The TGG Multiverse

[Steve]

Posting this thread to be an introduction to the setting and to list links to story threads as I post them. Given there's over a million words worth of written material, story or fluff, for the setting, I'm going to post it in pieces, chapter by chapter, story by story, at a pace everyone can absorb.

What is the TGG Multiverse? It started as a kind of game on the Spacebattles Story Debate forum, known by the rather elongated title of "the WYOIDC SD" - WYOIDC was short for "Write Your Own Ideal Constitution", referring to the Non Sci-Fi forum thread that inspired the game. The original WYOIDC SD was renamed to "TGG" at the fifth thread and after the second long-term pause in activity. The new initials stand for "The Great Game", as the astropolitics of the SD had become such that we had various blocs of alliances and coalitions that were starting to resemble pre-WWI power politics. The Great Game went on, with two multi-month long pauses, from November 2001 to August 2003, when it finally slid to a halt after six story threads. Three attempts would be made - in January 2004, October 2004, and February 2005 - to reboot it and start it up again, but none of the attempts lasted long.

But by the third and final SD attempt (or STGOD if you're familiar with the SDN terminology), I was already writing a fluff piece for the setting in the style of a non-fiction book, inspired by Norman Friedman's history of the Cold War - I had also begun a piece that, while unfinished, is still included in the past of the setting. But the fun part was yet to come. The TGG Multiverse had evolved beyond what it originally was, becoming a particular setting of its own and not just for nation-played RPGs.

In March 2005 I began writing, and then posted, this little nugget of a story called "Anatomy of a War" to SDN and SB. The result was a 20 page thread on each forum that didn't just have story but also lots and lots of replies as SDN readers were introduced to a new kind of crossover setting. The TGG Multiverse isn't just a place where Captain Kirk and Luke Skywalker meet, defeat bad guys, and throw back some cold ones. It's a place where average men and women live and work (and, sadly, fight and die), where wars are fought with things we've already seen (phasers) and weapons we were newly-introduced to (MP-10 particle rifles and AK-90 Kalashnikov assault rifles), and where myth and fantasy is sometimes forced to endure a realistic extrapolation. It's a meeting of the original and the established, the new and the old.

By the following January, when the epilogues of "Anatomy of a War" were posted, other TGG works were already underway. Already we had brought readers to the gilded paradise of Gilead in the opening chapters of "55 Days in Kalunda" (and the incompleted "Road to Hell") and were preparing to show them the terrible things one must do when in the Big Chair in the chapters of "The Decision". Since this time we've had the epics ("55 Days", "When Two Worlds Collide"), the adventures ("Triple Threat", "One Small Step...", "The Cardinal Files: An Inside Job"), and the character pieces ("The Wrath of Paradise", "The Decision"). Writers joined the effort and the Multiverse became more diverse than ever. Stories soon indicated there was more to this setting than meets the eye, and that hidden behind the shadow of the past lay an untold history not yet explored, an ancient legacy of power and terror just waiting to be discovered.

And now I'm going to start posting it here, just for those who haven't yet seen it on SDN or SB, and in a recommended reading order as determined by Marina and myself.

Currently the main contributors to TGG (which is admittedly on hiatus due to various issues for various writers) are myself, Marina (SDN's Duchess of Zeon), Chris Purnell (SDN's MarshalPurnell, Cavalier on SB), and Ed Korrina (Sunhawk on SB), with Alexia (VVoyager) and Fima (Fgalkin) having contributed pieces (in Fima's case, it hasn't been fully fleshed out yet) or preparing to whenever the setting gets rolling again.

Now, to help you get into the setting, here's the intro I wrote for the 5th Anniversary edition of "Anatomy of a War".

