So I had the misfortune of picking one of the few settings that got expanded on after Infinite Worlds was published. <sigh, turns 6 upside down>
Welcome to Brittanica-9!
It's called GURPS *Infinite* Worlds.
So I had the misfortune of picking one of the few settings that got expanded on after Infinite Worlds was published. <sigh, turns 6 upside down>
Welcome to Brittanica-9!
It's called GURPS *Infinite* Worlds.However, this thread is limited to what Steve Jackson Games has outlined. Your take is welcome in the Oneshot Scenarios thread.
Well you can try one of the other Brittanicas maybe?
You can find info for Reich-1 on Page 34 of GURPS Alternate Earths, page 143 of Infinite Worlds, and page 19 of Weird War, I think.I'm actually going to try mapping out Reich-1, although knowing my luck Steve Jackson himself scratched out a full timeline on a bar napkin in 2009, got posted online on a Hungarian fansite in 2011 and was dug up on archive.org after the fansite hosting it went down in 2014. But more importantly I feel that Reich-1 has unexplored potential, namely the Soviets aren't mentioned, and the UK's empire is decolonizing against its will while the USA is making the Allies to liberate Europe, it's a three way cold war in a way. Also I like the idea that the Third Reich can't get rid of guerrillas in the Highlands of Scotland.
I found it! Turns out I posted it on AH.com back in 2007. Here is is:
Tenochca vs. Rome
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Well, such a map wouldn't be for this thread, right? It would be a fanmade scenario instead of an official GURPS setting.Has anyone made a map for this TL?
Sorry, I wasn't aware it was fanmade; I don't have access to the GURPS scenarios, but I think that some of them are really interesting.Well, such a map wouldn't be for this thread, right? It would be a fanmade scenario instead of an official GURPS setting.
Those are some neat maps! Though Prometheus, for your maps maybe you should put in some form of legend with color coding and names to show who is who in it.
They have the resources of their empire (due to being able to resources from other worlds) to use to reconstruct their world and have been finished for decades at the very least by the current era. Centrum has won and been in power for decades by now. The only way you can make your claims be true is to do your map while Centrum is still expanding from Australia, like during the time when they're still rebuilding the world.I will in future maps. In Reich, the map colors correspond to their OTL counterparts. In Rome-1 it's a bit more complicated but most of them were either numbered or Rome. The brown empire in Central Asia is actually a bit interesting that I forgot to write down. It is in effect a merchant empire along the Silk Road, with mercenary armies. No merchant with a pass will be harassed within that empire. It also allows them to control trade, but I couldn't think of a good name for it, or the Great Leader that founded such a sparse protection rack... I mean empire.
Also I recently read over Centrum, while they do state that a goal is to do global reconstruction, I get the impression (and since there is nothing in the IW book about Geoforming in any world [except maybe Cyrano]) that most of Centrum is in fact still devastated and possibly still being fought over. Their Military Service is still larger than Interworld, and it's quite likely that outside of Australia and "Reconstruction zones" not all of the world is unified under Centrum. At the very least I may wind up doing a 1902 map of Centrum
Except that parachronics has only been possible for 80 years for Centrum and they are still high TL8 or a very low TL9. Nothing in that tech level really has terraforming. So how did Centrum rebuild precisely? Even assuming a boom of colonists to other worlds, how much could Centrum's population have rebounded in ideal circumstances?They have the resources of their empire (due to being able to resources from other worlds) to use to reconstruct their world and have been finished for decades at the very least by the current era. Centrum has won and been in power for decades by now. The only way you can make your claims be true is to do your map while Centrum is still expanding from Australia, like during the time when they're still rebuilding the world.
Presumably they rebuilt cities. And cleaned up messes by dumping them onto other, empty worldlines. Demolishing old or damaged buildings isn't some new fangled piece of technology you know.Except that parachronics has only been possible for 80 years for Centrum and they are still high TL8 or a very low TL9. Nothing in that tech level really has terraforming. So how did Centrum rebuild precisely? Even assuming a boom of colonists to other worlds, how much could Centrum's population have rebounded in ideal circumstances?
To Destruction
In 1902, it all went to hell. Opinions are still split on how a bid for full independence by a few provincial magnates could have spiraled so thoroughly out of control. The atomic destruction of London and a few dozen other cities paled in comparison with the tailored bioweapons unleashed against Asiatic peoples by an imperial pretender. After ravaging China and India, the plagues mutated, turned back west, finished off the global economy, and depopulated much of Eurasia.
