Crosstime Conflict

Centrum is on Quantum 8, while
Homeline is on Q5. Since it’s possible
to jump one quantum easily and
two with difficulty, Centrum’s territo-
ries “overlap” Homeline’s at Q6
(which Homeline can reach more
easily) and Q7 (where Centrum has
the advantage).
One might think that would pro-
vide a natural border. Unfortunately, it
doesn’t work that way. For one thing,
Centrum is aggressive. For another, Q6
appears to have more usable worlds
than all the other quanta put together
(nobody knows why).
Centrum seems to have had
crosstime travel for longer than
Homeline, but initially used it mainly
to enter empty worlds for resources.
Their mastery of parachronic mathe-
matics is definitely better than
Homeline’s. They can apparently
detect whether a timeline is unstable,
and plan an intervention to push it in
the direction they want; see Timeline
Shifts (p. 544). Homeline’s scientists
have not yet figured out how to do that
– or at least, Infinity isn’t admitting it.
Homeline
became
aware
of
Centrum’s existence nine years ago,
when an intruder was captured in one
of Infinity’s most secret labs. He told a
very strange story under truth serum!
Infinity released that first agent with
an offer of friendship. Centrum imme-
diately accepted, with apologies for
their earlier penetration of Infinity’s
territory. But it quickly became obvi-
ous that their “friendship” was entire-
ly treacherous; they didn’t have
enough experience in true coopera-
tion to fake it believably. Eight years
ago, they “stole” four timelines from
Q6! A year later, the “infinity war” was
a reality.
Apparently, Centrum does not have
“historical echoes” of the sort
Homeline does . . . or, if such echoes
exist, they are in a quantum unreach-
able from Homeline. This deprives
Infinity of a possible source of insight
into Centran psychology.
Interestingly, Centrum seems to be
at the exact same “time,” measured by
the stars, that Homeline is. Is this con-
nected with the fact that it is the only
known timeline, other than Homeline,
that can support a parachronic projec-
tor? Nobody knows.