of the WSC to indeed. Homeline demand for original Hitler
prevent any other nation from watercolors, Frank Paul oils, and sci-
attempting to build atomic weapons. Therefore, the Patrol gives covert ence fiction by Gernsback’s versions of
The 1957 Treaty of New York formal- aid to anticolonial movements around Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, and
ized League powers, made the League the world, while hoping to avoid the Isaac Asimov.
Taxes permanent, and mandated fearsomely competent (and jut-jawed)
economic coordination of League gadgeteering WSC Special Tasks The U.S. and European govern-
countries with WSC guidelines and Agents. Although Homeline physicists ments are under increasing pressure
predictions. Finally, it established the are fairly sure that Gernsback is from civil rights advocates, feminists,
League Peace Forces (LPF), a perma- nowhere near discovering parachron- and others concerned about
nent standing League of Nations army. ic technology, nobody wants to make Gernsback’s blithe acceptance of wide-
any bets against the heirs of Tesla. spread race and sex discrimination.
The amazing inventions made However, there are only a few tiny
during the war were perfected and The I-Cops also prevent would-be groups in Gernsback attempting to
marketed for civilians, and a huge eco- Homeline inventors from surfacing in propose alternatives, dismissed as iso-
nomic boom began as war plants Gernsback. These troublemakers fall lated cranks by the mass of public
moved over to peacetime production. into two types: those who want to opinion. Thus, Homeline activists,
The Electronic Brains invented just invent the transistor in Gernsback and hampered by Infinity’s enforcement of
before the war began to produce eco- make a billion dollars, and those who The Secret, have as yet been unable to
nomic predictions, which the League are sure that the WSC will fund their devise an effective approach.
used to manage the global economy. perpetual motion machines.
The LPF contained the few anti-
League rebellions in India, Africa, and
the Middle East, and the WSC stopped
an attempt by the revolutionary gov-
ernment of Cuba to withdraw from
the League. The Council did not even
wait for League authorization before

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 127

HELL WORLDS

ARIANE isolationist TL4 theocracy that rules either; ruins on some parallels showed
Tibet (off limits to Homeliners by technologies from TL1 to TL8!
In 1915, a mutant influenza virus Infinity Development fiat); the rest of
(possibly a version of the “Spanish flu” Ariane’s natives are barbarian tribes After a few more surveys discov-
that decimated Homeline history who raid Homeline colonies. Most ered new “Gotha” worlds, an appalled
around that time) wiped out 99.9% of colonies allow indenture of the Infinity Patrol discerned the common
the population, leaving fewer than two natives, which seems more decent element – on each of these parallels,
million people alive on this Quantum than exterminating them or leaving the pneumonic plague had somehow
5 Earth. Homeline medical science them out in their Stone Age cold to mutated into (or become symbiotic
rapidly discovered a cure for the starve. with) a prion-based disease that spread
Ariane Flu, and after a rapid survey, through any concentrated population
Infinity opened Ariane up for full col- THE GOTHA of over a thousand or so people. Below
onization as a Class O10 world in 2012 PARALLELS that threshold, the mutation usually
(its local year 2002). Homeline settle- couldn’t take hold. Cities became
ment is a mixture of separatist and When the Scouts discovered impossible, and only manor farms and
manor colonies; most of the sepa- Gotha-1 on Quantum 7, they thought homesteads could survive and propa-
ratists are Western cultural conserva- they had stumbled on a particularly gate themselves, ruthlessly purging
tives, including “Reconstructionist” dark Dark Ages parallel; Visigothic their own populations to keep the
groups interested in settling and berserkers had apparently burnt out plague at bay. The infected, however,
restoring 1915 Paris, London, New every city in France. Small fortified became bloodthirsty cannibals (eating
York, and other urban centers. (A manor communities of only a few each other if need be) with social
splinter sect of ultraconservative hundred souls held out, surrounded organization closer to baboon troops
Catholics has a religious colony in by bands of marauding killers who than human tribes, holding onto what-
Rome and Florence.) Some of the slew anyone they encountered. Later, ever cultural pattern fit their horrific
manor settlers paid a substantial pre- Patrolmen discovered the same pat- fate in their own diseased minds.
mium for surviving (or rebuilt) struc- tern on another Quantum 7 parallel, Millennial death-cults blossomed in
tures like the Kremlin, the White in a eighth-century India ravaged by every corner of the globe touched by
House, and the Taj Mahal. The only Thuggee. Civilization hadn’t always the pestilence. On some of the Gotha
surviving autochronous culture is the broken down in the medieval era, parallels (mostly those with divergence
points before 1000 A.D.), the Americas
Gotha Zombies and Australia remain uninfected so far,
but on most of them, civilization has
-102 points collapsed on any level above the
fortified township.
The Gotha virus is a super-virulent pathogen (2d minutes delay, HT-
6, 1d toxic damage, 24-hour interval, 28 cycles) spread, like the pneu- The 19 known Gotha parallels
monic plague from which it somehow mutated, as a respiratory agent. It include eight worlds on Quantum 6,
is very contagious, with an additional -2 to any of the contagion modi- four worlds each on Quanta 7 and 5,
fiers from p. B443. Once a sufferer has lost 2/3 of his HP to the disease, and three alternates on Quantum 4.
he becomes infected, and begins regaining HP at the rate of 1 per day. Infinity doesn’t know if Centrum has
Those infected become “Gotha zombies,” in the callous slang of the discovered any on Quantum 8 or high-
Patrolmen who have to enter a Gotha parallel for some horrible reason. er. Nor do they know what caused the
crossworld outbreak. Perhaps a civi-
Their Night Vision is a 0-point feature, as per p. 176. lization on one of the Gotha parallels
once invented parachronics, and
Attribute Modifiers: ST+1 [10]; DX+1 [20]; IQ-2 [-40]. unwittingly created a mutant disease
Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Per+4 [20]; Basic Move+3 [15]; pool across the worlds. Perhaps the
mutation (although biologically inex-
Basic Speed+1 [20]. plicable to Homeline scientists) is a
Advantages: High Pain Threshold [10]; Less Sleep 4 [8]; Night Vision 5 natural one on worldlines where the
physical laws, or evolutionary epi-
[0]; Temperature Tolerance (Cold) 3 [3]; Unfazeable [15]. demiology, differ slightly from
Disadvantages: Bad Smell [-10]; Bad Temper [-10]; Berserk (Battle rage, Homeline normal. Paranormal expla-
nations, such as a Cabal attack or the
+50%) [-15]; Bestial [-15]; Bloodlust [-10]; Cannot Learn [-30]; Dead death throes of a telepathic god, can’t
Broke [-25]; Delusion (Chosen by Death) [-15]; Ham-Fisted (-6 to be ruled out either, as much as most
skill) [-10]; Hidebound [-5]; Innumerate [-5]; Social Stigma (Monster) Paralabs experts would like to. The
[-15]; Uncontrollable Appetite (Blood and brains) [-15]; Weakness Patrol has taken no risks, however; the
(Bright light, 1d per 30 minutes; Fatigue Only, -50%, Variable, -40%; plague virus has been completely
-80%) [-3]. wiped out on Homeline.

128 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

LENIN-2 Most of the few million poisoned, did not challenge their apparent self-
dying survivors in the current year identification as survivors of the
The Chinese chronicles – nearly the 2021 are at TL3 at best. The Chinese drowned continent Atlantis. In retro-
only ones surviving on this Quantum 6 remnants along the drowned coast- spect, many disappeared ships had
parallel – call the first wars after the lines and interior districts are at TL4/7 likely gone down to the “Atlantean”
Second American Revolution the thanks to (barely) surviving industrial depths; many more vanished that win-
Springtime Wars. The railroad strikes technology; China was probably at ter, and survivors told of strange radi-
of 1876 destroyed the corrupt Grant TL8 by the Autumn War, with desper- ations playing about the rigging as
administration and ushered in a work- ate experiments perhaps reaching sudden maelstroms sucked 74-gun
er’s collective in Chicago; with the TL10. At least one Chinese Orion- warships below.
Barbary Coup and the Christmas drive (nuclear-explosion propelled)
March on Wall Street, the United ship lifted off in 1999 for an unknown Over the next decades, the
Socialist States of America stretched destination; others may have escaped Atlanteans grew better and better at
from sea to shining sea. A lengthy during the war. A few Chinese received working on land, hauling water tanks
campaign against the recalcitrant experimental genetic grafts, hopefully into position, blasting out reservoir
South ended just like the last one, with allowing them to survive ecological craters with odd-colored radiance,
the stronger North winning through disaster. Although Miracle Workers and putting sweating human slaves to
total war; the remaining capitalists and the Patrol are trying to repair work digging canals into the interior.
and reactionaries fled to Canada and Lenin-2, the chances look grim; talent- By 1812 (the current year), the United
Australia. America’s example once ed locals such as Xing La (p. B322) States is only a few military govern-
more fired the workers of Europe; receive priority for outtime recruiting, ments under Andrew Jackson’s
Germany, France, Italy, and Russia all to save a few people before the command, pulled back into the
went Communist in the next 20 years. inevitable choking doom as the last of Appalachians and the southwest.
Only reactionary Britain and Japan the plankton die off. Britain and France are long gone, with
held out, spreading the virus of capi- the other kingdoms of river-riven
talism to Sun-Yat Sen’s Chinese LEVIATHAN Europe. Trapped in Egypt by the
Republic. Atlantean menace in the Medi-
In this Quantum 6 world, humani- terranean, Napoleon Bonaparte has
The Summer Wars of the 1950s ty fights a losing battle against a mys- declared an “Empire of the Sands”
brought down the British and terious TL(1+8) undersea civilization. deep in the Sahara; he leads an army
Japanese monarchies, but the victori- The local humans on this parallel call of Zouaves, Bedouin, and Tuareg with
ous powers quarreled over the spoils the ’A’Nthleioi the “Atlanteans,” due to a hard core of French veterans under
and failed to extirpate China’s boom- their undersea origins, and perhaps Murat. The Russians are a few
ing economy, which as always relied because of the likeness in names. columns of armies, Cossacks, and
very little on overseas trade. By the These aliens, however, have little phys- monks deep in the steppes; the
late 20th century, the stresses of ically in common with the Poseidon- Chinese are warlords on the fringes of
socialist economics had badly dam- blooded human Atlanteans on the Tien Shan and Himalayas.
aged the environment. Just as the Orichalcum (p. 139), and may be
Homeline Soviet Union poisoned native to some other dimension or
whole river basins and lakes, in Lenin- parallel Earth worlds away. The
2 the entire industrial world (except, Infinity Patrol provides some weapons
oddly, China) began to choke on its to the human resistance where it can,
own filth. The Communist powers but outworld aid can do little to turn
blamed the Chinese capitalists, of back the flood tide of defeat short of
course, and declared the Autumn War full-scale intervention by a national
in 2000 as a crusade to end capitalism government on Homeline.
and defeat pollution. In fact, the
Bolsheviks in Russia, the DKAP in The War Against
Mitteleuropa, and the Christian The Water
Communist Congressional Party in
the USSA fought each other almost as It all began on August 10, 1797,
much as they fought the Chinese. The when the ’A’Nthleioi attacked
nuclear exchanges didn’t do nearly as Newburyport, Massachusetts. Ameri-
much damage as did the total ecologi- can militia put up a brave, but futile
cal collapse. The Gulf Stream shut resistance. By that fall, the whole east-
down and shifted global weather pat- ern seaboard was in nonhuman hands
terns. Catastrophic warming melted and ’A’Nthleioi probing raids had
the ice caps and flooded the coast- come ashore in both Britain and
lines; mega-storms tore through the France. Savants speculated on the
desertified continental interiors; mass possible genesis of such fearsome
extinctions wrecked the few surviving creatures, and on their strategy, but
farms and forests.

