Annoying Thing About Crosstime Traffic

[Zyzzyva]

Presumably because if you want to trade you want to trade with a universe advanced enough to have resources worth trading for. (Although I did read a good short where mid-21st C society goes to a 1770s-era universe and rapes it dry...)

[hopper2cool]

Originally Posted by Zyzzyva

Presumably because if you want to trade you want to trade with a universe advanced enough to have resources worth trading for. (Although I did read a good short where mid-21st C society goes to a 1770s-era universe and rapes it dry...)

But don't they get things like wheat and apples? If they were trading high tech goods I could understand. Or even hard to refine/make things like oil or aliminum. Also it's not like the various Crosstime offices are big warehouses. They are basicly just houses or shops with a basement. How do they move enough food and supplies to suport the billions of people in the main timeline?
I think I will just say the whole thing is because it's a book and more so it's a kids book. Worrying about practicalities just makes my head hurt.

[Atreus]

Originally Posted by hopper2cool

But don't they get things like wheat and apples? If they were trading high tech goods I could understand. Or even hard to refine/make things like oil or aliminum. Also it's not like the various Crosstime offices are big warehouses. They are basicly just houses or shops with a basement. How do they move enough food and supplies to suport the billions of people in the main timeline?
I think I will just say the whole thing is because it's a book and more so it's a kids book. Worrying about practicalities just makes my head hurt.

Honestly, that is one of the biggest problems with the premise of the Crosstime traffic novels. We know that CT has outposts on worlds with no human habitation, practically from the moment the series starts. Wel also know that a major reason for the actual trading is to acquire food and other resources for the home timeline, although Crosstime traffic does also dabble in observation and occasional interference. But the question is, when you have access to a theoretically infinite number of pristine earths and late 21st century tech, not to mention probably having a large labour pool, why bother trading with timelines such as Agrippan Rome or the Second Reich? Knowing where everything is on these earths, surely it would be simpler for CT to cut out the middleman, and just find them themselves. And while observation and social progression is another reason to have a presence, surely there is a better way to help a timeline along than selling watches on the Dacian frontier, and better ways to keep an eye on high tech alternates than a father and son electronics store in occupied San Francisco.

OTOH, this plot device is necessary for the basic premise of the novels, and from a reader's Point of View it is much simpler to ignore this and focus on the story or world itself.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Originally Posted by hopper2cool

I have a generic Crosstime Traffic question. OK I have not read the third book but I have read the other three. So here is my question. Why the heck do they get involved with militaristic high tech universes?
The German controled and Communist universes were both more or less at our timelines technological level. The Commie world had nukes and the German world probably did. I can understand trading with the Romans who weren't much of a threat but why get involved with any alt universe that poses a threat? Is there some technical reason like they have to go through them to get to some 18th century level of technology (which seems if not as easy a heck of a lot safer) universe?
Now I can buy that the the main timeline has some pretty good weapons and takes precautions. But letting another timeline like the victorious Nazis, Race, CSA, etc know they exist would start a cross time cold war that would really suck.

One CSA world probably knows alternate worlds exist. Ever read Guns of the South? Now imagine that world, where some time travelers with AK47s caused the South to win, and in which Robert E. Lee defeated these South Africans from the 21st century, and ended up with some captured time travelers, some AK47s and the technology to make more - now imagine this timeline advanced to the 2090s. I think they would have discovered crosstime traffic before Homeline did. AK47s and internal combustion engines would advance them at least a few decades, and from there, perhaps they created a few alternates themselves by meddling with local politics in other timelines, and perhaps Crosstime didn't discover them yet.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Originally Posted by Atreus

Honestly, that is one of the biggest problems with the premise of the Crosstime traffic novels. We know that CT has outposts on worlds with no human habitation, practically from the moment the series starts. Wel also know that a major reason for the actual trading is to acquire food and other resources for the home timeline, although Crosstime traffic does also dabble in observation and occasional interference. But the question is, when you have access to a theoretically infinite number of pristine earths and late 21st century tech, not to mention probably having a large labour pool, why bother trading with timelines such as Agrippan Rome or the Second Reich? Knowing where everything is on these earths, surely it would be simpler for CT to cut out the middleman, and just find them themselves. And while observation and social progression is another reason to have a presence, surely there is a better way to help a timeline along than selling watches on the Dacian frontier, and better ways to keep an eye on high tech alternates than a father and son electronics store in occupied San Francisco.

OTOH, this plot device is necessary for the basic premise of the novels, and from a reader's Point of View it is much simpler to ignore this and focus on the story or world itself.

There is one thing pristine Earths can't provide much of, and that is a labor supply. There is another sort of Earth that is between pristine and historical, there is the "Pleistocene Earth" this is an Earth where civilization hasn't developed but nevertheless has humans on it, basically these humans continue to live as we have for most of our existance as a species before the rise of civilization, and of writing, these are what you might call late starters, a typical "Pleistocene Earth" would have about 3 to 6 million human inhabitants, it might also have a population of neanderthals living alongside them. If Crosstime explores this kind of Earth, its going to take some degree of exploration to determine if there are humans, and by then they may have already begun resource recovery operations, they could have an oil platform drilling when the crew of the oil rig is suddenly visited by a tribe of primitive humans with spears and clubs. What do they do then?

