Paradox-1

Paradox is a Quantum 5 reality that hosts a bunch of headaches all rolled up into one nice little package - the Secret is shot to blazes, the world is high mana, its people have been stumbling around who knows how many echoes for decades, the method of travel the reality uses doesn't seem to fit the rules of cross timetravel, there is a war going on between a Reich reality and this world, and it was created by another crosstime world some 60 years ago in that world's 2013.
==History==
Paradox is an extension of what appears to be an even older organization called Topaz who it was originally thought had created a divergence in 1899 when a Jewish girl of about 20 became involved in the young Adolf Hitler's life. But closer study has shown very subtle historical differences as early as the 1880s. In any case, in 1900 the young Jewish girl saved his brother Edward and, from there on, his life took a dramatic turn. In 1906 instead of going to Vienna, Hitler went into the military as an officer and became noted for his use of the teachings of a Chinese general named Sun Tzu.The Art of War (Sonshi translation; Archive.today) When the Great War broke out, the men in Hitler's command suddenly got equipment that resulted in victory after victory.
By the end of 1915, Austria-Hungry had won the Great War and, when the Kaiser tried to impose harsh treaty agreements, the very forces that had won the war quickly overthrew him. In the Kaiser's place the Phoenix Republic was set up along with League of Other Worlds which was to study mystical powers and contact other realms which they did in 1922 finding what appeared to be the remains of Aryan tribe responsible for the Hindu religion. This was followed by a mad crosstime/dimensional seek and find quest by the Phoenix Republic that continues to this day.
Even though the mysterious benefactor simply known as Topaz seemed to cut back on its supply of miracle machines in the 1920s, with them ending in the 1930s, it still supplied enough that the Phoenix Republic pounded the Italian fascists out of existence within a year of them coming to power. In 1923 Hitler wrote Erbe des Phoenix (Legacy of the Phoenix) that stated that the many religions of the world were in fact the memories of the last surviving tribes of the Aryan race. He then went on to say that knowing it was dying these last tribes of this Aryan race had seeded the varied races of man with certain aspects of themselves. The time had come to reunite these traits so the Aryan race, the godlike superpeople of the past, could again walk the earth.
In 1931 prodded on by invading Nazi forces from another history various Chinese warlords tried enlist aid from mystic forces they barely understood and had even less control over. The result turned China into total war zone with warlords fighting each other along with the otherworldly forces they had hoped to control. This war quickly spilled into other areas with Japan "liberating" various asian nations from the "demons" and the still industrializing Soviet Union being devastated by the creatures as they moved west.
In 1933, Hitler wrote Unser Kampf, an annotated version of Shirer's 1960 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany showing the nightmare destiny before Topaz for Germany and the Jewish people. This gives Homeline at least some idea as to the history of the Topaz timeline up to that point in its history.
By 1945 both the Soviet Union and China were "secured" and an attempt to strike back at the Nazis was made. That was when things got complicated.
==Outworld Operations==
Infinity's main headache is Paradox-1 uses something it calls Trinity Chronal Theory to travel quanta which doesn't seem to follow Parachronic Theory in any way Homeline understands. By 1950 the Nazi invaders were defeated but they had blown up their crosstravel equipment, so thinking it was simply creating alternate timelines Paradox tried to change the out come of the battle so a timeline where they captured the equipment intact was created. On the 4th try they succeeded and incorporated what they found into their own technology (and sharing it with its "less fortunate alternatives"). Thirty years later Infinity quickly recognized what the Nazis had left behind: a two quantum Parachronic conveyor.
So the average Infinity agent dealing with Paradox has the prospect of dealing with 4 "alternate timelines of Paradox itself" (Paradox echoes) in Quantums 2, 3, 8, and 11 according to Infinity's equipment all happily communicating with each other and a Nazi world (dubbed Reich-X) that had Parachronic travel some fifty years ago that was able to reach Quantum 5. Then there is Topaz which assuming the same rate of time as on most worlds would be around 2073 putting it in Homeline's future.
This is all ignoring the various military and humanitarian misadventures the various nations of Paradox-1 and its echoes have engaged in. Infinity estimates run as high as over thousand different parallel worlds have been involved. Of particular concern is that several of the realties Paradox-1 regularity communicates and travels to are in Quantum 3 and 8 and they can easily travel to other Quantum far outside either Infinity's or Centrum's ranges.
Paradox's formal method of "time travel" is called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge or ERB for short and they think that the act of traveling through time either creates or takes them to a parallel world identical to their past to the point of arrival. The range of their equipment was 100 years into the past before the recovery of the Reich-X Parachronic conveyor. After that the range appeared limitless. An interesting aspect of ERB travel is it seems to be immune to quantum shifting.
The actions of the Chinese warlords resulted in the mana level going to high across the world with pockets of very high scattered all over the place putting it high on the Cabal's places you need to visit list.
==League of Other Worlds==
The League of Other Worlds monitors various time travel operations of its member nations in an effort to keep any conflicts from spilling over into the main timeline. It also allows membership to nations of other timelines that diverged before 1899 in an effort to prevent some of the wars that happened in its past. It has knowledge of magic but only enough that natives have very rudimentary spell knowledge (It is a hodgepodge of Ritual Magic concepts ranging from mana to asking spirits for aid. No one is actually sure how it works).
The League of Other Worlds uses the teachings of Sun Tzu to the point of obsession and can be downright ruthless when it needs to be.
==Relations==
Infinity and Centrum are both frighted by Paradox-1 and it has learned of their existence. However, neither it or its echoes have figured out "the proper changes in history" to directly access either of their realities. 
The nations of the five Paradox worlds see Infinity and Centrum as potential allies or rivals depending on the nation. This concerns the League of Other Worlds as it has enough headaches with some of its member nations going on the occasional go and change the past to make our present/their future better/set up some colonies misadventure without Infinity and Centrum adding to the pile.
The League of Other Worlds doesn't accept the claims of Infinity and Centrum as its equipment still worked on a world Centrum had moved to Quantum 8. On the other hand, Infinity did test a ERB going into what was supposed to be its past 12 years but the Homeline (Homeline-2) they found turned out to a parallel with a slightly divergent history. Compounding matters is when
Homeline and Homeline-2 analyzed their readings of each other they discovered that they did fit parachronic theory but in a kind of Black swan way.
The histories are close but also "off" and they are trying to determine if the echos they know of are the same and the existence of two Centrums worries both of them as Centrum-2 is a mystery to both.
Centrum has stumbled on Paradox-3 which is about a year behind Paradox-1 and has gotten their own ERB to test and promptly found Centrum-2. Infinity and Centrum have made further tests of ERBs and found unlike parachronic travel they don't have a quantum range but are limited to divergences from the timeline the equipment is in.
==Notes==
Category:Quantum 5
Category:Reality Classification
Category:High Mana