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 129

’A’Nthleioi (“Atlanteans”) and islands where the few, cringing
human natives live barely support
165 points agriculture or fishing at a TL0 level,
although some tribes practice basic
Amphibious humanoids with pale, shiny, hairless skin, the ’A’Nthleioi ironworking. Most of the cultures on
show every sign of having been genetically engineered from a mixture of Madland seem similar to Lapps or
human, piscine, and alien DNA. They can interbreed with humans, North American Indian or Siberian
although some of the descendants of such matings eventually respond to tribes, albeit made paranoid and fatal-
their genetic triggers and revert to “pure” ’A’Nthleioi, gaining subcuta- istic by the actions of their psychotic
neous fat and striated muscle (eventually almost 100 lbs. worth). They deities.
have large, bulbous eyes, long arms, stubby legs, and clawed and webbed
hands and feet. Their skin and eyes are a pale greenish-gray, though their (See GURPS Fantasy 2 for further
bellies are white. They have scaly ridges on their backs, jaws, hips, and details.)
joints, and over their prominent gill slits. They prefer salt water to fresh,
but can survive in either. Their mysterious acoustic and metallurgical TAFT-7
sciences attain TL(1+8), but ’A’Nthleioi warriors remain most comfort-
able with the sword and trident, at least on Leviathan. The Patrol isn’t sure what to make
of this Quantum 5 parallel, and will
Attribute Modifiers: ST+3 [30]; IQ+3 [60]. likely never resolve the issue because
Advantages: Amphibious [10]; DR 1 [5]; Doesn’t Breathe (Gills) [10]; Infinity has declared it completely off
limits to all travelers. (All complaints
Immunity (Starvation) (Drops into torpor rather than dying, -50%) are referred to the worldline’s ISWAT
[5]; Nictitating Membrane 1 [1]; Night Vision 9 [9]; Peripheral Vision case officer, Dr. William Headley
[15]; Pressure Support 2 [10]; Talons [8]; Telesend (Racial, -20%, (p. B314).) The Scouts who discovered
Telepathic, -10%; -30%) [21]; Temperature Tolerance 4 (Cold) [4]; this worldline in 2023 named it Taft-7
Unaging [15]. because its sterilizing radiation count
Disadvantages: Dependency (Immersion in water, daily) [-15]; Dread matches that of Taft-3 (p. B528). Its
(Swastikas) [-5]; No Empathy [-20]; Overweight [-1]. local present is 1952, judging by the
Quirks: Prefers salt water to fresh [-1]. stars, but the human race either never
Racially Learned Skills: Swimming-12 (HT+2) [4]. evolved here or died out long ago.
Nonhuman archaeological remains
Outworld Operations MADLAND (dated as best Paralabs can to about
16 million years ago) dot the conti-
On Leviathan, the Patrol claims to This truly bizarre and inhospitable nental shelves and some upthrust
be visitors from Mars, trying to help Quantum 4 parallel is high-mana with islands in the Pacific. The continents
out as best they can in the struggle. very-high-mana pockets, deformed by themselves are scarred by thousand-
(Centrum, probably correctly, consid- innumerable reality quakes (which mile stretches of basalt that make no
ers the world a lost cause and has have even disrupted the star patterns; tectonic sense but may indicate a kind
seemingly washed its hands of it.) Madland’s current present year is of focused chain of reality quakes rip-
Unusually for a hell parallel, this unknown) and by the actions of its ping across the Earth’s surface. What
world is only Class R5 – the Infinity malign, insane gods. These gods, animal life survives are deformed
Council has decided that the opportu- which match no known human pan- grotesques, mutated by the radiation
nity to learn about these aliens is theon, are twisted and animalistic, level; the plants are mostly carnivo-
greater than the (so far minimal) risk capricious and predatory. The glaciat- rous or twist themselves in search of
to Homeline security their invasion ed, forested, inhospitable peninsulas light in invisible spectra.
poses.

JOHNSON’S ROME

The dynasty founded by Mark when he could emulate Alexander and several problems the cheerful, opti-
Antony and Cleopatra did not possess rule the East. Rome’s energies drove mistic Antonine emperors never even
Augustus’ genius, but it was in no dan- east and south, adding Nubia and knew they had.
ger of falling to an urban mob, either. Parthia, Sarmatia and Arabia Felix, to
Unlike Rome, Egypt could feed itself; the Empire. The emperor Marcus Gaul and Britain fell eventually, but
unlike the Romans, the Egyptians Ulpius granted a very promising tribe they were reconquered eventually, too.
knew better than to question their in Sarmatia, the Goths, immediate Plagues and famines tore through the
divine kings. The legions still watched foederati status and transferred them remoter provinces, but the Egyptian
on the Rhine, but Antony saw no point wholesale to the Bactrian border to granaries and Nubian gold mines kept
in conquering empty German forests guard the exiled Jews, which solved the eastern core of the Empire alive, if
not always healthy.

130 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

Rome on XXV Johnson’s Rome, 1206
Denarii a Day
Current Affairs
When Alex A. Johnson, the founder
of Johnson Crosstime Incorporated Crossworld terrorism endangers a tourist paradise where Rome
(JCI; see p. 38), arrived in Rome from never fell.
Homeline in 1192, he found the sec-
ond-biggest city of a cosmopolitan Divergence Point
empire just hitting its second peak.
The city of Rome compensated for its 31 B.C.; Mark Antony and Cleopatra win the Battle of Actium; Roman
“second city” status by being very, very center of gravity removes to the east.
traditional and very, very decadent at
the same time. Johnson fell in love Major Civilizations
immediately.
Roman (empire with satellite states), Steppe-Chinese (empire with
He introduced a number of satellite states), Indic (multipolar), Mississippian-Roman (empire with
improvements as he built up his local satellite states).
power base, from the telegraph to ice
cream to hand-rolled cigars. (He had Great Powers
to bribe a Roman admiral to discover
America first, but for lifelong cigar- Roman Empire (dictatorship, CR4), Khitai (dictatorship, CR5), Chola
smoker Johnson, it was more than Telugu (oligarchy, CR4), Pagan (dictatorship, CR4), Lenapea (clan/tribal,
worth it.) As governor of Pannonia, he CR2 for Lenapii, CR4 for subject tribes).
drove off the Pechenegs with horse
artillery and light infantry, and the Worldline Data
ensuing military revolution is spread-
ing to the more conservative generals TL: 4 (medicine, TL5/8) Mana Level: no mana
in India and Gaetulia, stabilizing
imperial defenses at a substantial cost Quantum: 5 Infinity Class: O9
savings.
Centrum Zone: Inaccessible
Outworld Operations
luxurious villas, galleys, and baths JCI If they do, of course, the Vigiles
Johnson Crosstime owns an amaz- maintains for its Homeline tourists. come down on the offenders’ patron
ing amount of the Roman Empire Packages range from the “Seven like a ton of marble; the I-Cops’
outright, second only to the imperial Wonders In Seven Days” shuttle Security Division essentially runs the
family as the biggest holders of land (stealthed hydrofoils and hovercraft Vigiles (in Rome, Alexandria, and
and gold in the realm. Much of its liq- whisk visitors from the Colosseum to Babylon anyway) as a local branch
uid capital goes to bribes, of course; the Pyramids to the Hanging Gardens, office. The Patrol is mostly concerned
the rest is plowed into upkeep for the rebuilt after substantial JCI bribes to with chasing down terrorist cells
the Babylonian city governor) to the based here, especially the ones train-
adults-only “Capri Month in Emperor ing the rebels in Persia, Mauretania,
Tiberius’ legendary palace of pleasure” and Hibernia. In these provinces, the
(in this worldline, of course, Tiberius slackening brutality of the Imperial
Claudius wasn’t an emperor, and did- governors (part of Johnson’s well-
n’t become a deranged degenerate, but meaning reform plans) has encour-
it was his summer villa). Even Time aged overtaxed natives to rebel. And
Tours has given in, running its own they have help: a spate of naphtha-
tours of slightly higher-toned settings bombings in Babylon, Carthage, and
(for a substantial license fee to JCI, of Rhodes has all the fingerprints of out-
course). Roman citizens have grown time planning. The FBI office in Rome
used to seeing flocks of tall, doughy provides full cooperation to the Patrol,
barbarians with outrageous accents and even assists with the occasional
and lots of spare silver; “Jonsonius’ “sweep and capture” raid through the
guests from overseas” usually don’t get plebeian neighborhoods.
knifed and rolled.

President Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t LENIN-1 (or his judgment of vice presidents) a
in the best of health during the 1944 little worse, he left the intensely pro-
election campaign. In fact, he was even had the lucidity to drop the Soviet Wallace a heartbeat away from
barely holding on by his fingernails. embarrassingly left-leaning Henry the Oval Office. On both Homeline and
On Homeline, he was able to summon Wallace from the Democratic ticket in Lenin-1, he died in office on April 12,
the stamina to fight the Axis. There, he favor of the blunt anti-Communist 1945.
machine politician Harry S Truman.
On another worldline, with his health

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 131

Lenin-1, 1989 The West Is Red

Current Affairs Homeline’s leftist historians were
right, in a way; without the aggressive
The United States is the last capitalist power in a world gone American stance in the 1940s, there
Communist. was no Cold War. The Soviets occu-
pied Germany and Japan, and
Divergence Point propped up Communist governments
in France, Italy, Iran, and Greece as
1944; Roosevelt leaves Vice-President Wallace on the ticket instead of the United States concentrated on
Truman, and the dedicated pro-Soviet Wallace becomes President after social reform, disarmament, and eco-
FDR’s death in office. nomic readjustment. When China fell
to Mao’s Communists in 1949,
Major Civilizations Republicans squawked about “losing
China,” but couldn’t sell a land war in
Orthodox (empire with satellite states), Western (multipolar), Asia to the American people, even if
Chinese (empire with satellite states), Indic (empire). there had been somewhere left to fight
it. (Korea, Indochina, and the
Great Powers Philippines had all gone Communist
as well.) Churchill couldn’t keep the
Soviet Union (dictatorship, CR5), People’s Republic of China (dicta- British in the containment business
torship, CR6), United States (representative democracy, CR4), People’s either: India became an independent
Republic of India (representative democracy, CR5), Republic of Great socialist republic, Malaya, Kenya, and
Britain (oligarchy, CR4). Aden fell to Communist rebels, and
Nasser steered Egypt into the Soviet
Worldline Data camp alongside socialist Israel. The
1952 elections dethroned the “lion in
TL: 7 (space, TL(7+1)) Mana Level: no mana

