Core Loop - DeciusCon
The formation of a new government administration is a messy bootstrapping process and nowhere is this more obvious than at DeciusCon. While access to time travel would have normally helped - one could simply check the future to see if a certain decision was the correct one after all - the presence of a much more skilled time traveller in the form of Miriam Alawi meant that she could feasibly falsify these checks, throwing doubt into the trustworthiness of reports of Decius's coming back from the future.
Without an administration or a spokesperson among the Decius's that everybody could put their trust in, no ambassador could be sent to Serentia to represent the collective in obtaining the promised expertise and resources. After all, evil alternates did exist. What if the chosen ambassador simply took Serentia's offered resources, departed for another timeline and was never seen again? But conversely, without first visiting Serentia, DeciusCon did not have the expertise needed for developing that trust in the first place.
Similarly fiercely debated was the question of where the administration should be located and how power should be shared. While some individuals wanted the new administration closer to home, others feared that wanton use of time travel so close to their friends and allies could have negative effects on their timelines. Several of the Decius's, who had circumstances far different than their alternates, feared that their own timelines were in the minority and might not have adequate representation unless they themselves had day to day input in the new government. Some wanted nothing to do with all this and assurances they would not be forced into it in the future, which was not helped by some of their futures reporting back, saying they had reconsidered and wanted in. Already there was an ideological power struggle.
Fortunately, several people had the presence of mind to bring in friends in the form of actual politicians from the actual government, and it was their expertise, plus advice from Miriam, that helped pathed the way forward.
In the end, it was decided that no new administration would be formed as of yet, but instead a Transitional Administrative Committee would be formed at DeciusCon with the location of the committee expanding to other timelines as needed. Miriam would stay on hand to teach the basics of time travel bureaucracy, and the politicians who had been brought into the loop would contribute in their own ways, even if it was, as one of the politicians was heard to say, "bloody scary how all this fruitful discussion could be erased and we could all wake up with missing memories tomorrow if someone makes a single mistake with this time travel stuff".
For now, DeciusCon would continue to be the site of the transitional administration, but with signs of real progress being made, a decision for where the real administration was situated was expected soon.
Visit to Serentia
Miriam Alawi solved the problem of who would represent the Decius collective at the Serentian Assembly by simply inviting everyone. In a crash course lasting a mere half an hour, you were each given a copy of Miriam's time machine and taught the basics of duplicating, tethering and pullback-merging. This would allow you to send a duplicate of yourself to Serentia by following Miriam's path through time-spanse, and then allow the duplicate to come back and merge their timelines with those that had stayed. This also provides an additional layer of security by leaving behind a double who will stay safe in case you are met with trouble or deceit.
Nevertheless, Miriam does not lead you astray and your transition to the Serentian seat of government, known simply as The Assembly, is both instantaneous and effortless, and you and the other representatives find yourselves standing on an arrival platform overlooking a spectacular view, with green and blue untamed wilderness on one side, and a mountain of glass and steel on the other.
Despite the grand nature of this venue there is no great assembly for you to address. Instead, Miriam leads you into a series of parallel timelines and then into a nearby food establishment. There she introduces you to a number of time travellers who had gathered to meet you. You shake hands with a succession of otherwise normal-looking people wearing strange clothing, and some not-so-normal people wearing strange clothing, all of whom explain their backgrounds and listen with interest when you explain yours.
Parallel timeline versions of you visit and are introduced also to the Serentian Instituions. You find yourself opening accounts at the Adjudicators, the Registrar, the Bank, the Perpetuators and the Estate holders, where you can apply for mediation in disputes, ask for the services of other time travellers, bank your free actions, and ensure your life and your legacy respectively.
Lastly you are given a tour of a mock administration for demonstation purposes, staffed by somebody who introduces themself as Likely Founders. He, or she, is a richly-dressed man or woman who glitches from one set of identifying features to the next, never settling on one height, weight, gender, face or race for long. He is apparently a quantum amalgamation of several people, each of whom had some immeasurable likelihood of being Serentia's original founder. He takes you through the steps of setting up a Core Loop style of administration, concisely explaining the use of time loops in bureaucracy, the methods of making decisions using information from unrealised futures, and the benefits of an administration using a precise mix of dictatorship, oligarchy, representative democracy and direct democracy which is impossible in a Local government, but greatly beneficial to implement in a time travelling one.
Pulling back from the core loops, you are given instruction into how information gained from a wealth of timelines can be digested and uploaded to each individual of the collective at their request, and how this allows an individual to obtain up-to-date news from a multitude of parallel universes, allowing all its members to make decisions using similar information and thus arriving at similar conclusions together.
