Editing GURPS Infinite Worlds (section)

=== Timeline Types ===

* '''Empty:''' Either mankind never evolved, hasn't evolved yet or went extinct. Mostly used for colonization, resource extraction, waste disposal and trophy hunting.
* '''Temporal Echo''': Identical to Homeline history, just running behind by a certain number of years. They exist so GMs can run "history has gone wrong, go back and fix it" adventures without dealing with actual time travel. If you change the course of history in an echo, there's a chance the timeline will change quantum levels (potentially stranding you) or "disappear" entirely.
* '''Anchor:''' An anchor is an echo that doesn't shift around if you send it "off course". Infinity and Centrum usually buttfuck these timelines quite roughly since nobody has to worry about a stray shift marooning their own agents.
* '''Parallel:''' Actual alternate histories. The differences that make a world a parallel range from "Pete Best never left the Beatles" to "the Norse never Christianized and [[Vikings]] rule America" to "Godzilla is real and the Pacific Rim has to deal with giant monster attacks every few decades." So-called ''high-inertia parallels'' are parallels closer to the Godzilla end of the scale that still have recognizable cultures.
* '''Hell World:''' [[Death World|Death Worlds]]. Causes range from super-pandemics to World War III to the stars becoming right and [[Cthulhu]] eating everyone. Sometimes they can be cleaned up and used as empty worlds but usually they're better off being left alone, after the PCs try to find out what the hell happened of course. This is also one of the only worlds where Infinity is willing to flat out conquer any survivors of the original apocalypse, since it's frankly an improvement over slowly dying to whatever made it a hell world in the first place.
* '''Puzzle World:''' Timelines that are just ''weird''. Printed examples include Möbius, which is somehow Quantum 4 and Quantum 7 at the same time, and Rustic, where [[Medieval Stasis|harnessing electricity is impossible.]]