Quantum: 5 Infinity Class: Z4

Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

Other Communist Worlds

Although worlds with successful Communist revolu- decade early, with the United States in a position of
tions are not particularly rare, worlds in which weakness. The U.S. and USSR agreed to cooperate
Communism managed to exceed its not inconsiderable industrially and economically to dominate the Earth
effect on Homeline’s history are, with only five known and space. They are challenged by a nonaligned move-
including Lenin-1 and Campbell (p. 119). ment centered in Brasilia, the United Peoples of Earth,
and by a newly formed aerospace megacorporation,
Lenin-2 is an ecodisaster hell parallel (p. 129). Terradyne, Inc.
On Lenin-3 (Q6, current year 2004), Mussolini
stayed Communist and his government supported the The Patrol carelessly uses the “Lenin” prefix to note
Catalan workers, who were the anti-Soviet, anti-Fascist other worlds with important variances from Homeline
“third force” in Spain during the 1936-1939 War. socialist history. On Lenin-5 (Q5, current year 1965),
Mexico’s Cardénas brought his own socialist govern- Bukharin, not Stalin, took over the Soviet Union in
ment into Mussolini’s “anti-Moscow Socialist Axis” in 1924. Bukharin did not purge the Red Army, which eas-
1938, and Mussolini’s Axis stayed neutral during “the ily threw back Operation Barbarossa in 1941, causing a
inter-fascist struggle” of World War II. The U.S.-U.K. Wehrmacht coup against Hitler that aborted the War.
alliance took an increasingly technocratic stance after General Zhukov took over after Bukharin’s death in
the war, and launched a series of huge government 1956, denouncing him and revealing the gulags to the
“Manhattan Initiatives.” Government scientists intend- West. Zhukov is pursuing full rapprochement with the
ed projects like the Moon shots, the fuel-cell car (caused U.S. against Mao’s China; fascist Germany remains
by concern over Iran’s socialist government joining the neutral.
Axis in 1953), the Concord stratojet, and so forth to
maintain the West’s lead, even after the Soviet collapse On Lenin-6 (Q3, current year 1922), Bakunin won
in the 1960s. This uneven development path leaves the dispute over Marx at the 1872 First International,
Lenin-3 TL6 in some areas (like personal electronics and socialist anarchism remains the progressive wave
and agriculture), TL7-8 in most things, and TL9 in high- of the future among the intelligentsia. Kropotkin’s
profile gadgets like moon colonies, fuel cells, and super- Bakuninite soviets overthrew the czars in 1918; the
sonic aircraft. resulting collectives are fighting a desperate, unorgan-
On Lenin-4 (Q6, current year 2027), a more severe ized war against British and Japanese invaders, who are
Western recession in the 1970s forced perestroika a allied with Marxist death squads directed by Lenin,
Trotsky, and Dzerzhinsky.

132 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

winter”; Churchill retired and accept- from both the Soviets and the vation and industrial collectivism well
ed a history professorship at Fulton Chinese). In 1981, Mexico went out of favor in Homeline’s Politburo. It
College in Missouri. Communist, drawing no response takes an active hand in planning the
from President Kennedy. America few Patrol operations trying to defuse
The United States did respond to tightened its belt, accepted malaise the suicidal politics of Lenin-1’s
Communist movements in the and decline, and hunkered down to Kremlin, which is reaching the end of
Western Hemisphere: President wait for the end. Either the its economic rope trying to stay in con-
Eisenhower overthrew Arbenz in Communist superpowers would trol of Europe, the Middle East, and
Guatemala, and landed the Marines in destroy themselves (and everyone Africa while keeping its armies at full
Havana in 1959. President Nixon con- else) in a nuclear war, or the inevitable strength to defeat China and overawe
tinued this aggressive stance in the dialectic of history would sweep capi- India. After all, Homeline’s Chinese
Dominican Republic and Peru, but talism aside and the United States point out at Infinity Council meetings,
accelerated Eisenhower’s domestic would join Russia, China, Europe, and who else has more experience revers-
statism even further as the postwar India in grim, egalitarian poverty. ing “left diversionism”? Although they
economy slowly ran out of steam. suspect China of wanting to take over
Great Britain became a socialist Outworld Operations Lenin-1 wholesale, UNIC lacks any
republic in 1974, the same year that better alternative. The Patrol hopes for
India formally became a People’s Homeline China has no great love the best, and plans for Lenin-1’s transi-
Republic (and detonated an atomic for this parallel’s Beijing government, tion to hell parallel status.
bomb to announce its independence which continues policies of mass star-
canal-latticed world; France explores
On June 30, 1908, a black hole LUCIFER-5 the soda-water oceans of Venus; the
fragment slammed into the Earth. On Italians prospect the boiling mines of
Homeline, it hit the Tunguska valley in stock market panics of 1929 and 1930. Mercury; all the powers have moon-
remote Siberia. On another worldline, The U.S., Germany, Britain, and Japan bases with lunar artillery trained on
the planet had revolved six hours fur- have space stations in low Earth orbit the Earth’s capitals. In spaceports from
ther when the bolide struck. St. (Jefferson, Valhalla, Victrix, and Pearl Harbor to Singapore, leather-
Petersburg, Russia was instantly oblit- Yamato, respectively); the outer sys- jacketed spacers with cosmic-ray tans
erated, killing the Czar and the entire tem holds an Italian shipyard on Io swagger proudly, knowing that they
royal family. Russia collapsed into and a German base on Ganymede, are the inheritors of the future.
chaos, and Germany moved into the and Britain’s Ceres Station is “halfway
wreckage to salvage what it could. to everywhere,” as the Royal Space
Force (RSF) proudly says. Britain’s
Marsport colony dominates that dry,

After the Skyfall Lucifer-5, 1938

In the radioactive ruins of St. Current Affairs
Petersburg, the scientists of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institut (assisting with the Bold German, American, and British airmen explore the planets in
occupation of a disintegrated Russia) their atomic torch ships, as Imperial Japan and the other powers scram-
found something they didn’t expect. ble for space.
They discovered the keys to the future
– strange elements they dubbed “astro- Divergence Point
nium” and “petrinium.” Astronium
could be built into super-bombs that 1908; Tunguska bolide levels St. Petersburg, Russia, leaving Germany
froze the balance of power, especially supreme in Europe by default, and introducing a superscientific element
after the discovery of astronium in to the dawn of the air age.
ancient meteor craters in Mexico, the
Belgian Congo, and Mesopotamia. Major Civilizations
Petrinium could be used to power
cities with electric force, lighting them Western (multipolar), Japanese (empire)
up for the cost of the wire. And either
could fuel the core of Willy Ley’s torch Great Powers
ships that flew to the planets, some-
how defying the conventional laws of German Empire (dictatorship, CR5), British Empire (representative
action and reaction. democracy, CR4), United States (representative democracy, CR3, CR5
for blacks), Japanese Empire (dictatorship, CR5), Fascist Italy (dictator-
The great powers moved into space, ship, CR5), France (representative democracy, CR4).
using rapid planetary colonization and
exploitation as a psychological “safety Worldline Data
valve,” full-employment program, and
subsidy to big businesses after the TL: 6 (power and aerospace, TL6^)
Mana Level: none on Earth, low on Mars, normal on Venus.
Quantum: 6 Infinity Class: R9 Centrum Zone: Orange

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 133

Outworld Operations Other Lucifers

Centrum and Homeline duel for How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
influence in this parallel, but rather morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which did
than choose up sides and fight a proxy weaken the nations!
war, both Interworld and the Patrol
are trying to infiltrate the space forces – Isaiah 14:12
of all the powers. Centrum believes
that the RSF, the Raumwaffe, the Infinity initiated the “Lucifer” designation to refer to worlds that have
United States Space Corps, and their suffered devastating cometary or meteoric impact. With the discovery of
French, Japanese, and Italian counter- Lucifer-3, the Patrol broadened their usage to encompass other sorts of
parts have what it takes to form the interstellar disasters.
core of a new Centrum, an aerospatial
elite capable of dictating terms to the A “dinosaur-killer” meteorite struck Lucifer-1 (Q7, current year 1991)
Earth below them. Infinity believes in 1888, obliterating human life everywhere except New Zealand.
that this is pernicious nonsense, but Continued volcanism in the Northern Hemisphere has rendered almost
can’t deny the logic that command of the entire atmosphere nearly unbreathable; the New Zealand survivors
the ultimate high ground carries with are reduced to TL2 savagery.
it command of this worldline. The two
sides also compete to analyze and con- On Lucifer-2 (Q3, current year 1492) the “Canterbury Event” (a mete-
trol the many strange artifacts, ruins, orite swarm striking the Moon in 1178) missed the Moon and plowed
reality shards, and anomalous phe- across the Eastern Hemisphere, wiping out urban civilization and ush-
nomena scattered throughout Lucifer- ering in a new Ice Age. The dominant civilizations are the Aymara
5’s solar system. Empire along the Brazilian coast and a Muskogean confederation in the
Ohio Valley, both TL2.

In Lucifer-3 (Q5, current year 2004), radiation from a nearby super-
nova or gamma-ray burster sterilized the surface of Earth in 1979.
Homeliners are systematically looting the ruins of its TL7 human civi-
lization for surviving art treasures and refined raw materials.

Lucifer-4 (Q3, current year 64,403,225 B.C.) is a late-Cretaceous par-
allel where the iridium meteorite has just fallen in the Yucatan (p. 84).

On the normal-mana world Lucifer-6 (Q3, current year 747 B.C.) an
eccentric comet entered an “Earth-grazing” orbit around 2350 B.C.,
causing catastrophic weather shifts every 400 years. Babylonian and
Egyptian wizards plan to invade and conquer the comet when it comes
back around next year.

“Now I am become Death, destroy- MERLIN forces into Teheran in 1979; the Berlin
er of worlds.” Wall vanished into thin air in 1990; in
heartland of America’s postwar a covert 2000 Afghanistan operation, a
– Robert Oppenheimer, witnessing the growth industry: magic. more supernaturally savvy CIA salted
Trinity atomic test, July 16, 1945 the Dead Brotherhood zombies plan-
The Magic Returns ning to destroy the World Trade
Dr. Oppenheimer quoted those Center. Even a stronger, more prosper-
words from the Bhagavad-Gita on In the final analysis, the Manafall ous Mexico redounded to America’s
Homeline and elsewhen, but only on merely made the United States even benefit. The Chinese government has
one worldline did he unknowingly more overwhelmingly powerful in embraced traditional values and capi-
complete a necromantic ritual by Merlin’s history than it was in talism even more fervently than on
doing so. On the world known as Homeline. With almost the entire Homeline; the most dangerous
Merlin, Oppenheimer ripped open the Manabelt on American soil, and with Communists left in the world are the
fabric of reality and a mighty the unbridled forces of capitalism warlords following a reanimated Josef
banestorm blew in . . . and stayed. The unleashed on the marvelous new toys Stalin in Belarus and the Caucasus,
“Hellstorm,” a sorcerous tornado two- magic brings, it wasn’t even close. and a hive-mind of sorcerous penguins
miles tall, blew oz particles (p. 74) Teleportation spells put America’s in Antarctica. Only fascist Argentina,
across a 2,000-mile stretch of North Hermes station in orbit in 1968. ruled by an undying Evita Perón and
America. The “Manafall” awoke the Dragon-riding “Black Berets” and the supported by the Nazi sorcerers in the
world’s magic, especially in the 200- 101st Spellborne Division rolled up the Condor Group, remains a threat to the
mile radius around Alamogordo, New Communists in Vietnam and installed
Mexico. That “Manabelt” became the a pro-American strongman in 1974;
flying carpets carried U.S. special

134 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

Merlin, 2004 Unknown to Infinity or to Merlin’s
CIA, the Condor Group in Argentina
Current Affairs has cut a “Perón-Penguin Pact” giving
them access to the Queen Maud Land
In a world of magic and technology, the United States faces the chal- Hellstorm. To their surprise, not only
lenges of the new millennium with the best of both. did they acquire some very interesting
artifacts and magical insights, they
Divergence Point made contact with the Armanen
Order from Reich-5. Since early this
1945; Trinity detonation unleashes the Hellstorm, a massive, perma- year, Merlin’s Buenos Aires has hosted
nent banestorm raising global mana levels. A second detonation in a Raven Division safe house (and an
Antarctica unleashes an even larger one in 1949. Amt Z Kern: see p. 67), beginning
what could be a very dangerous
Major Civilizations friendship.