[B_Munro]

Originally Posted by Tom Kalbfus

There is one thing pristine Earths can't provide much of, and that is a labor supply.

With modern techniques, farming and mining really don't take that many people. And in an ecological-disaster world like the prime TL apparently was before the discovery of interdimensional travel, there would have been plenty of out-of-work farmers and people looking to make a new start.

Originally Posted by Tom Kalbfus

If Crosstime explores this kind of Earth, its going to take some degree of exploration to determine if there are humans, and by then they may have already begun resource recovery operations, they could have an oil platform drilling when the crew of the oil rig is suddenly visited by a tribe of primitive humans with spears and clubs. What do they do then?

Color me skeptical. Australia had hunter-gatherer population densities, but the very first European explorers immediately ran into Aborigines.

Now, if it were something non-human, it might not be recognized as intelligent life: say a truly evolutionarily different world, where there is an extensive civilization of intelligent octopi under the sea, which nobody notices until after they've put in the first deep-sea oil rig...

Bruce

[83gemini]

See that's why I prefer H Beam Piper's Paratime stories--better constructed. That being said perhaps the technology is limited to relatively small "conveyors" meaning that it is only feasible to use a "cross-time merchant" approach to resource extraction. This is in fact hinted at in the series (i.e. having a gate big enough that a tank can come through is said to be exorbitant).

Going to high tech alternates is considered useful to "create new markets" (Crosstime is implausibly shown as having a monopoly over the technology) and to keep an eye on developments (the disunited states story mentioned the company has meddled in science in some places).

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Originally Posted by Zyzzyva

Presumably because if you want to trade you want to trade with a universe advanced enough to have resources worth trading for. (Although I did read a good short where mid-21st C society goes to a 1770s-era universe and rapes it dry...)

Ah Yes, "Mozart in Mirror Shades", Pretty Much Defined The Cyber-Punk Genre ...

To Touch on The OP, That Short Story was Once Collected with Another Short Story, Entitled "All The Myriad Ways" ...

In that Piece, However, it Turns out The Home-Line is Actually a World where The Cuba War Ended with The Destruction of a Few American and Soviet Cities, But OTL does Put in a Cameo Appearance, In The Form of a Techno-Wank Time-Line Full of Lasers and Other Marvels!

[B_Munro]

I would also like to see the meeting between the home TL and a technologically advanced TL where through competent government, massive investment in science and technology, and a hell of a lot of elbow grease they have managed to win the equivalent of a global war against food scarcity, global warming, resource depeletion, etc. It's been a hard century, but people are now confident that civilization can be maintained for at least another 10,000 years...

(local POV)...and these shnooks, these incompetents that messed up so bad they had food riots in the goddammed United States before their sorry asses were saved by stumbling on interdimensional travel, these twits still stuck in the age of Very Stupid Capitalism, sneak into our timeline, with their second-rate materials science, third-rate biotech, and fourth-rate economic theory, to steal our technology, while all the time acting like the sun shines out of their collective ass and we're dangerous barbarians...hell no. We don't play that.


Bruce

[Leistungsfähiger Amerikan]

Originally Posted by General Mung Beans

It seems in the Crosstime Traffic books the characters are quite upset over the existence of slavery, discrimination etc, in many of the worlds. The annoying thing is that the Homeliners don't do anything about it even in the primitive worlds like the world in Gunpowder Empires. Why doesn't Crosstime just go in, seize the Roman government, introduce medical technology, and institute reforms by force? Could you offer a retcon explanation for this?

Why would they? Aren't there an infinite ATL's for them to do that? If they started liberating other worlds, it would literally take forever with all of their resources put up to it!

[Atreus]

Originally Posted by Tom Kalbfus

There is one thing pristine Earths can't provide much of, and that is a labor supply. There is another sort of Earth that is between pristine and historical, there is the "Pleistocene Earth" this is an Earth where civilization hasn't developed but nevertheless has humans on it, basically these humans continue to live as we have for most of our existance as a species before the rise of civilization, and of writing, these are what you might call late starters, a typical "Pleistocene Earth" would have about 3 to 6 million human inhabitants, it might also have a population of neanderthals living alongside them. If Crosstime explores this kind of Earth, its going to take some degree of exploration to determine if there are humans, and by then they may have already begun resource recovery operations, they could have an oil platform drilling when the crew of the oil rig is suddenly visited by a tribe of primitive humans with spears and clubs. What do they do then?