The TGG Multiverse: 5 Years Of Quality Story-Telling And Pretty Explosions

Opening


The questions come with any contact. 'Where did you get this technology?' 'Why are the histories divergent?' And eventually, 'Can we join in too?' Such it's been since the nations of Universe SE-1 and Universe PA-6 first made contact with each other over a century ago. In the hundred years since dozens of universes have been cataloged, hundreds of worlds colonized, trillions of people in hundreds of nations opened to frontiers never before imagined. They are all of all shapes and sizes: great star empires that control literally thousands of planets, moons, planetoids, and asteroids and minor nations that may own a continent on some colony world in the Earth Core or Mid-Range Sectors. Some nations at contact were crawling around near-Earth space with 53c-capable Heim Drives, some jumping from star system to star system with Kearny-Fuchida systems, others racing across the void at up to five, ten, even fifteen light years per hour (that's over 100,000 times the speed of light, by the way) in Cochrane (or Kollek, or Baeur-Wagner) Space Warp Drives. And of course there are the ever-present hyperspace drives that various universes inevitably found. Most people favor the Cochrane/Kollek/Bauer-Wagner/Whomever Space Warp Drives these days. They tend to give the most bang for the buck, even though they can be the fussiest (and of course, within 30 light years nobody can challenge the Kearny-Fuchidas anyway). But that's not why you're here.

As for the questions? Well, that's the point of the book isn't it? We'll get into details later, but as this is an opening chapter let's summarize.

The Multiversal Era began in what we today would roughly call 2028 Alliance Standard Time. That was not the year that the first interuniversal contact was made, but rather that in the universes of SE-1 and PA-6 sets of alien ruins were found that contained databanks that had survived for thousands of years. Nobody knew what the name of the aliens who left either set was or what they had been; such is presumed lost from elements of the old systems that were unrecoverable due to the time passed. What they did find led researchers from both universes on the path to discovering the mysteries of the known but then uncared-for element Straczynskium and the effects it could have if forced to bleed particles through exposure to electrical current. Five years would pass before the first IU radios were in use by both sides. Contact would be grudging, even after the researchers learned how to send video along the universe-spanning carrier waves. But by 2041 AST, it would be completed. The first IU Jump Gates were built and the nations of SE-1 and PA-6 would make contact. The contact had repercussions in both universes, but especially in SE-1 where states suspicious of the recently-formed alliance of Australia-led Oceania, the United States, and the United Kingdom had reason to further fear their close relations with the political body of the UNSE in PA-6; the result was a short yet bloody conflict between the Russian Federation and the Anglo-American Treaty Alliance, which the United Nation-States of Earth from PA-6 would intervene in, to go down in history as the Third Anglo-Russian Space War. Out of that stalemated conflict would come the historic New Brasilia Treaty, signed on the premier colony capital of the Brazilian Republic of SE-1 and heralding the foundation of the Inter-Universal Commerce and Exploration Commission. Under the multinational IUCEC, given control of all IU-related technology dissemination by the signatories, the race for the Multiverse was on.

The histories were divergent. Both had suffered tumultuous, bloody 21st Centuries, but had emerged differently from them. Even more so was the difference in actual time; what is now 2028 AST was 2450 for the people of SE-1 and 2508 for those in PA-6. One universe had seen World War III wreck the globe in the 21st Century and lead to major changes upon the map (the union of Scandinavia, the annexation of Cuba and Mexico to the United States and statehood for the nations of Hispaniola, the restoration of the Donbass and Crimea to Russia, Taiwan's final reunion with mainland China) and the names Armand Giuseppe and Reinhardt von Krager would be etched into the history books of SE-1 in the same tenor as the names Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were. The other had not seen WWIII per se but a series of conflicts, political shifts and revolutions peaceful and violent, and demographic collapse that left a battered United States as the only major global state still standing as the 22nd Century began, prompting the visionaries of that time to unify a war-weary, resource-deprived globe under a reformed United Nations based on American constitutional principles. These striking differences would be further complicated by other universes. AR-12, where democratic states of Humanity led by the powerful French and the United States faced both those Human nations that had turned to authoritarianism and the feared alien empire of the Coserians. FHI-8, where North America had become sharply divided in the 21st Century, Europe devastated and then plunged into a fascism it has yet to shake off, Britain under an imperial monarchy, and the horrors of the 21st and 22nd Centuries leading to the near extermination of the Semitic Races from the Middle East. The examples are many; to list them all has in fact caused entire volumes of works to come from the Multiverse's brightest historians. It is, honestly, beyond the purview of this work.