Likely founders finishes the tour by showing you his Talent Bank, a braid of alternate timelines where he stores the best versions of himself. You shake hands with a Likely Founder at the very top of their physical form, another who has spent their life studying a range of subjects and has just gotten a very good night's sleep, and a number of other Founders of varying expertise, all in a state of heightened readiness. He also shows you his collections, because as it turns out, if a time machine can duplicate a person, then it can also duplicate gold, jewels and time machines. Strap several time machines together, and you can duplicate spaceships, mountains, and worlds.
When you finally pull back and merge with all the duplicates of yourself, it is with new riches, a new understanding of time travel and a broadened idea of what is important and necessary and what is not.
Core Loop - DeciusCon
DeciusCon expands and stabilises to encompass a time loop of exactly one fortnight, spanning over a dozen alternate timelines. The fortnightly schedule was adopted to allow the various friends of Decius to visit on weekends or weekdays in accordance with their normal life schedules, and also to allow time for the politicians of various sorts to report back. The location has expanded out onto the showfloors of the convention center, and the local governments are subsidising the costs of their use.
Because while some of the politicians had feared what would happen if their national leader got their hands on time travel and a means to secure power forever, others had thought the trade-off worth it. Those governments had heard the reports of 'time travel', 'accurate reports of the future', 'effectively infinite money' and 'complete instantaneous economic disjunction' and had inquired as to what the hell was going on and asked to be kept in the loop.
Likely Founders had come back from Serentia with you, and together with Miriam they had addressed the various Local governments about transitioning to a time travel economy. They had begun by addressing the most pressing and obvious topic - that the government that first discovers time travel gets effectively infinite money and effectively infinite martial might compared to the rest of the world and effectively wins history. But that without good governance, it won't necessarily last.
They had also explained that the Serentian model might not necessarily work for governments, as there were options available to single-person collectives that weren't available to multiple people acting under one banner. Not unless you wanted a compound entity such as Likely Founders as the result. Neverthless, Serentia had several governments they already worked with, and would extend their help and protection if this government didn't mind that their administrations and fates would probably be subsumed by Serentia eventually.
You leave that part of the equation to the politicians. It's their fault and the fault of those timelines' Decius's for intruding. It's time to decide where you'll put yourself.
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Plan Voting:
Where should you put Core Loop - Administration, the seat of the administration for your collective?
[] Continue your Core Loops at DeciusCon.
[] Move the Core Loops into your home and into various parallel workplaces in your individual timelines.
[] Move Core Loop - Administration to a room at The Assembly.
[] Build your own secret offices in nearby empty timelines to house your Core Loop - Administration.
[] Separate the Core Loops into various partitions and build them in two or more of the above options.
-[] Write in
[] Other (Write in).
Where should you put your Talent Bank, the place where the most capable and heroic versions of you will reside, ready at a moment's notice?
[] Leave your talents at home. Just note down which timeline they are in. You're happiest at home.
[] Put your talent bank close to Serentia's great infrastructural network of time gates, to maximise easy access.
[] Put your talent bank in a secure timeline near The Assembly.
[] Other (Write in).
You met several Serentians who wanted to your help in their dawn wars. Most of them offer only 1 action in payment, but there's one person there who offered 3. This is a good opportunity to network, and to learn the arts of Serentian time combat.
This requires an open Active Event slot.
[] Take the job for the 3 actions.
[] Take the opportunity to move somewhere or buy something instead. You have so much money and the entirety of history to explore.
-[] Write in what you want to buy or where you want to see.
Do you want to equip your event rewards to your slots?
[] Equip Serentian Initiate: +1 to Outcome Reach, +1 to Connectivity and Interests to an open Outcome Reach slot.
[] Equip Serentian Initiate: +1 to Outcome Reach, +1 to Connectivity and Interests to an open Connectivity and Interests slot.
[] Equip Veteran of the Morning Battle: +1 to combat skill" to an open Banked Talent slot.
[] Write in some combination of the above (you can't equip Serentian Initiate to both slots).
Do you want to bank any actions with the Serentian Action Bank?
[] Choose a number of actions to bank (not recommended at this time)
Do you want to take a loan from the Serentian Action Bank? The Serentian Bank will require collateral for your loan.
[] Choose a number of actions to loan and something to post as collateral. You might be rejected. (Not recommended at this time)
Do you want to time shift the entire collective?
You currently have an outcome reach of 2, meaning you can reach two steps forward or backwards in your current historybraid. Your available navigation points are: Battle in the Morning, O₁, O₁1₁, O₁1₂ and O₁1₃. This costs actions equal to the number of steps taken.