The only region left unscathed was the southern continent of Terraustralis (much more densely populated than our Australia), where a military-technical cabal, “the Centrum,” took control. They used their isolation to withdraw from the conflict, and imposed draconian social controls to stop the spread of disease and maintain food distribution. By 1913, once their scientists had devised protections against the bioweapons, they ventured out into a shattered world. They were appalled at what they saw: two-thirds of the Earth’s population was dead, and pestilence ran rampant among the survivors, killing one in every two children. Nuclear and bioweapons had shattered the ecosystem, especially in the fragile tropics; famines and desertification threatened to starve anyone who the plagues did not carry off. Technology was dropping back to pre-industrial levels everywhere, leading to filth and decay and warlord feudalism of the worst kind.
The Centrum resolved to rebuild, and to prevent future wars, by imposing a single, rational culture under a single authority. The Centrum knew that disunity caused the war, and nearly destroyed mankind. Therefore, it would bring unity: every surviving human would speak English, go to the same schools, get enough food, and become an equal part of the Centrum. Most of Earth’s surviving inhabitants, starving and disease-ridden, were happy to accept the alternative the Centrum offered – just as well, since they had no choice.
To Other Worlds
Linda Minott was the first Centran scientist to investigate anomalies in exotic experiments with high energy densities (known since the previous century). Her papers were published in 1908 and languished for a time, but the potential was clear. By 1922, Centran scientists had built their first conveyor and gone exploring. Parachronics gave the Centrum access to the untapped resources of Earths where humanity had never evolved – and, in the early years, the opportunity to buy or steal goods from many parallel cultures. The Centrum became as wealthy in its own way as Infinity Unlimited – wealthier, because it had fewer scruples – but it poured its wealth back into global reconstruction.
In 1934, after a few early mishaps, the Centrum officially adopted the Lockridge Protocols, a strict hands-off policy toward inhabited timelines (almost all of which were technologically primitive, anyway), and concentrated on mining and colonizing the empty worlds. It had more than enough to do on its own Earth: curing the war plagues, halting the famines, deposing the local warlords, and generally forestalling a descent into barbarism.
After completing the reclamation of its Earth, Centrum (which dropped the “the” in 1958 after formally completing global reunification) has reconsidered its attitude toward other timelines. Some wanted to spread the benefits of their civilization, bringing superior technology and organization to less-developed timelines and saving the advanced ones from suffering their own Last War. Others believed continued expansion was needed for Centrum’s own health, or were simply ambitious for new fields of action. The discovery of Secundus (which Centrum sees as a dangerously disunited near-anarchy) in 2015 awoke deep-rooted fears and silenced the objectors.
The map isn't showing up for me ?And here's Cornwallis:
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The PoD is that Turgot successfully convinces Louis XVI not to support the American rebels, and to support internal economic reforms. The US never wins its independence, the French Revolution is avoided, the Tories are empowered in Britain, and as a result democracy and nationalism and other revolutionary ideals never take hold in Europe (at least not yet) and technological progress is slower. Russia became more powerful than in OTL and eventually all the other European powers united against it, culminating in the Great War from 1962 to 1976 between Russia and the Quintuple Alliance of Britain, France, Spain, Austria, and Prussia. The war ended with Russian defeat and subsequently a revolution that saw the monarchy replaced with a republic which was in turn replaced with the radical totalitarian Russian Dominate, which is dedicated to overthrowing the Five Thrones of the Quintuple Alliance and spreading revolution throughout the world, including in the Britain's still oppressed and rebellious American colonies.
The map isn't showing up for me ?
Presumably they rebuilt cities. And cleaned up messes by dumping them onto other, empty worldlines. Demolishing old or damaged buildings isn't some new fangled piece of technology you know.
I don't genuinely understand what terraforming has to do with anything? Most of dead from the Last War die of a bioplague that went out of control, IIRC. And it's not like cities that have been nuked can't be rebuilt. Look at Hiroshima & Nagasaki. I don't remember them being radioactive craters in the ground currently.
Centrum's population is small.
Who is going to oppose Centrum? No seriously, who is there to oppose them that actually had the technology and capability to do so? If 3veryone around you is dead or dying, you're the only healthy individual, and you'ge got the technology to build an assault rifle while for them their best tech is the bronze spear, you're going to win your fights a lot more.Well we seem to have two different interpretations of the same text. Undoubtedly they are the one major power on the planet, but a few dozen cites nuked, and bioplagues sweeping the planet is nothing to sneeze at. Somehow in 50 years they unified the whole globe? yeah right, even with parachronics I doubt it. Either way, both of our interpretations are valid at the end of the day.