Western (empire with rivals), Chinese (empire), Orthodox (empire (See GURPS Technomancer for
with rivals), Indic (empire). further details.)

Great Powers

United States (representative democracy, CR3), People’s Republic of
China (dictatorship, CR5), Russian Republic (oligarchy, CR4), Mexico
(representative democracy, CR4), India (representative democracy,
CR4), Argentina (dictatorship, CR5).

Worldline Data

TL: (7+1) magitech Mana Level: high (within 200 miles of
Alamogordo, New Mexico and within 1,600 miles of Queen Maud Land,
Antarctica); normal (everywhere else)

Quantum: 3 Infinity Class: Z2 Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

free world – Argentina’s victory in the Foundation scholarship) gives her
Falklands War gave new impetus to plenty of excuses for legitimate cross-
magical neo-fascist movements from world travel – and cover for her
Rumania to Egypt. regular trips back to Merlin to report.

Outworld Operations Other Merlins

Infinity discovered Merlin in its Infinity has discovered two more normal-mana worlds with
local year 1992, when the Patrol sent a Hellstorms since 2015, both of which received a Merlin designation;
recovery mission to New Mexico in Merlin is therefore officially Merlin-1.
search of a stranded conveyor thrown
askew by an attempted angel-sum- On Merlin-2 (Q3, current year 2027), a Hamas splinter group nuked
moning. Paralabs finds the magic of Jerusalem in 2012, unleashing the “Manaclysm” and turning everything
Merlin refreshingly technological and from Cairo to Damascus into a high-mana zone. Another terrorist nuke,
scientific, and is eager to learn more. detonated in an oil tanker in Galveston Harbor in 2016, obliterated
Only the inherent difficulties of infil- Houston utterly in the resulting Hellstorm, but made a vast stretch of the
trating a TL8 world (especially one American West high-mana as well; a third nuke might well destroy the
with magical mind-reading) restrict worldline. The Patrol, as well as most local governments, is in a nonstop
Scout missions from gathering infor- race against terror, while chimeras and monsters wander an America
mation on every possible topic. Even both magical and enraged.
unclassified civilian magitech bought
from a Merlin Wal-Mart has led to The Patrol discovered Merlin-3 (Q3, current year 1942) only last year;
useful theoretical advances back on its Hellstorm swallowed Nuremberg, Germany in 1919. The high-mana
Homeline. zone is almost entirely German or German-occupied (Alsace-Lorraine
and Bohemia), giving Germany a sorcerous edge in this worldline’s
Unknown to Infinity, however, ongoing Second World War. Infinity is cautiously trying to support the
beginning in 1998 (Homeline year Western Allies without giving The Secret away to suspicious military
2021), Merlin’s CIA has sent agents of intelligence warlocks. The Patrol is also trying to infiltrate and divert
its own to investigate and infiltrate Merlin-3’s atomic research programs, which it suspects could destroy the
Homeline, using top-secret planar worldline if successful! (See GURPS WWII: Weird War II for further
travel spells. Among their top agents details.)
in place is Georgia Bush; her cover
(working toward a Ph.D. in medieval
cliodynamics on a Duncorne

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 135

MYTH PARALLELS

BURTON Percival are both three years old. The of Roman cavalry, dying nobly under a
rest of Europe is under the Roman nuclear winter cloud, practicing
This high-mana Quantum 3 world- Empire, with some Saracens in Spain Goddess-worship in a pagan paradise,
line parallels the Arabian Nights, with and Africa. The world is high-mana, battling rude French knights, or turn-
djinn and flying carpets, Muslim but magicians are still very rare. ing into a bear during full moons in
Chinese emirates, and islands of glass Ireland.
in the all-circling Ocean. Needless to When the Patrol discovered the no-
say, the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad mana parallel Camelot-2 (Q7, current Just out of curiosity, however, the
is by far the pre-eminent power, year 469 A.D.), they thought that the Echo Surveillance Division of the
stretching from Marrakesh to question of Arthur’s historical exis- Penetration Service is keeping a very
Mongolia, TL3 in everything pictur- tence was settled at last. On this close eye on Echo 1502 Minus.
esque, and TL4 in everything comfort- worldline, a general named Artorius
able or convenient. The few Frankish, became the Riothamus, or High King, MANDEVILLE
Byzantine, or Zanji kingdoms in the of Romanized Britain by marrying the
west and south, or the pagan elephant- daughter of Vortigern, and defends This Quantum 3 worldline matches
worshipers in India, seemingly exist civilization against Saxon invasions. the 14th-century traveler’s tales of Sir
solely to provide someone for the A grubbily unromantic TL2 that John Mandeville, a famous liar and
caliph’s armies to vanquish, and nearly bankrupted Time Tours when plagiarist who in Homeline history
places for exotic maidens to hail from. bad word of mouth depressed ticket may never have traveled any further
Burton attracts all kinds, from sales for the overhyped 2014 (457 than Belgium. The current year
Cabalists looking to bottle djinn to A.D. local) tour, this worldline appears to be 1336, although readings
tourists eager to soak up local color in seemed to bear out the speculations vary wildly in the “Empire of Prester
the souk. of some Homeline writers such as John,” a bizarre, wealthy, Christian
Geoffrey Ashe in every detail. realm stretching across a somehow
The strangest thing about Burton However, other equally “realistic” wider Central Asia between Cathay
is that it exists in a 23-year time loop Arthurs awaited discovery, and the and Persia. Prester John claims the
lasting the length of Harun al-Rashid’s partisans of “Riothamus” have allegiance of the thousand kingdoms
reign, from 786 to 809 A.D. (Some returned to obscurity. in the Indies, as well, including Chana
anachronisms, like the Order of (where people worship the first thing
Assassins, exist on the fringes of the Camelot-3 (Q4, current year 551 they see in the morning), Natumera
Caliphate.) When the Caliph dies, A.D.) is perhaps not the most “mythi- (an island of dog-headed folk),
lamentations are heard for 40 days; cal” of the parallels with a known King Pentoxere (home of the talking birds),
then, the muezzins announce that Arthur, but it is by far the most popu- and so forth. The Arimaspians (one-
Allah has sent the people a new lar with crossworld tourists. In this eyed men) live in the Mountains of the
Caliph, Harun al-Rashid. Other major normal-mana worldline, the fracture Moon in central Africa, and the
figures leave around then, also; zone around 535 A.D. (p. 77) churned Amazons have several matriarchies
Sindbad is always out on his last voy- up reality in a major fashion, leaving and cities on the fringes of Prester
age in 809 A.D. and returning from his Arthur’s knights clad in TL4 John’s empire and in the myriad
earliest apprenticeship in 786 A.D., 40 Renaissance plate mail, living in TL3 islands between Europe and Japan.
days later. Many of the locals seem to 13th-century castles, and fighting a (There are no American continents,
understand this, and hope to take part cruel TL2 Roman Empire ruled by although both California and Brazil
in a story sufficiently glorious to let giants. Although Arthur has begun the are large islands in roughly the same
them live forever young and interest- Grail Quest, Homeline scholars are place as their Homeline counterparts.)
ing; otherwise, they will live, marry, completely at a loss about how the rest
have children, and die like back- of his reign might go. The European nations and Cathay
ground characters. are normal-mana and TL3 (except for
(See GURPS Camelot for further high-mana lands like Cockaigne);
CAMELOT details of these three worldlines.) Prester John’s very-high-mana realm
PARALLELS is TL4. Although the dangers of this
Shortly after discovering Camelot- parallel keep it officially off limits
In Camelot-1 (Q5, current year 3 in 2017, Infinity abandoned the (rated R4), its many nexus portals,
437 A.D.), history follows the path set “Camelot” designation. Analyzing the plus the Fountain of Youth in the city
out by the Arthurian Vulgate Cycle; 535 Event helped Paralabs to develop of Polumbum, the Valley of Jewels,
King Arthur rules a TL3 Logres and is the theory of reality quakes, and the and similar enticements, draw plenty
preparing for the Battle of Badon Hill new parachronic physics predicted of unauthorized travelers.
to break the power of the Saxons. that tens, or even hundreds, of
Lancelot has returned to the Round “Arthurs” waited to be found. On any NOTTINGHAM
Table with Tristram, and Galahad and parallel with a current date between
410 and 660 A.D., the Patrol by now Infinity nitpickers still argue about
routinely expects to discover the “real whether this low-mana Quantum 6
Arthur” in a North Welsh hill fort, a
Scottish border wall, or a detachment

136 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

parallel is a historical anchor (or close under a sentence of death, Robin is “Sherlock Holmes” is one of several
parallel) or a myth parallel. On the reluctant to broadcast his true name actors (one or two of whom have real
side of history, the “Robin Hood” who to anyone. Regardless, Time Tours criminological experience) hired by
battles the Sheriff of Nottingham (and does a nice bit of business in Time Tours to impersonate the Great
robs the papal tax collectors who bat- Nottingham’s Nottingham, keeping an Detective. For a well-paying outworld
ten on the weak King Henry III) lives annual Fair there and doing their own clientele, he “solves crimes” in an
in Barnsdale Wood, not Sherwood, part to rob from the rich (on appropriately foggy Victorian London
and the current year is 1244, almost Homeline) and give to the poor (on slowly coming under the financial
50 years after the death of the mythic Nottingham). Less their cut, of course. sway of Denarius Holdings (which is
Robin’s liege lord Richard I. On the also trying to stave off World War I in
mythic front, he most definitely has a SHERLOCK this timeline). Not all the crimes are
Maid Marian accompanying his PARALLELS bogus, however; not only does one or
Merry Men, and Homeline scholars another “Holmes” get the occasional
are unanimous in agreeing that she is In the close parallel Sherlock-1 local client with a genuine problem,
a late French addition to the legend (Q5, current year 1910), Sherlock they now have an arch-enemy. Time
cycle. His true identity might settle Holmes apparently died at Tours is desperately trying to keep the
things (if he’s a common poacher, he’s Reichenbach Falls in 1891. Just to be activities of a Centrum Unattached
likely historical; if he’s the disinherited on the safe side, Infinity takes extra agent (who, having apparently done
Earl of Locksley or Huntingdon, he’s precautions when visiting Sherlock-2 his research, goes under the name
probably mythic), but given that he’s (Q6, current year 1888) where both “Moran”) from attracting the atten-
Holmes and Moriarty are still alive tion of either the Patrol (which would
In a single reign, King Shalmaneser and awaiting their fatal contest; other close the reality if it knew Centrum
III of Assyria managed to abort Victorian characters such as Dr. Jekyll was attempting to penetrate it again)
monotheism and democracy on his and Abraham van Helsing are also or Scotland Yard. Interestingly, since
worldline, and make a fairly savage alive on this worldline. “Moran” doesn’t want the Patrol inter-
dent in capitalism and literacy. In 854 fering, either, he keeps his outrages to
B.C. on the shores of the Orontes River, The anchor parallel Sherlock-3 a minimum and keeps them “in genre”
his armies slaughtered the Hebrews (Q6, current year 1897) was once a – thefts of submarine plans, airship
and Syrians without mercy, marching major covert Infinity-Centrum battle- piracy, conspiring with wicked female
across the river on the bodies of the ground, which the Patrol cleared out agents from the Continent, and that
slain. While one detachment destroyed four years ago. It is now a popular sort of thing.
the Hebrew capitals of Samaria and Time Tours destination in which
Jerusalem, the main armies wheeled
west and caught Tyre and Sidon unpre- NERGAL
pared. Captured Phoenecian ships car-
ried the Assyrian armies to the Nergal, 1678
Phrygian flank and secured the
empire’s rear. The later obliteration of Current Affairs
the few Greek oil-and-wine trading
cities on the Aegean didn’t even get a The dark sorceries of the Assyrian priests draw a shadow across the
whole paragraph on the triumphant world as the icy gates of hell slowly creak open.
stelae of Shamshiadad V. Tyre and
Sidon foolishly attempted a revolt Divergence Point
that ended with both cities destroyed;
their strange “alphabetic” script sur- 854 B.C.; Assyria defeats Aram and Israel at the Battle of Qarqar,
vives only in a few potsherds on the eradicates Hebrews entirely.
Coele-syrian coast.
Major Civilizations

Neo-Assyrian (empire with rivals), Irano-Indic (multipolar), Steppe-
Chinese (multipolar), Meso-American (multipolar).

