Parallel Earths

[Tom Kalbfus]

A secret research base on Terra's Moon has developed a new kind of jump drive, it is a Jump-1 drive, but this one does not jump 1 parsec in space, instead it jumps to a parallel Universe, each one has a different Earth in it. This map is organized by the degree of deviation of each Universe from the Traveller baseline, the first two numbers of each hex indicate how many millennia ago this Universe's timeline departs from the Traveller baseline. In each parallel Universe events take a different course from the Baseline Traveller history, in some the Solomani are triumphant, further out the 1st Imperium is still in existence, way out, there are a couple hexes where the Third Reich has developed an Interstellar Empire, there is one where the Roman Empire is expanding into space, there are a few Parallels where humans have become extinct or have severly regressed due to nuclear war in the 20th century. So what do you think of this idea for a Traveller campaign? This map is just a way to organize these parallels, its hard to summarize in a hex all the things that make a parallel different from the baseline, so I don't bother. Do you have any ideas for a parallel timeline? The hexes in this map only go back as far as the year 1 AD, for deviate further back in time means going off the edge of this map.

 

[-Daniel-]

I wonder how long it would take to play out visiting each of these earths. :mrgreen:

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I wonder how long it would take to play out visiting each of these earths. :mrgreen:

Probably the same as any other planet. The exploration would be done by the Scout Service of course, a specially designed scout/courier would be used, the Jump Drive requires 20% of the Hull's mass in Jump Fuel, and it has 20 charges of Antimatter for making 20 Jumps, the antimatter is used in a special reactor of Darrian design, extra antimatter is kept in a magnetic storage facility outside the Moon base, far away from any inhabited area on the Moon's surface. The special Jump drive needs both jump fuel and 1 charge of antimatter to make each jump. Each jump takes the usual amount of time in Jump Space, only the ship emerges in a parallel universe when it exits, to make another jump, it needs to get more jump fuel, it has both fuel intake and a fuel processor to accomplish this. Traveling to a parallel universe is expensive, so the Imperium is not planning on invading any time soon, the antimatter is just too expensive, so for now it is in exploration mode.

 

[-Daniel-]

I wonder how long it would take to play out visiting each of these earths. :mrgreen:

Probably the same as any other planet.

So in some cases we have played out just exploring a single planet across several game sessions. Note I said play it out not just in game travel. Even if you hit one earth per game session and played once a week it would take more than a year and a half to visit all of these earths in your normal play sessions. But to do them justice, I imagine more than one game session would be needed for many of them.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

You don't have to visit them all!, just have a few planned out for whichever direction the PCs want to travel. Have at least five.
For example:

Parallel 01060 is one where the Zhodani won the First Frontier War, they proceeded to Conquer the Third Imperium, and it is now called the Zhodani Empire. Nobility is based on psionic potential.
Parallel 02330 is one where the Long Night never ended and it continues to this day.
Parallel 03120 is one where the Second Imperium never fell, the Long Night never happened
Parallel 04150 is a very dangerous parallel, the Germans won World War II when they developed the atomic bomb in 1943. Moscow went up in a nuclear fireball, the UK and the United States sued for peace, and the World was later absorbed by the Third Reich, we have a different Interstellar Wars, and a different Rule of Man in this timeline with racial laws enforced and slavery imposed on many alien and "non-Aryan" races This timeline had no Long Night either, extensive terraforming also occurred in this timeline, Mars and Venus were terraformed, in part using imported slave labor, many worlds have their native ecologies wiped out to be replace with Terran lifeforms, the standard language for this timeline is of course German. The natives of this Earth have managed to develop limited travel to one other Universe, this one an antimatter universe.
Parallel 05036 This is the Interstellar Roman Empire, here Rome never fell, instead they built spaceships and then starships, developed the Jump Drive. Many worlds have Latin names. The Romans are in a standoff with the Vilani Empire which survives to this day.

 

[Reynard]

Which one features the Vargr conquering the galaxy then fall apart because it's too much work?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Which one features the Vargr conquering the galaxy then fall apart because it's too much work?