[] Pull back to O₁1₁ (This will revert this quest to the start of this post but keep your current character sheet. The next post will be a repeat of this one, plus a little more. Not recommended at this time.)
[] Pull back to O₁ (This will revert this quest to the start of the previous post but keep your current character sheet. The next post will be a repeat of character generation, plus a little more. Not recommended at this time.)
[] Pull back to the Battle in the Morning (This will reignite the Battle in the Morning).
[] Pull from a backup. (This will revert your character sheet to one from a previous post. Some plans will be incompatible with this option. Not recommended at this time.)
[] Hop to a future. Choose the number of steps. (This will help accelerate and finish your current events. You may miss some lore.)
[] Pull from a future. Choose the number of steps. (This will overwrite what your next character sheet with one from a possible future. Not recommended at this time.)
[] Some combination of the above.
[] Other (Subject to author veto. Check before writing in).
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Character Sheet
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Decius
O₁1₁ @P3
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Traits
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Core Traits:
- Serentian time traveller: Gain a base +1 to all your societal stats. Add the sum of your two lowest societal stats to your actions available. Add your Connectivity and Interests stat to the re-roll pool.
- Microscopic telekinesis: Small objects and particles can be easily controlled by your mind through extreme precision. Among other more benign uses, blocks the use of all nuclear-scale or annihilation weapons within range with payloads smaller than your body.
Other traits:
- Travelsolving style - Foresight and Resourcefulness: +1 Passive Banked Talent.
- Very Different Lifestyles - Some of you live vastly different lifestyles than the others, and it's detrimental to coordination. -1 Action.
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Economy Stats
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Actions Available: 2
+3 from societal stats
-1 from Very Different Lifestyles
Active Event Capacity: 2
+2 from Connectivity and Interests
Holding Event Capacity: 2
+2 from Outcome Reach
Reroll pool: 2
+2 from Connectivity and Interests
Record of Actions:
O₁@P3: +0
O₁1₁ @P3: +0
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Population Stats
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Population of Collectively You: ~(6)!
Supporting/Collaboratively You: ~(4+1)! = ~5!
Crew of You: ~2!
Other support size modifier: +1
Other crew size modifier: +0
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Societal Stats
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Banked Talent: 2
+1 from Travelsolving style - Foresight and Resourcefulness
+1 from Serentian Time Traveller
Banked Talent also serves as your skill roll, and serves as your attack modifier in time combat.
- Open slot
- Open slot
Outcome Reach: 2
+1 from Miriam Alawi Sponsored Involvement Level 1
+1 from Serentian Time Traveller
Outcome Reach also measures how far you can time travel your entire collective, and serves as your mobility/defense stat in time combat.
- Open slot
- Open slot
Connectivity and Interests: 2
+1 from Just yourself, you loner
+1 from Serentian Time Traveller
Connectivity interests also serves as your reroll pool for failed event rolls, and serves as your perception/HP stat in time combat.
- Open slot
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Events
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Active Events:
-Open event slot
-Open event slot
Brewing Events:
None
Resolved Events:
Battle in the Morning (completed)
- A battle with yourself, at the dawn of your origin event. Your foundational experience of time travel.
- Resolving this event allows equipping "Veteran of the Morning Battle: +1 to combat skill" to a free Banked Talent slot.
Joining Serentia (completed): Sponsored (uses sponsor's event cap).
- You've assimilated into the time traveller society known as Serentia.
- Resolving this event allows equipping: "Serentian Initiate: +1 to Outcome Reach, +1 to Connectivity and Interests" to Outcome Reach OR Connectivity and Interests.
- Completion gives trait: Serentian time traveller. Replaces Primitive Time Traveller.
Holding Events:
-Open event slot
-Open event slot
Faded Events:
None
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Involvement
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Sponsors
Miriam Alawi.
Involvement Level 1:
- Passive: +1 to Outcome Reach (No cost due to being your sponsor)
Actions:
- Spent 1 action for you at O₁1₁ @P3 to complete Joining Serentia event.
Allied and Braided collectives
Your peers, your students, your handlers, your family, your friends.
You are a beloved mentor of many and supported by all. Some have become time travellers. However, none of them are up to your notch.
Other support size modifier: +1
Just yourself, you loner
You have a lot of time to talk with yourself.
+1 to Connectivity and Interests.
Agreements
None
Opponents
The enemy Decius, the opposition of you. Occasionally reappears on a bad roll.
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Resources, Infrastructure and Exploitables
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None