Great Powers

Sixth Assyrian Empire (dictatorship, CR5 for Assyrians, CR6 for sub-
ject peoples), Kanavashya (feudal, CR3), Tujue (dictatorship, CR5),
Nerwa (oligarchy, CR4), Denehtec Empire (theocracy, CR5).

Worldline Data Mana Level: normal
Infinity Class: P7
TL: 2-3 (no gunpowder or paper)
Quantum: 5
Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 137

The Terror That lords of Asshur presses against the contamination here as possible. The
Was Asshur Persian caste-lords in Kanavashya and Council has rejected simply conquer-
the other Indian kingdoms, and ing this parallel and deposing its
Even the Assyrian tyranny could against the human-sacrificing Nerwa homicidal empires by force, but the
not last forever, although it lasted long in Gaul, whose tall ships scour the Patrol has taken over southern Africa
enough to drive the Medes and Atlantic looking for slaves in the New and built a thriving TL3 Xhosa-Tamil
Scythians back east, to pillage softer World. So far, the Denehtec in Mexico society along its coasts protected by
targets in India and China. (Tujue, the have held out against the Celtic pirate “the sky gods.” (The interior is TL8
Turkish marcher state in China, is the raids, but new plagues are spreading mining camps, a climatological
latest inheritor of their barbaric over the land, and no matter how research station studying the anom-
empires.) But when it fell, all future many hearts are torn out on the altars alous Ice Age in progress, and a large
empires remembered the murderous of Kokopetl, nothing seems to bring Paralabs magical research center on
glory of Assyria and emulated it ever back the sun. Winter is coming to the the site of Homeline’s Great
after. The newest Assyrian Empire (the world, and only the cruel will survive. Zimbabwe.) Every so often, a Patrol
Sixth) reigns in efficient terror from This is the will of all the surviving gods. “wizard” – or even a genuine wizard,
Persia to the shores of Italy. Its cruel usually from ISWAT – recruits a band
priests trade gangs of slaves between Outworld Operations of adventurous locals and lead them
their basalt ziggurats, and read the into one or another dark realm to lib-
entrails of those slaves fortunate On this world, the Infinity Patrol erate slaves, destroy arms factories,
enough to be offered to the gods . . . a operates almost openly; Nergal’s and otherwise psychologically desta-
Phoenecian custom, unlike coinage, primitive industry poses no threat to bilize the rulers of this nightmare
that the Assyrians did adapt. The dead- The Secret, and frankly the Patrol parallel.
ly efficient war machine of the dark would like to cause as much cultural

NOSTRADAMUS

The French pharmacist and Protestantism in 1578 with Prophecy of Valencia defeated, when Venice
astrologer Michel de Nostredame did V:96 (“Upon the world’s center, the and more take up the affair”) and
a good business in almanacs and Rose . . . At the time of need help will brought the Dutch to heel (Prophecy
horoscopes, while cultivating true come too late.”) Other prophecies, VI:100 “Daughter of the breeze . . .
prophecy. In Homeline’s history, he and a certain amount of old-fash- You will be captive, and more than
gained the patronage of Catherine de’ ioned Medici power politics, raised four times.”). As Nostredame’s elixirs
Medici, the true ruler of France. In the France and its ally Venice to power in kept Catherine alive, she kept France
worldline named for his Latin pseudo- Italy (Prophecy VIII:11 “The great one supreme in Europe.
nym, Nostredame’s scholarship
brought a further reward, the Nostradamus, 1602
Iamblichan Words of Power used by
initiates in the Egyptian Mysteries. He Current Affairs
incorporated them into his
Prophecies, and after his death in Nazis from Reich-5 conquered Mesopotamia on this world where
1566 (which he predicted), Catherine prophecy is a weapon; they use it as a base to strike deep into the con-
had his manuscripts seized by her tinuum.
court magi and suppressed elsewhere.
She began manipulating events to Divergence Point
match the prophetic Words. In short
order, Catherine had raised her son 1555; the seer Nostradamus somehow incorporates Words of Power
Charles to the throne of the Saint- into his prophecies, to the immediate benefit of Catherine de’ Medici of
Empire Romain and purged her ene- France.
mies before they even knew of their
own plots. In this history, France Major Civilizations
would have no civil war or Huguenot
revolt. Western (multipolar), Islamic (empire with rivals), Chinese (empire).

Au Milieu de Branches Great Powers

Her position secure in France, Neubabalon (military dictatorship, CR5 for Nazis, CR6 for everyone
Catherine used Prophecy V:49 (“Not else), Saint-Empire Romain (dictatorship, CR4), Ottoman Empire (dic-
Spain but ancient France will be tatorship, CR5), Ming China (dictatorship, CR5), Safavid Persia (dicta-
elected for the trembling ships”) to torship, CR4).
supplant Spanish naval power; the
French Armada crushed English Worldline Data Mana Level: normal
Infinity Class: Z1
TL: 4 (Nazis, TL8)
Quantum: 3
Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

138 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

Outworld Operations used by Catherine’s sorcerous diplo- ley of Baalbek in the Lebanon. The
mats to reshape Europe. A quick two roads cross at Carchemish, on the
One whom the infernal gods of Gestapo operation brought the secret Euphrates northeast of Aleppo. Much
Hannibal back to Neubabalon. Catherine’s of this roadway remains Ottoman-
secret weapon was no secret to controlled, or under Kurdish or
Cause to be reborn, terror of invaders from a history where Nostre- Armenian border lords who revolted
mankind: dame’s prophecies were tabloid copy. after the SS destroyed the Ottoman
Ahnenerbe rune magicians rapidly armies in the region. The western end
The ultimate horror worse than deduced Catherine’s methods, and of the Chronobahn leads to the
any paper can tell, invoked Prophecies II:30 and X:86 Friedrich worldline (p. 124), a crucial
(“The King of Europe, accompanied pawn in Raven Division strategy.
They will come from Babylon by men of the North, leads the red and Exploring the Chronobahn is possible
toward the Empire. white against the King of Babylon”) to – no local force can stop an SS recon
cement their own control. unit. Conquering it is more difficult;
– Michel de Nostredame, the Kurds, especially, seem eager to
Prophecy II:30 The Order seeks to keep the Turks resist the Nazis. The Patrol has noted
and French off balance, and to fully what might be Merlin-2 U.S. Spectral
Outside Europe, however, the ulti- secure the Chronobahn (p. 79), which Ops forces working with the local
mate horror landed in Babylon in on this world runs from the Taurus Kurds, and speculates that
1599. SS Raven Division (p. 64) Mountains in southern Anatolia Nostradamus also has a possible
machine guns mowed down scimitar- almost due east to Sinjar, in the Iraqi world-gate to Merlin-2 (p. 135) some-
waving Janissaries, helicopter gun- desert west of Mosul, and from the where in the Middle East.
ships destroyed the Turkish artillery Pontic Mountains just south of
parks, and the Armanen Order con- Trebizond on the Black Sea to the val-
trolled “New Babylon” from Basra to
Aleppo. At the Austrian court negotiat-
ing an alliance against Turkey, the SS
learned of the “mysterious quatrains”

ORICHALCUM

On this worldline (and perhaps a and volcanic ash (and perhaps Sparta, and Argos) for influence, and
few others) Atlantis exists, and just as Poseidon’s blessing) make the island Africa to the borders of Khem. This
Homeline’s Plato reported, it is indeed amazingly fertile and thus amazingly pyramid-building kingdom rules
a great island empire out beyond the wealthy. Egypt from its capital at Thebes of the
Pillars of Heracles, founded by Hundred Gates well up the Nile Valley.
Poseidon, god of the sea. At the height Atlantis dominates western Europe An Amazon outpost in Cyrene
of its power, arrogance, and glory, up to the Italian city-states, where it between Atlantean and Khemite terri-
Atlantis’ rulers are bent on world con- competes with Athens (and to a lesser tory is the only non-Atlantean city in
quest, with only the Republic of extent, Athens’ rivals Knossos, Thebes,
Athens to stop them.
Orichalcum, 9590 B.C.
A Great and
Wonderful Empire Current Affairs

Atlantis is a roughly diamond- Atlantis and Athens square off for the favor of the gods and the mas-
shaped island, lying just over 600 tery of the seas.
miles west of the Straits of Gibraltar. It
is just over 1,000 miles long north to Divergence Point
south, and about 800 miles at its
widest from east to west. (The Azores 10,400 B.C.; the 10 sons of Poseidon found the kingdom of Atlantis.
and Madeira do not exist on (The variant geography indicates another possible divergence point
Orichalcum, although other Atlantic around 50 million years ago, but the Patrol would prefer to blame
islands do, most of them under Poseidon’s magic rather than anomalous continental drift in this case.)
Atlantean control.) Its geology is com-
plex and irregular, with marshlands Major Civilizations
and several volcanic mountain ranges,
but also some fertile lowlands, includ- Atlantean (empire), Hellenic (empire with rivals), Egyptian (empire),
ing the broad central plain where the Amazon-Hittite (multipolar).
capital city, Poseidonis, is located. The
mountain ranges run right up to the Great Powers
coastline in many places, creating
rocky, inhospitable coasts; Atlantis’s Atlantis (feudal dictatorship, CR4), Athens (technocracy, CR6), Khem
few ports, especially the capital, are (theocracy, CR5), Themyscira (dictatorship, CR4), Troy (dictatorship,
highly valued. The climate is broadly CR4).
Mediterranean; the equinoctial rain
Worldline Data

TL: 1-2 (some Atlantean tech, TL4) Mana Level: normal
Centrum Zone: Yellow
Quantum: 6 Infinity Class: R5