You can write one up if you like, that was kind of the idea of this thread. There are plenty of parallel Earth's in that map. each one is identified by a hex number. The first two digits indicate how many millennia ago the change in the timeline occurred, all of them are of course in the present, so there is no time travel involved. I set up the Nazi timeline to be a little interesting. There jump drives work a little differently, each jump requires antimatter, it first takes a ship into the antimatter universe, where it can refuel with antimatter, and then the next jump takes them where they want to go in their own universe. The Nazi scientists don't know how to travel to parallel universes other than the antimatter Universe, there theory says that there are only two universes, one made out of matter, the other out of antimatter, they aren't aware of the existence of other parallel universes besides those, the Imperium on the other hand doesn't know how to get to the antimatter universe. In actuality each parallel universe has its own separate antimatter universe, the problem is the Imperium doesn't know how to build a jump drive that will get to an antimatter universe, the Nazis don't know how to go to anything but an antimatter universe and back to their own. The dilemma is that what makes travel to parallel universes expensive for the Imperium is the lack of antimatter, the Nazi timeline has a solution for them, all they have to do is steal their technology, unfortunately if the Nazis steal the Imperial technology of how to travel to parallel timelines, they would be all set up to invade those timelines and take them over, for them, all they lack is the technology to do so!

 

[-Daniel-]

Which one features the Vargr conquering the galaxy then fall apart because it's too much work?

I love the idea of this one. :lol:

 

[hivemindx]

This would be an enormous change. Why go dozens of parsecs to find another high industrial, high population, perfectly habitable planet when you can jump to the one you are currently at in the dimension next door. If I were do to this I would limit it to just a single alternative to reduce the information overload. Think the mirror universe in Star Trek. How confusing would that have been if there were dozens of different mirror universes.

You might consider having a look at The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. In these it is possible to jump to alternate versions of earth very easily but the dimensions are in a line not a 2D grid like you describe. So if you want to go to the Earth that is 5th along the line in one direction you must go through the other four. The biggest difference from your idea though is that the alternate Earths don't have the same fully developed civilisation that Earth prime does. Still it shows how people might colonise all these planets/universes that have just opened up.

 

[DanDare2050]

Id have a look more at The Merchant Princes series by Charles Stoss to see how this might play. The Long Earth isn't really like the idea presented here in the way it would play.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

What is the basis for distance on the map?

Is it how far your dimensional travel device can take you? Like a D-1 drive can get you 1 "hex" away?

Is it a similarity from the baseline or central dimension? The Tangents book for the Alternity RPG from the '90s used a hexagonal grid with positional distance from the center "hex" determining biological, cosmological, fantastic or historical divergence said origin hex.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Id have a look more at The Merchant Princes series by Charles Stoss to see how this might play. The Long Earth isn't really like the idea presented here in the way it would play.

The Dimension Jump Drive works much like the standard jump drive except for the greater power requirement met by the built-in antimatter power plant. The DJ-1 has the jump fuel requirement of a jump-2 Standard Jump Drive, that is you need 20% of the ship's hull of hydrogen. You still need to go beyond the 100 diameter limit in order for the drive to work, a misjump means you go to a different alternate Earth from which you intended, it could be anyone on the grid, pretty much random, just like the television show Sliders. It is very hard to navigate once you have misjumped, no matter which universe you are in, the stars are pretty much the same, it is hard to tell which parallel universe you are in and thus which direction you must travel in to get back, one needs to do some research, interact with some locals, perhaps visit a library, to figure out where you are, and some parallels may resemble each other.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

What is the basis for distance on the map?

Is it how far your dimensional travel device can take you? Like a D-1 drive can get you 1 "hex" away?

Is it a similarity from the baseline or central dimension? The Tangents book for the Alternity RPG from the '90s used a hexagonal grid with positional distance from the center "hex" determining biological, cosmological, fantastic or historical divergence said origin hex.

A jump-1 can travel 1 hex, requires 20% of the ship's volume in jump fuel, and 1 charge of antimatter. It is the antimatter which makes dimension travel expensive and uncommon. The scout ship can store 20 charges of antimatter, which is produced at a research base on the far side of Earth's Moon at high costs. The antimatter is stored at the bottom of a crater within a magnetic confinement device. There are signs surrounding the area that say "restricted area, keep out, Danger!" to deter civilians from getting too close. Antimatter is fueled by a robot into the scout ship, once completed the crew can board the ship.
The timelines are historical, the Imperium doesn't know how to get to universes where the laws of physics are different, it doesn't know how to get to an antimatter universe, though a parallel full of Nazis has the technology to get to an antimatter universe for refueling purposes, in this tangent, fusion reactors are very crude and enormous, and don't fit within a starship smaller than a capital class, Antimatter is used instead, The Nazi Jump Drive can only go to the antimatter universe and somewhere else within their own universe, they have the standard jumps 1 through 6 with jump requirements, but with an antimatter reactor substituting for a fusion reactor. Nazi starships still need hydrogen for their jump drives however.