I would not be surprised if there is a decent sized labor pool which could be "imported" to work on a Pleistocene Earth. Firstly, we know that one of the main reasons at Crosstime traffic is so great for the home timeline is because it alleviated resource limits related to, among other things, overpopulation. Logically, this would imply that there are a large number of people for whom jobs could be found on such a world (as opposed to Crosstime traffic, where there would only be a few positions and each effectivly requires a specialist). Secondly, there is an offhand reference in In High Places that could be interpreted as saying the homeline still does lots of basic manufacturing in less wealthy nations. recruiting from these countries would not pose a significant problem. Finally, there would probably be a large number of people who would be willing to "explore" a prisitine earth, especially were they able to bring along all the comforts of home (which, given the technological situation, shouldnt be to hard.

As for the in habitants not found, that does present a dilemma. OTOH, I would not be suprised if settlements on these earths are armed anyways, if only to drive of a few wild animals. And a farm or mining camp would probably have a number of mechanized tools which could suitably overawe hunter-gatherers. I would not be surprised if Crosstime traffic proved able to simply buy off or frighten off anybody "encroaching" on their domain.

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Originally Posted by B_Munro

I would also like to see the meeting between the home TL and a technologically advanced TL where through competent government, massive investment in science and technology, and a hell of a lot of elbow grease they have managed to win the equivalent of a global war against food scarcity, global warming, resource depeletion, etc. It's been a hard century, but people are now confident that civilization can be maintained for at least another 10,000 years...

(local POV)...and these shnooks, these incompetents that messed up so bad they had food riots in the goddammed United States before their sorry asses were saved by stumbling on interdimensional travel, these twits still stuck in the age of Very Stupid Capitalism, sneak into our timeline, with their second-rate materials science, third-rate biotech, and fourth-rate economic theory, to steal our technology, while all the time acting like the sun shines out of their collective ass and we're dangerous barbarians...hell no. We don't play that.

Bruce

Failing that, I might have liked seeing someone from one of the "stuck with 1970s-tech forever" timelines mentioning something about how, despite being backwards savages, they never needed to start plundering other universes to keep their societies going. I think there were a couple of moments in The Gladiator where one of the communist characters may have been thinking along those lines, but Turtledove never pursued it.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by Ivan Druzhkov

Failing that, I might have liked seeing someone from one of the "stuck with 1970s-tech forever" timelines mentioning something about how, despite being backwards savages, they never needed to start plundering other universes to keep their societies going. I think there were a couple of moments in The Gladiator where one of the communist characters may have been thinking along those lines, but Turtledove never pursued it.

IIRC the "Home Timeline" characters said, "Pff, you'll run out of oil before you get hydrogen fuel cells."

If so, then they are gleefully happy to see societies collapse. But more likely, that simply isn't true. So what's going on?

The Workers Republics have used genetic engineering to produce carbon free oil!

[Tom Kalbfus]

Originally Posted by Atreus

I would not be surprised if there is a decent sized labor pool which could be "imported" to work on a Pleistocene Earth. Firstly, we know that one of the main reasons at Crosstime traffic is so great for the home timeline is because it alleviated resource limits related to, among other things, overpopulation. Logically, this would imply that there are a large number of people for whom jobs could be found on such a world (as opposed to Crosstime traffic, where there would only be a few positions and each effectivly requires a specialist). Secondly, there is an offhand reference in In High Places that could be interpreted as saying the homeline still does lots of basic manufacturing in less wealthy nations. recruiting from these countries would not pose a significant problem. Finally, there would probably be a large number of people who would be willing to "explore" a prisitine earth, especially were they able to bring along all the comforts of home (which, given the technological situation, shouldnt be to hard.

As for the in habitants not found, that does present a dilemma. OTOH, I would not be suprised if settlements on these earths are armed anyways, if only to drive of a few wild animals. And a farm or mining camp would probably have a number of mechanized tools which could suitably overawe hunter-gatherers. I would not be surprised if Crosstime traffic proved able to simply buy off or frighten off anybody "encroaching" on their domain.

One might think a world to be free of native inhabitants and then later be proven wrong. A world is a big place after all. There is no particular reason why civilization had to begin when it did, what if there was an alternate where civilization began 12,000 years ago instead of 6,000 years ago? Another interesting idea is what if the alternate civilization constructed a type two civilization, reworked the Solar System, and built a Ringworld? The Transposition chamber would appear in space, and some distance away is the inner surface of the ringworld whizzing awway at 770 km/sec.

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Originally Posted by Faeelin

IIRC the "Home Timeline" characters said, "Pff, you'll run out of oil before you get hydrogen fuel cells."

If so, then they are gleefully happy to see societies collapse. But more likely, that simply isn't true. So what's going on?

The Workers Republics have used genetic engineering to produce carbon free oil!

I always figured that, judging by the depiction of life in the Kaiserreich and the Soviet worlds, that the standard of living in Europe and America stopped advancing around the 1950s-1970s, and that the rest of the planet may be even worse off. You'd probably save a lot of oil if planetary industrialization has ground to a standstill and most people spend their time maintaining existing machinery rather than building anything new.