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 139

Africa outside Egypt. The Amazon multiverse, complete with gods on a cum. Lighter than bronze, strong as
matriarchy centered on the “Black paradimensional Mount Olympos, steel, the Atlanteans use orichalcum
Island” of Themyscira north of the Egyptian Duat, and so forth. as a decoration (beaten with copper, it
Anatolia dominates the rest of the Generally speaking, the Patrol sup- makes a gorgeous red-gold flash on
Middle East south to Canaan (which ports Atlantis and the Amazons; the rims of Atlantean temples and
is a buffer zone between Khem and Centrum backs the proto-fascist palaces) and to power the occasional
the Amazons) and west to Troy. East of “Platonic Republic” of Athens and magical construct such as the bronze
the Amazons, various lesser states the similarly orderly empire of giants that guard Poseidonis’ harbor.
spread out toward the Indian king- Khem. Both sides step gingerly (More to Infinity’s interest, it is also a
dom of Nysa, ruled by the demigod around the gods, who take an alarm- warm-temperature superconductor,
Dionysos (see Active Gods, p. 68). ingly active role in this worldline. and if alloyed with titanium increases
its tensile strength ninefold.) Although
(See GURPS Atlantis for further Ordinarily, both the Patrol and CMU prospectors have been busy
details.) Centrum would leave a primitive, dan- looking, so far the only orichalcum
gerous, god-plagued worldline like mines are in Atlantis itself and Spain,
Outworld Operations Orichalcum alone, except that it’s the far too close to the eyes of the gods for
only known source in the infinite open mining operations.
Like many “high fantasy” myth worlds for the wonder metal orichal-
parallels, Orichalcum is a pocket

PUZZLE WORLDS

BLIP since on any other worldline in resources to go around! Ocean and air
Penetration Service records. The travel are much harder, of course,
This low-mana Quantum 4 time- Infinity Council closed the investiga- since weather is now a much greater
line seems to have a different time- tion, but has declared the world a hazard. Wars between humans have
flow speed. To put it mildly. A day Class Z1 alternate, just to be on the resumed (beginning with a war
spent there is equal to only six min- safe side. against an expansionist Communist
utes and 12.5 seconds elsewhere. The Microhungary in the 1920s), but there
world is inhabited; its people are cur- MICROWORLD is very little nuclear threat, since the
rently at TL3, but they’re advancing smallest possible atomic bomb is
quite rapidly! Assuming that the civi- In this Quantum 3 parallel, some- inconveniently large for inch-tall com-
lizations of Blip (which seems to be thing very strange happened in the batants. The Micro year is 1970; they
dominated by a Byzantine-Hunnic year 1892. Up until that summer, this are in late TL7.
codominium between the Danube and alternate had been a fairly close paral-
the Jaxartes) develop at roughly the lel, with a few literary and dietary dif- Observation of Microworld has
speed Homeline did, they should be ferences. But it diverged rapidly over a been very limited, initially on the
splitting the atom within the next 14 period of a few weeks: all mankind assumption that the existence of
months, and possibly inventing shrank by a linear factor of about 70, “giants” would probably crush these
parachronics a few weeks after to an average height of a little over an peoples’ spirits. Given that the tabloids
that . . . inch, and average weight of around an in Microworld now sell off the stands
ounce. (Many domesticated animals with “giant sightings,” that fear may
ENIGMA shrank by the same factor.) Their sci- have been overwrought, as was the
entists never managed an explanation, fear that the shrinkage might some-
On local date July 12, 1982 – 26 and as yet neither have Infinity’s! (A how be contagious – it seems to be
years ago – the entire population of very bright comet did appear in the totally unique to Microworlders. More
the no-mana Quantum 7 alternate skies over Microworld in May, 1892, importantly, Microworld is one of the
Earth called Enigma . . . vanished. The and not over any other known alter- more difficult parallels to covertly infil-
Infinity Patrol discovered this timeline nate.) The various laws of physics that trate, for obvious reasons. However, a
in 2012, 11 years after the disappear- would seem to make “tiny people” Patrolman’s serendipitous discovery of
ance. Up until that July, Enigma impossible have somehow been an abandoned laboratory in the Q3
appears to have been a close parallel. bypassed, although the square-cube parallel Klaatu did produce a chemical
The most notable difference was that law and so forth still hold for inani- reagent, the Carey Formula, that can
the Ramones never toured England, mate objects. Microworld is low- allow a Microworlder to survive while
and apparently as a consequence, the mana, but the effect does not seem shrunk even on worldlines with more
band The Clash never formed. Six magical, at least not as Paralabs conventionally consistent laws of
months of careful study produced no understands magic to operate. physics. The Patrol and ISWAT have
evidence as to what happened – no each recruited a few Microworlder
millennial tension, no upsurge in UFO After an initial period of panic, and agents, especially in the wake of hurri-
sightings, no banestorm, no Second global wars of extermination against canes and other disasters, when, as all
Coming, no global dust-plague – and the un-shrunken rats, Microworld devoted Microreaders of the Midnight
nothing like it has happened before or recovered and is now in many ways Star know, “giants” are known to roam
very prosperous; there are far more the Earth.

140 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

Microworlders VANISH

-39 points Within the Patrol, this name is a
darkly humorous running joke, albeit
The inhabitants of Microworld are normal humans on their own one in questionable taste. At last
worldline, and would use normal templates in a Microworld-based count, 41 projector/conveyor settings
game. (Un-shrunken rats, on the other hand, would have ST scores show all the signs of validity – in other
above 40!) Elsewhere in the infinite worlds, however, they use the fol- words, the math and the readings
lowing template. Without bionics, magic, or other enhancements, a from Homeline instruments seem to
Microworlder’s maximum ST and Basic Move are 1. correspond to real timelines. But
nothing has ever returned from a trip
Attribute Modifiers: ST-9 [-90]. to these worlds. The persistence of
Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Basic Move-4 [-20]. “Reality Vanish” helps explain why
Advantages: DR 20 (only against falling damage, -60%) [40]; Hard To Infinity sends drones through to a new
reality, where possible, ahead of
Kill 5 [10]; Microscopic Vision 1 [5]; Pressure Support 1 [5]; Reduced manned Scout missions. But such
Consumption 4 (Require three meals a day, -25%) [6]; Resistant reconnaissance is not always feasible,
(Alcohol and environmental hazards, +8) [10]; Silence 7 [35]; or unambiguous, and every so often
Tunneling 1 (Soil only, -50%) [18]. an empty coffin gets buried on Mount
Disadvantages: Cannot Float [-1]; Dependency (Carey Formula, month- Eisenhower for a Patrolman “posted
ly) [-30]; Gluttony (12) [-5]; Vulnerability (Poison gas or spray, ¥3) to Reality Vanish.”
[-30].
Skills: Riding (Birds) (DX+2) [8].
Features and Taboo Traits: Size Modifier -11; maximum ST and Basic
Move 1.

MÖBIUS surviving “dinosaurs” in the New Some researchers speculate that
World) are perfectly normal, if not at these are worlds where the physical
This seemingly normal parallel all likely. They have become a com- laws are very different, killing visitors
breaks the fundamental rules of quan- mon feature in European menageries, immediately and crippling their
tum parachronics by existing in two and are roughly as intelligent as apes. machinery. Some superstitious
quanta simultaneously. Conveyors Patrolmen claim to believe that lost
from Homeline travel to Möbius by RUSTIC drones are “sacrificed to the god of
projector, as if going to Quantum 4. Vanish,” and “Vanish it!” has become a
However, once in the parallel, an unas- In this Quantum 3 world, although popular curse even among the hard-
sisted conveyor can reach Quantum 7 it is a no-mana alternate, no technolo- est-headed Patrolmen. Of course, no
worlds, as if Möbius were on gy higher than “simple mechanics” such elaborate explanation is neces-
Quantum 7. Infinity doesn’t believe works. Rustic is in its current year sary; if a conveyor pops into the heart
that Centrum has discovered Möbius, 1882, and recovering from a global of a volcano, or an atomic explosion,
and they don’t believe that a conveyor hantavirus epidemic that devastated perfectly normal physical laws will
can “reverse engineer” the process and Eurasia and the entire Pacific Rim, destroy it instantly. But Paralabs
reach Homeline, since that would including the Chinese colonies in knows that some worlds have alien
(theoretically) require a projector, western North America, allowing physical laws; it’s easy to imagine that
which can’t work on either Quantum 4 Virginia and Navaju to expand to the some of these might be deadly.
or Quantum 7. Of course, in theory, Pacific. (The other major powers in
the “quantum knot” in Möbius’ world- the wake of the pestilence are
line should be impossible! Drakensberg, a Hessian corporate
mining empire in South Africa, and
Other than its bizarre topospace, the Jesuit states in South America.)
Möbius seems perfectly average; it’s a These powers have progressed to TL4
world where Ferdinand and Isabella (early TL5 in some areas) and seem
died besieging Granada in 1492, Spain unlikely to get any farther.
broke up, and Cabral discovered
America for Portugal by accident in Essentially, it is impossible to pro-
1500. The Portuguese Empire domi- duce an artificial electrical discharge
nates the world’s sea lanes after on Rustic. This timeline was discov-
sweeping the English and Dutch fleets ered by a world-jumper; if a conveyor
from the Caribbean in 1578; the cur- had gone there instead, it wouldn’t
rent year is 1590. It does have packs of have been able to return, and Rustic
neo-troodons (p. 149) living in the would no doubt have been written off
Amazon rainforest, but as best Infinity as a deadly setting.
can determine, they (and the other

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 141

WYVERN and so forth did Infinity realize that accidentally slipped to reptilian mon-
the dragons on Wyvern were actually sters. Of course, covert Cabal trips to
This Quantum 4 parallel (current real – and that they could sorcerously this worldline increased dramatically
year 1904) was originally thought to dominate human acolytes and appar- – many Cabalistic formulas call for
be a close parallel to Homeline’s ently whole nations without even leav- dragon’s blood, and dragons are imag-
Edwardian era with an odd fixation ing their caves. The Patrol clamped a inary (or worse, extinct) on most
on dragons. The Scouts classified it a Z classification on Wyvern and is fran- Earths . . .
P9 world, and moved on. Only after tically tracking down every Homeline
two years of perfectly ordinary tourist visitor to this parallel to assess the (See Chapters 7 and 8 of GURPS
trips, White Star trading missions, possibility that The Secret might have Dragons for further details.)