"Can we join too?" Through the century since the signing of the New Brasilia Treaty this question has been asked again and again, as successive space-faring civilizations have been encountered and have sought to experience the wondrous bounty of the Multiverse. Of resource-rich planets found in dozens of copies across the known cosmos. The IUCEC has admitted many new members, such to the point that its structure now begins to resemble the United Nations of the 20th Century, each member nation guarding its seat with such jealousy that even those nations that founded the Alliance of Democratic Nations this past decade have stubbornly retained their seats. The IUCEC has even seen fit to grant the Alliance Government its own seat upon the IUCEC simply so it can be represented as an entity, its own constituent nations still enforcing their interests as they see fit. The IUCEC considers its mandate to be the peaceful expansion of the Multiversal Community. The Jump Gates it operates are protected by treaty (and sometimes by the force of its signatories, as MWB-32's Clans of Kerensky discovered recently). There is no telling how the IUCEC may yet evolve in the future, with such diverse new political entities as the Federated Commonwealth of MWB-32, the races of the InterStellar Alliance of EM-5, and the large United Federation of Planets of ST-3 all seeking membership on various conditions.

With the questions answered with such brevity, it should be noted that the Multiverse refuses to be so easily summarized. The scope and diversity of it boggles the mind. Universes like MWB-32, SE-1, and PA-6, with no known existing alien races, exist alongside the universes of EM-5 and ST-3 and AR-12 where aliens are more common; over a hundred ply the spaceways of ST-3. Lands of opportunity and lands of empty promise beckon to many many trillions of souls, all kinds of variants of what we, until lately, knew as Humankind, but might more accurately call Sentientkind in this magnificent era. We have a Multiverse with multiple copies of each nation, made different from individual history but still similar in background. A Multiverse where the surviving German and Austrian and Russian Empires that, for most, fell in what is called World War I still exist today as thriving space-faring empires of Universe AGC-1, while Texas stands as a space-faring Great Power of FHI-8 and an individual state of the United States of SE-1 or AR-12. A Multiverse of spiritual Dorei and rational Vulcans, nationalist Davions and internationalist Starfleeters, proud Klingon warriors and contemplative Minbari scholars.

This is the Multiverse. And now we're going to tell its story.

-Preface of "The Multiverse: A Short-Yet-Still-So-Very-Long History" by Dr. John Lawson, Dean of Multiversal History, University of New Chatham, published 2153 AST/2575 SE-1 Calender

[Steve]

Table of Contents:


"The Wrath of Paradise" (2151 AST)
by: Steve (Complete)
Word Count: 33,274

"Anatomy of a War" (2153 AST)
by: Steve (Complete)
Word Count: 262,729

"Anatomy of a War: Homefront (2153 AST)
by: Sunhawk (Complete)
Word Count: 7,403

"Path to Salvation" (side story to "Anatomy of a War") (2153 AST)
by: Posbi (Incomplete)
Word Count: 22,717

"Triple Threat" (2155 AST)
by: Sunhawk (with Steve)
Word Count: 13,507

"Triple Trouble" (unfinished) (2150 AST)
by: Sunhawk
Word Count: 12,424

"Academy Duets" (unfinished) (2157 AST)
by: Sunhawk
Word Count: 685

A War Like No Other: "The Thundering of Guns" (2160 AST)
by: Steve
Word Count: 43,321

Citadel (2161 AST)
by: Sunhawk and Steve
Word Count: 15,284

Field Trip (2163 AST)
by: Sunhawk and Steve
Word Count:

The Decision (2163 AST)
by: Steve
Word Count:

55 Days at Kalunda (2163 AST)
by: Marina and Steve
Word Count: HUEG (count to be shown later)

Hollow Life (2164 AST)
by: Steve
Word Count:

What Price Peace (unfinished) (2165 AST)
by: Steve and Marina
Word Count:

State of Siege (2165 AST)
by: Marina and Chris
Word Count:

Ça Ira - The Terran Revolts (Unfinished) (2080s AST)
by: Marina
Word Count:

Frozen Phoenix / Jade Throne (1100s AST - HRE's 21st Century)
by: Chris (MarshalPurnell)
Word Count:

