Okay, so. A few thoughts have been percolating through my head for a while now on the topic of MAC-era Gaera, and a conversation with Zero has prompted me to bring them up. Specifically, the topic of planar travel (or the lack thereof).
Planar and inter-world travel have been pretty well glossed over, so far as I know, but the baseline assumption is that they simply don't occur. After all, what motivation is there to focus on space travel when other worlds are just a sufficiently complicated spell away? In fact, I think it's a strength of the setting, as perils tend to be terrestrial in nature, rather than invading armies from off-plane.
The points I've been giving a bit of thought to are why there is such a dearth of planar travel, given its prevalence in present-day Gaera, and also what loopholes exist when it comes to making use of the different planes in ways other than direct travel. To start with, an excerpt from the conversation.
Kelne2261: And yet, nobody, so far as I can tell, in designing the setting, has assumed that such travel exists in the MAC era. The great frontier is expansion into space, not spreading into the planes or world-hopping. Indeed, I think such activities would essentially undermine the setting.
Kelne2261: So. We are left with three possibilities.
Kelne2261: 1) It has been discovered that plane hopping is hideously dangerous to the very fabric of reality, and has been outlawed on pain of pain.
Kelne2261: 2) Somehow, the knowledge of conventional planar travel has been lost. I favoured everyone able to fleeing offworld during a cataclysmic war, until it was established that MAC was not, in fact, post-apocalyptic.
Kelne2261: 3) Somebody (likely a god or coalition thereof) is actively preventing planar travel.
Brodzky Zero: *I thought #1 had been decided on. Likewise, we can combine #1, with #3.*
Kelne2261: I'm inclined towards #1 myself. With the gods to enforce things in case some morally bankrupt corporation such as Infinity decides that there's money to be made from plane-hopping.
Kelne2261: I imagine a cataclysmic war with Infinity might well break things to the point where planar travel is now hideously dangerous.
Kelne2261: And present-day Kelne is already (reluctantly) engaged in forging some kind of cross-world alliance against them. They've just sprung up and threatened to destroy everything (and kill him personally) too many times for him to wait for them to inevitably come after him yet again.
Brodzky Zero: *I dunno if Infinity should even be in MAC. Because it'd shift MAC away from political struggles to "SHOOT DOWN THE ALIEN ATTACKERS".*
Kelne2261: Oh, I agree, Infinity should have no presence on Gaera in MAC era. The restrictions on planar travel cut both ways, assuming somebody's able to enforce them on Infinity in the first place.
Kelne2261: But I imagine that, beyond MAC era, Infinity installations might be encountered on new worlds by ships plying the void. Sort of the corporate equivalent of the Elder Gods waiting to be discovered by man.
Brodzky Zero: *Hahahaha*
Kelne2261: Because despite Kelne's or anyone else's best efforts, Infinity is not the sort of thing that one can permanently kill.
Brodzky Zero: *Like Daleks they is*
Brodzky Zero: *Or any other Doctor Who villain.*
Kelne2261: Exactly.
Conversation did seem to digress towards the Infinity corporation towards the end there, which runs a bit off topic. Still, if one requires some cataclysmic event to shake up the very rules that underpin reality, Infinity is always going to be a prime suspect.
Anyhow, more on loopholes and potential uses of the planes later.