A less resolute government than REICH-2 running weapons into Japanese-occu-
Churchill’s might easily have decided pied China from Hong Kong). With
that the military situation was hope- charismatic President Joseph Hitler gone to his Valhalla and the
less in 1940, after the fall of France, Kennedy, Jr. is the first Democrat considerably more practical (if equally
and that Britain’s only chance of sur- since Roosevelt in the White House, ruthless) Führer Heydrich in the
vival was accommodation to the new and the first to seek a renewed inter- Reichschancellery, the Russian
order. The man who almost led Britain national role for America. armistice line has settled down almost
to such a peace was Edward Frederick to a formal border, complete with rail
Lindley Wood, Lord Halifax, who had The possibilities of that role are links, showy “cultural exchanges,” and
been Neville Chamberlain’s foreign simultaneously constrained and wide crossing points at Kharkov, Mogilev,
secretary and was his preferred suc- open. The British atomic bomb of and Pskov. British commandos have
cessor. On Homeline, Halifax turned 1949 and the German orbital rocket in aided Communist partisans in
down the job, fearing that leading the 1950 left the balance of power frozen Occupied Serbia, and hunted them in
government in the House of for a time; with all five great powers the German Kongo. President
Commons would be impossible for a orbiting nuclear missile platforms, Kennedy’s father is a famous admirer
titled peer. any open war would rapidly end civi- of Nazi Germany, but his party prefers
lization. The five powers shift Premier Gromyko’s Soviet Union
On Reich-2, he put such qualms alliances and interests frequently; the despite the rumors coming out of
aside to save England as best he knew Anglo-Japanese alliance broke down Communist Iran and Afghanistan.
how. Lord Halifax was not a Nazi sym- over India and Malaya (Japan has
pathizer, and his government was been supporting anti-British rebels in
never a German ally. He used the both colonies; Britain responds by
armistice to build up the British mili-
tary, especially the Royal Air Force. Reich-2, 1961
However, the military effect of peace
in the west was to give Hitler a freer Current Affairs
hand in the east. The Anglo-German
Armistice ended the chances of the Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the British Empire fight an
United States getting involved in the ever-shifting cold war of espionage and sabotage as the United States
European war, since many Americans and Imperial Japan jockey for position and allies.
saw little to choose between Nazis and
Soviets. Divergence Point

The Kalter Krieg 1940; Lord Halifax becomes Prime Minister of Britain instead of
Churchill, and negotiates an armistice with Germany and an alliance
With Britain sidelined, the with Japan.
Germans and Soviets fought to a
stalemate and a 1943 armistice that Major Civilizations
left Nazi tanks in the Ukraine and
Baltic States, but put Moscow well Western (multipolar), Orthodox (empire), Japanese (empire).
out of reach. Lord Halifax detached
Japan from the Axis by selling them Great Powers
oil and rubber, and acquiescing in
their conquest of China, Indochina, German Reich (dictatorship, CR4-5 for Germans, CR6 for subject
and the Dutch East Indies. With the races), British Empire (representative democracy, CR4, CR5 in colonies),
oil embargo broken, the Japanese Soviet Union (dictatorship, CR6), United States (representative democ-
never attacked Pearl Harbor, and the racy, CR3, CR5 for blacks), Japanese Empire (military oligarchy, CR4-5
United States never went to war; the for Japanese, CR6 for subject nations).

Worldline Data

TL: 7 (aerospace, TL(7+1)) Mana Level: no mana
Centrum Zone: Red
Quantum: 6 Infinity Class: Z3

142 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

Other Reichs

On Reich-1 (Q4, current year 1952), Germany Axis empires is rising along their common borders,
forced an unequal peace on Britain after destroying the they have thus far determined to table those issues until
BEF at Dunkirk, and went on to defeat the Soviet the last of the Anglo-Saxon powers can be properly
Union while the United States ignored Europe and humbled.
crushed Japan. Neither has yet developed nuclear
weapons, although both have active research pro- On Reich-4 (Q4, current year 1988) the
grams. After Hitler died in 1949, Himmler purged the Wehrmacht broke Leningrad’s defenses in 1941. By
Party and took sole power. He began the next war by 1945 only Germany and Japan succeeded in develop-
occupying Britain, despite the warnings of his admirals ing nuclear weapons, which they used to cement their
that Germany was not yet ready to challenge the victory. Heavy investments in anti-aircraft defenses by
Americans. Sure enough, the United States is currently the United States were negated by the German ballis-
blockading the entire Atlantic coast of Europe, tic missiles, whose first nuclear strike destroyed
American jets proving equal to the best the Luftwaffe industrial centers and troop formations alike.
can field. Battles against the Wehrmacht in India and American resistance was brave, but ultimately futile.
Siberia have been less successful, but America is slow- The Japanese provided the bulk of the occupation
ly assembling a gigantic invasion force in Iceland, and troops from their empire, and the Axis powers split
as yet the Germans have no idea of its intended target. North America between them. Without a common
enemy, the two superstates, each convinced of the
On Reich-3 (Q5, current year 1970), Japan struck supremacy of their ruling race, soon turned on one
Russian Vladivostok rather than Pearl Harbor in 1941. another. In 1979, dispute over Persian Gulf oil rapidly
The isolationist United States stayed out of war and escalated, and triggered a German first strike that
never fully funded nuclear research. Japan and decapitated the Japanese Empire and destroyed
Germany divided Eurasia, isolating the United States enough of its nuclear capability to leave Germany as a
still further. Most of South America is German-aligned functioning state. But the de facto ruler of the world,
(though Ecuador and Venezuela are Japanese clients, after heavy losses, is finding it difficult to find the per-
and Brazil is ostentatiously neutral). Only Canada and sonnel to administer its new territories. (And, on
Mexico remain closely allied with the United States viewing the devastation, the Germans are likewise
(Canada, with a large voting base of U.K. refugees and finding it difficult to summon the wherewithal to
their children, is in fact far more committed to resist- bother, Nazi doctrines regarding lebensraum and the
ing the Axis powers than the U.S.) But the United States racial destiny to rule notwithstanding.)
still wields influence in the Caribbean that Germany
covets, and its continued possession of Hawaii strikes Reich-5 (Q3, current year 2010) is covered on
Japan as an affront. While conflict between the two pp. 57-67.

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 143

The Republicans backed the British, Western democracies, despite their operate almost like freelance espi-
and the Anglophile Yalies in the discomfort with British colonial meth- onage agencies or international crimi-
American OSS continue to support ods in Kenya or American peacekeep- nal rings. (Both Patrol and Interworld
MI6, the greatest spy agency in the ing efforts in Nicaragua and the use local spy agencies as cover stories,
world, regardless of who sits in the Philippines. Centrum seemingly hasn’t and occasionally as the source of
Oval Office. MI6, however, isn’t always picked a side yet; the Interworld forged local identities.) The lines get
sure which side to support themselves. Service has moles throughout both blurred during gold heists from pro-
the British and Soviet intelligence German Argentina, while running
Outworld Operations services, and may have hopes of sub- crossworld Maserati smuggling rings
verting Nazi Germany from within. out of Mussolini’s Palermo, or during
The same is not quite true of the With all five powers on nuclear hair heroin runs into Japanese-occupied
Infinity Patrol; they still support the triggers, the Patrol and Interworld Shanghai.

ROMA AETERNA

Although the dynastic name is the followed his father to the purple. The Antonine emperors who immediately
same, the Julio-Claudian Emperors in line continued for two generations followed the Julio-Claudians graced
this parallel are entirely different from more before Nero Drusus, the last of the Empire with three centuries of
Homeline’s after Augustus himself. the line, died without issue. Thus, remarkably able rulers, whose bril-
Drusus, who did not die on campaign Roma Aeterna was spared the reigns of liance masked real decline until the
in Germany in this worldline, replaced the mad emperors Caligula (a younger first succession war in 400 years final-
his older brother Tiberius as Augustus’ son of Germanicus) and Nero, son of ly broke the illusion of permanence.
successor. Drusus’ son Germanicus, Germanicus’ daughter Agrippina. The Empire fractured in civil war and
who in Homeline history died young barbarian invasions. It took two cen-
(apparently poisoned) survived to suc- Empire Without End turies to reunite a shrunken Second
ceed him. These two proved to be wise Empire, by successive dynasties using
rulers; Germanicus, in particular, was Instead, the Julio-Claudian emper- the sea power of North Africa. New
beloved by the people. Germanicus’ ors gave Rome stable borders in machines of war enabled the emper-
eldest son Nero (not the same as the Europe, and, with their patronage of ors – more often from their second
Homeline Emperor) instead of dying the Heronian Academy in Alexandria, capital at Alexandria than from Roma
after imprisonment by Tiberius, primitive industry as well. This paral- itself – to reconquer the East and push
received the name Britannicus after lel also had no chaotic “Year of Four into India. New ships discovered the
his conquest of Britain, and eventually Emperors” and no Flavian dynasty Hesperides across the Atlantic Ocean,
of military despots. The adoptive and legions conquered, then colo-
nized, the rich lands of the Maiae.
Roma Aeterna, 1893
While the First Empire had col-
Current Affairs lapsed dramatically, the Second
Empire had a slower, more painful
A conservative new dynasty from the Mexican provinces has restored decline. Disease and invasion were
the Roman Empire to its eternal glory. Harnessing steam and gunpow- met with increased centralization
der, Rome expands once more! from the new capital at Alexandria,
buying a respite at the cost of cultural
Divergence Point petrification. Imperial control eroded
from the fringes, passing to local mili-
9 B.C.; Drusus does not die on campaign in Germany, and becomes tary or barbarian immigrants. The
emperor in 29 A.D. (possibly disrupting Jesus’ crucifixion with a general 13th-century Mongol invasions broke
pardon for all prisoners); his heirs are not insane, depraved halfwits, the last pretensions of imperial unity.
unlike the historical Homeline Julio-Claudians.
The main exception to the dark-
Major Civilizations ness of the Long Night was across the
ocean. The Roman colonies in the
Roman (empire), Chinese (multipolar), Andean (empire). Hesperides traded among themselves
and expanded into the fertile volcanic
Great Powers lands in central Hesperia. Their
Heronian Academies rediscovered the
Third Roman Empire (dictatorship, CR4 for Roman citizens, CR5-6 steam engine and fueled a rebirth of
for subjects), Taehan (dictatorship, CR6), Huaraca (theocratic dictator- nostalgic Roman glory. In the 18th
ship, CR6). century, the European provinces
recovered enough to resume trade
Worldline Data with the Hesperides, sparking rivalry
and war. The Hesperians got the better
TL: 5 (some weapons, TL6) Mana Level: low
Centrum Zone: Yellow
Quantum: 6 Infinity Class: P4

144 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

of Britannia (the leading European of India. Today, the Empire has at Centran agents in Alexandria. Before
province) and invaded Europe with a least duplicated or surpassed its for- managing to get their group to safety,
massive steam fleet. Superior mer maximum extent on every front, they found evidence that Centrum had
Hesperian technology combined with and its star is still rising. thoroughly infiltrated the local power
the ideological appeal of a rebirth of structure. Infinity reduced the paral-
Roman glories to make the conquest (See GURPS Alternate Earths for lel’s Access Rating (p. 83) from 9 to 4,
irresistible. By 1806, the Hesperian further details.) and investigated.
general Corineus Junius Selauchis
had entered Roma and proclaimed the Outworld Operations Infinity had assumed that
Third Empire. Centrum would suffer its standard
Roma Aeterna was formerly the linguistic handicaps (see The
After claiming the eternal city, the destination for several popular vaca- Language Barrier, p. 47) when operat-
new rulers often found their progress tion packages offered by Time Tours, ing in a Roman worldline. Thanks to
becoming as much a triumphal march Ltd. It isn’t as decadent as Johnson’s a living classical tradition, however,
as a military campaign. Egypt, whose Rome, but there was a clientele that Centrum had fielded agents capable
rulers still claimed the imperial title, preferred to see a world based more of working in Roma Aeterna without
joined the new Empire without a fight around Roman ideals than Roman difficulty, and they did such an effec-
after a Hesperian show of force in the decadence. All of that went by the tive job that the I-Cops still aren’t
harbor of Alexandria. Even before the wayside in 2022 after a group of Time sure how far their control extends.
reconquests in Europe and Africa had Tours employees stumbled upon
been assimilated, the third of the new
emperors turned his attention to Other Romes
Persia, and his successor went one
better by inaugurating the reconquest Roma Aeterna was the third Roman-dominated parallel discovered
by Infinity, hence its official designation “Rome-3.” Rome-2 is Johnson’s
Rome (p. 130).

On Rome-1 (Q5, current year 954), the Emperor Justinian succeed-
ed in reuniting the empire and his successors moved the capital back to
Rome from Constantinople; the legions conquered Germany and
Bohemia and hold the borders against Magyars, Vikings, and Turks. The
shorter dark ages have moved Rome into high TL3, or even TL4 in some
areas (but with no gunpowder as yet).