The Burning of Kass Zaris (1857 AST)
by: Chris (MarshalPurnell)
Word Count:

Unfinished Business (2098 AST)
by: Chris (MarshalPurnell)
Word Count:

Sole Survivor (2171 AST)
by: Marina and Chris

When Two Worlds Collide (2167-69 AST)
by: Marina
Word Count:

The Cardinal Files: Just a Day Off
by: Marina and Chris
Word Count:

The Cardinal Files: An Inside Job
by: Marina and Chris
Word Count:

One Small Step (2173 AST)
by: Steve
Word Count:

Golden Lanka (~13,000 BC AST)
by: Marina
Word Count:

The Last Woman Standing (2178 AST)
by: Marina and Steve
Word Count:

Federation Civil War cycle (2165-2168 AST)
by: Steve
Prologue - "The Sundered Dream"
Segment 1 - The Devil To Pay w/ contributions from Marina and Ed
Segment 2 - Hold At All Costs w/ contributions from Marina (unfinished)
Segment 3 - High Water Mark (unfinished)
Epilogue - Untitled (unfinished)

[Steve]

After spending six and a half weeks posting "Anatomy of a War" chapter by chapter bi-daily (with some skipped time), I posted the epilogues today. I've also posted the smallest of the two side-stories, "Homefront", as a little bonus.

Went ahead and listed all of the TGG stories as well, I'll fill in word counts as I post them. I won't start posting the next one until the end of the week though, should anyone still be going through "Anatomy of a War".

[Steve]

For your perusal, a list of actual universes either seen in TGG stories or considered part of the setting if not yet introduced (you try filling in sixty universes).


ST-3 - Trek
EM-5 - B5
MWB-32 - BTech
CON-5 - "Central" universe, WWI PoD Brits force Dardanelles, Churchill is PM in 1938, no Munich, Wehrmacht coups Hitler. The proposal to make it an alt-hist was relatively late in its creation IIRC, sometime in 2006.
FHI-8 - "Dark Universe", Eurofascists, Texas, LoEA
LRC-19 - no real data yet, save a couple ADN nations are from this universe.
AR-12 - "French have Balls" universe. "Escadrille Lafayette" originverse.
HE-1 - 22nd Century ADN capitol universe, basis for AST calendar
SE-1 - Redone Scorched Earth universe
PA-6 - Ameriwank universe
DN-9 - ID4-likeverse
HM-1 - Dale's home universe - AEC case
AGC-1 - WW1 PoD, Germany goes East. The various European imperial monarchies do not fall in this timeline and exist, in one form or another, in the "modern" space-faring age.
WR-22 - Domainverse.
GS-42 - Has Alien race called Dorei, one of the initial entry points of Zohan clans in ADN. Otherwise general ADN-verse, mostly undescribed.
ML-12 - Triplets' (Triple Trouble, Triple Threat) home universe
VCG-34 - Stronghold/Kalderi/Erud universe
VS-5 - Taloran Home Universe
Habsburg-1/HAB-1 - HRE Home Universe
GA-18 - UC Gundam
CMR-8 - Space: Above And Beyond
IDM-38 - Starcruiser Shenandoah
FB-16 - Wing Commander
PNG-3 - Planetes
IPR-45 - Viking NAverse (whole "permanent Norse settlement in Newfoundland" kind of deal)
WLP-23 - Napoleonverse (self-explanatory I hope)
RS-12 - Hungaro-Byzantiumverse (Marina idea, based of some potential for an ancient match that would've seen the thrones of Byzantium and Hungary unified by marriage. I forget the specifics.)
SRC-19 - Stargate


Possible:
PTE-9 - Poul Anderson's Terran Empire, as proposed by David Falkyn from SB.com (he wrote a contact story years ago but it went unposted IIRC, the status is up in the air for now)
MCP-8 - "Poland"-altverse, Lescek the White survives assassination attempt (mostly another alt-hist proposal, based on the principle of a couple Slacker considered for one of the short-lived TGG iterations as an SD. I threw it around while we were considering further filler and Marina and Chris opted for earlier alt-history divergence than either of Slacker's concepts.)