On Rome-4 (Q6, current year 1741), the rebellions of Sertorius and
Spartacus fragmented Roman civilization in 74 B.C., but the Roman
successor republics still overmatched all their neighbors. Despite turns
to despotism in the third and 15th centuries, most of the TL6 Roman
states from Cuba to the borders of the Afghan Empire are quarrelsome,
independent republics.

On Rome-5 (Q4, current year 404 A.D.), the Chinese expedition to
Parthia under Pan Ch’ao met the Romans under Trajan in 97 A.D.
Roman-Chinese wars led to cultural interchange, which paid off when
Galen accidentally invented inoculation while studying acupuncture.
This medical revolution (now at TL5) enabled both Rome and China to
survive the third-century crisis essentially intact at TL2, and spoiling for
a religious war between Roman Catholicism and Chinese Nestorian
Christianity.

Rome-6 (Q7, current year 248 A.D.) is a normal-mana (with uneven
spots both low and high) close parallel of Homeline’s TL2 Rome, except
that Christianity (if it exists) is even farther underground, and magic
seems to work as the Romans believed. This may make Rome-6 a myth
parallel, or it might have some connection to the Cabal, who claim to
have ruled in Rome right about this time. (See Roma Arcana in GURPS
Fantasy for further details.)

Rome-7 (Q4, current year 180 A.D.) has not yet outlasted Homeline’s
Rome, but it has entered a full-scale Industrial Revolution triggered by
Vespasian’s commissioning Hero of Alexandria to build steam-powered
siege machines to destroy Masada in 73 A.D. Oil-driven TL(2+3) aeoli-
cars battle in the Colosseum, and the spoiled sons of patricians drag-race
down the Appian Way as the legions drive into India.

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 145

The Infinity Patrol has identified at mystery cults of Horus Regnans (in Infinity has limited its activities in the
least a dozen powerful Roman sena- Aegyptus) and Angerona, goddess of Empire to intelligence operations,
tors and equestrians as Centran silence (in Italia) appear to have fallen trying to discover the scope of
agents, mostly wealthy merchants but under their full control. They have Centran influence and its ultimate
including an important general and also introduced their own secret soci- purpose. The Patrol is building a
the governor of Libya province. These ety, the Order of the White Way (Ordo power base of its own among the
agents do not appear to form a politi- Albae Viae), a magical sect prominent Chinese traders who sail to the Indian
cal faction – indeed, they publicly in the industrial centers of Hesperia. Ocean from the Serican petty king-
oppose each other on several issues. On a few occasions, they have simu- doms in east Asia, which Centrum
The Patrol doesn’t know exactly what lated magical powers, including would have extreme difficulty infil-
their plan is, except that they do seem “miraculous” cures through antibi- trating. Plans to form a secret society
to be attempting to place agents at otics, within these front organizations. front organization under Infinity
court. Centrum exercises influence control are under consideration.
through secret societies as well. The Having been caught flat-footed,
the I-Cops are trying to recover.

SHIKAKU-MON

The history of this Quantum 3 par- Instead, it began the adaptation of frightening totalitarian Swedish
allel diverged in the early 16th century, Western culture that was eventually to Empire, and the technological
when the heir to Ferdinand and give the Chrysanthemum Throne total achievements of the Kingdom of
Isabella of Spain survived to ascend dominance of East Asia. France, risen from the ashes of mili-
the throne as John III. Without the tary defeat to seize the high ground of
dynastic union of Spain and Austria Today, the name for the parallel space. Despite technology superior to
under the Habsburgs, European histo- itself comes from the local version of Homeline’s in many areas, societies
ry took a different shape during the Japanese: shikaku-mon, from the cling to archaic aristocratic forms that
crucial era of the Reformation. On the native word for “square” and their no longer function in the modern
other side of the globe, the Jesuits French loan-word for “world,” is a world. Social tensions between the
were successful with their campaign common term for the quadripolar haves and the have-nots have disrupt-
of Christian proselytization in Japan. balance established in the 20th cen- ed society in much of the world and
Under the Oda chancellors, Japan tury. Japanese control of the eastern increase steadily.
never “turned away from the gun.” half of the globe is balanced by
the economic power of Brazil, the Four Temple Gates
Under One Moon
Shikaku-Mon, 2027
Japan began to supplant Portugal
Current Affairs in the east in the early 17th century,
just as Sweden unified northern
The balance of a cyberpunk world shifts between four great powers: Germany under its control and
the Japanese Empire, the Swedish Empire, the Empire of Brazil, and the became a great power. In the next cen-
Kingdom of France. tury, France allied with Sweden to
defeat Britain, Spain, and the Dutch,
Divergence Point becoming the paramount state in
Europe as the Industrial Revolution
1497; the son of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain survives to become took hold. The Rationalist Movement,
King John III, weakening the Habsburgs and causing Portugal to focus parallel to the Enlightenment on
its attention overseas on Brazil and missionary activities in Japan. As a Homeline, expressed and created a
consequence, Japan converts to Christianity, never turns away from the new secular outlook on the world, but
gun, and begins expanding in the 1590s. failed to create an era of revolutionary
politics. A Republican movement
Major Civilizations sputtered to life in Portugal (driving
the royal family to Brazil to found an
Japanese-Western (empire), Western (multipolar). independent Empire there) and
England’s Virginia colony, but French
Great Powers vigilance kept aristocracy supreme.

Japanese Empire (oligarchy, CR4 in Home Islands, CR3 elsewhere), In 1861, France lost its global dom-
Swedish Empire (technocratic oligarchy, CR6), Empire of Brazil (corpo- inance to a rising alliance of Sweden,
rate state, CR1), Kingdom of France (dictatorship, CR4). Brazil, and Japan, which had defeated
China for hegemony over east Asia
Worldline Data Mana Level: no mana and divided India with Britain. The
Infinity Class: Z3
TL: 8 (aerospace and electronics, TL9)
Quantum: 3
Centrum Zone: Inaccessible

146 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .

powers, now roughly equal, competed British Synarchist Party in control of “neo-Synarchist” government seems
for colonies and trade, drawing each a shattered, impoverished Swedish just as repressive as ever, despite offi-
other into a complex, unstable system satellite state. cially denouncing its predecessor.
of secret alliances that virtually guar- Sweden now aggressively supports
anteed a general war. The Pyrrhic War The use of atomic weapons inau- “Islamosynarchist” fanatics against
of 1927-1932 began over India, but gurated the current era of covert both Mahdist Cairo and the Otto-
expanded across the globe, killing mil- struggle between the four remaining mans, Nationalist Louisiana’s isola-
lions but ending in stalemate. The powers. A case could be made that the tion from the global data Tapestry has
Allies (Britain, Sweden, and Japan) so-called “Silent Struggle” did not begun to spawn some ugly rumors,
discovered that victory was meaning- actually begin until the following year, and the environment isn’t getting any
less when they found themselves when Brazil exploded its own fission better as global weather patterns start
mired in colonial rebellions and eco- bomb. In any event, the era has seen to deform, raising the ever-present
nomic depression while the Coalition continuous tension between the pow- specter of famine.
powers (Brazil and France) recovered. ers, with occasional flare-ups into
Edvard Bagare’s Synarchist Party proxy wars where spheres of influence (See GURPS Alternate Earths for
(based on the strangely compelling overlap – most violently in Persia and further details.)
theories of Kiyoshi Shibata) won southern Africa.
control of the Swedish Riksdag and Outworld Operations
created the first totalitarian state the So far the quadripolar balance has
timeline had ever seen. been able to surmount even such Since the first days of parachronic
crises as the Swedish defiance of the travel, the Infinity Council has wor-
Sweden’s attempt to create the French ban on orbital travel and the ried about the day when a timeline
second synarchist state, by interven- collapse of Brazilian domestic capable of building projectors would
ing in a coup d’etat in Britain, ended authority during the “Red Tuesday” be discovered within reach of
in tragic farce; the Swedish atomic events shortly after the millennium. Homeline. Since Shikaku-mon is at
bombing of Britain in 1964 left the Sweden underwent a spasm of politi- the exact same local time as Homeline
cal purges in the early 2020s, but its and Centrum, a majority of theorists
believe that it represents such a threat.
It does not help matters that Shikaku-
mon technology is slightly more
advanced than Homeline’s, nor that
the parallel is dominated by corrupt,
paranoid elites. The only bright aspect
to the Shikaku-mon headache is that it
is beyond the reach of Centrum pro-
jectors; thus, the only way Centrum
might gain access to the timeline is
through agents in Homeline or world-
jumpers.

The Infinity Patrol is the only
Homeline organization permitted to
operate in Shikaku-mon, and it is
being very cautious about its investi-
gations. Overall policy toward
Shikaku-mon is still being debated at
the highest levels of Infinity and UNIC
(there are rumors that Van Zandt him-
self is involved). Infinity wants to keep
Shikaku-mon from developing
parachronics, and secondarily prevent
them from destroying themselves.
One frightening possibility: could
Shikaku-mon have a counterpart of
Paul Van Zandt, the man who invent-
ed parachronic technology? In
Homeline, his family originated in
northern Germany and immigrated to
New England, which would make him
a Swedish citizen in Shikaku-mon.
Relatively few Homeline natives have
doubles in Shikaku-mon – but if Van
Zandt were one of the few, the results
might be disastrous.

WORLDS ENOUGH . . . 147

So far, Infinity operations have
only tried to set up corporate front
organizations in the Americas.
Infinity desperately wants to find out
if a projector can function in Shikaku-
mon, both to test parachronic theory
and to open up further quantum lev-
els to exploitation. However, the time-
line is pervaded by spies working for
the governments, secret agents work-
ing for the corporations, and even
“peepers” spying as a hobby. Anything
that looks interesting is sure to attract
attention from some group, and even
amateurs have surveillance technolo-
gy equal to the best Homeline equip-
ment. The I-Cops get ulcers imagining
what the professionals must use, but
they have not yet been able to get
samples of classified technology. They
have already had to send several too-
inquisitive natives to Coventry, and
the ongoing missing persons investi-
gations are yet another focus of anxi-
ety for Patrol operations.

Shikaku-mon strongly tempts
Homeline governments and corpora-
tions, given the advantages that would
accrue to any group that duplicated
this worldline’s superior computer or
surveillance technology. More danger-
ous yet, such tech might be viewed as
offering a possible “balance” to
Infinity Unlimited’s monopoly of
parachronic technology. Since a
Japanese university research team
discovered the parallel, the Infinity
Council has not been able to keep its
existence secret. Travel to Shikaku-
mon is very illegal; Infinity has
declared unauthorized incursions
punishable by revocation of access to
all parachronic technology from the
offending group – or nation. UNIC has
quietly informed some troublesome
governments that it concurs with this
judgment.

UNITED STATES OF LIZARDIA

Lizardia was the first truly weird In many ways, this Quantum 4 nations are the United States of
parallel discovered by the Infinity world is a very close parallel of America, Canada, and Mexico, and
Patrol, and Homeline theorists are Homeline history up to its present they call their world Earth . . .
still wrestling with its implications. date of 1991. Major languages and cul-
Some scientists who have been tures are nearly identical, and many But the intelligent race on this
studying this world for 25 years still nations have similar or identical world is a lizardlike creature, appar-
don’t believe it. names. The major North American ently evolved from a bipedal dino-
saur. The basic stats of the race are

148 WORLDS ENOUGH . . .