Alternate Universes: The Infinite Gardens

[taalismn]

Our last big fan-built alternate universes thread necro-locked, so here's an individual posting...just a little daydream world-building:

The Infinite Gardens (aka Gardeners’ Paradise, Eternal Gardens. Bucolia, Gardens of Forever)

“When you increase the number of gardens, you increase the number of heavens too!”
--- Mehmet Murat ildan

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
--- Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Garden as though you will live forever.
— William Kent

The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.
— Michael Pollan

“Forget the Heavenly Gates; true gardeners go to the Infinite Gardens when they pass.”

The Infinite Gardens are exactly that; a dimension of infinite landscaped gardens. Just about any form of cultivated flora format can be found in the Gardens, from English Gardens to Sand Gardens, to Octopuses’ Gardens. To the casual visitor, the Infinite Gardens appear as a patchwork of garden patches and fields, broken by protective hedgerows, stone walls, creeks, rivers, lakes(some quite large and containing salt water)and rolling hills. Small farming communities (the largest no more than 2,000 residents), hamlets, and country estates dot the landscape.Transportation through the gardens is by waterway and country road, though railroads, monorails, and airships link some of the more technology-inclined communities, and leylines the more magic-predisposed ones. Climate control is extremely local; one region may be in eternal summer, the next adjacent undergoing rapid seasonal changes. In general, though, growing seasons tend to be long in the Infinite Gardens, winters short, and the climate benign. Likewise the geology tends to be friendly, though hot springs and ‘dirt geysers’ that upwell fresh topsoil in locations exist.
The Infinite Gardens are said to be the product of an apocalyptic clash between two vast interdimensional entities, one a spirit of pure nature, the other a giant universe-spanning machine intelligence, that came into contact with each other and tragically started warring in a millenia-long destructive conflict, over some misunderstanding. Eventually the two entities, neither particularly evil or unreasonable, realized the horrible destruction their war had wrought on both their realms, as well as others. The two decided to make their peace with a compromise, creating a third dimensional realm(or merging their two tattered ones) into one that expressed a balance of cultivated nature. The Gardens exist as a living example of cooperation and symbiosis, wild nature and civilized planning working together in harmony. The entities responsible are believed to cotinue to proactively police their creation, though nobody has been able to directly communicate with them.
The attraction of the Gardens, besides their beauty and peacefulness, is that if one searches them long enough, one may eventually find just about any plant species that can be cultivated, and many that supposedly can’t. Even viciously predatory and invasive plant species seem to be controlled in the Infinite Gardens. To start one’s own garden, all one apparently has to do is travel until they find a fallow stretch of ground unclaimed by anybody else, start setting up a garden, and work it. If a garden goes without tending for a certain period of time and no declared intent to continue to work it, then the garden plot may be ‘reclaimed’ by ‘green angels’(vast flying masses of mystically-empowered greenery) or by mysterious machines that till up the abandoned garden plot and return it to a fallow state for somebody else to eventually claim.
The Infinite Gardens are most notably populated by nature spirits(including at least one Millenium Tree that serves as a local landmark) and faerie folk. Spriggan in particular seem to be responsible for the raising of many stoneworks found throughout the Gardens. A substantial Dwarven population contributes to building larger, more elaborate, stoneworks, monuments, and waterworks that provide nexi for gardens. Of more mundane species, the Gardens are peppered with small agrarian communities of Humans, Elves, Halflings, and Kankoran. A few of the more nature-oriented Gods and Goddesses have temples in the Gardens, often as the focal point of vast gardens cultivated by their followers...or small intimate places where they can find some peace and quiet. Interestingly and paradoxically, a good number of the inhabitants also, while they may breath, have heartbeats, and have warm flesh, will register to magical senses as dead. About 30% of these will admit to having memories of a previous life where gardening factored, and that they woke up in the Gardens, presumably after dying in their last existences.
Most natives/inhabitants of the Gardens will express little interest in outsiders or outside events, unless they are bothered or their gardens intruded upon. If approached with friendly intent, though, most will be all too happy to show off their garden labors, and even offer food grown in their gardens. Even the Onion Men(see Rifts: Mad Haven) who live in the Gardens are uncharacteristically well-mannered. An unwary, if well-intentioned, traveler may end up spending hours or days listening to descriptions of gardens and gardening methods, especially if the lecturer is one of the undead. Harvest and nature festivals, farmers’ matkets and especially flower shows, are common occurances in the Gardens.
A few outside concerns have managed to find the Infinite Gardens, and it’s known that one large garden-supply chain company studies the various gardening techniques practiced there with an eye towards disseminating the knowledge through their own outlets and info seminars.

Type of Dimension: Infinite Universe
Size: Infinite; travelers to the realm have reported attempting to map it for centuries, but have found no end to it. The powers that govern the Gardens prevent vertical travel above 1 mile, making aerial mapping and supersonic transit attempts problematic. Digging down, one encounters increasingly dense strata of rock(although some local tales tell of deep excavations reaching levels of numerous metal pipes, cable sheaths, concrete or ceramic water conduits, and great armored plates, before the excavations were forcibly closed by mechanical action...deep digging technologies supposedly became forbidden immediately afterwards).
Some travelers claim to have reached the ‘edge’(or at least undeveloped regions) of the Infinite Gardens, and found fallow ground being created out of a glowing impenetrable mist by the vast and enigmatic ‘green angels’ and ‘golden machines’, or else claim to have witnessed dimensional rifts dumping megatonnes of top soil, manure, and compost.

Primary Dimensional Medium: Earth(some say the founding Machine Entity is a techno-elemental)

Secondary Dimensional Medium: Plants(the great biomass of plants is said to make up a portion of the founding Nature Entity)

Density of Dimensional Fabric:
Strong; efforts to reach the Gardens are at -30% on dimensional access rolls. Generally, only those who are invited(a mysteriously appearing golden blossom or a glowing garden trowel are good sign you’ve been invited), or have sponsorship by a high rank nature spirit may freely access the Gardens.

Magic Level:
High----- Leylines crisscross the Gardens, and the overall ambient magic level is quite high. Travelers and residents speak of a ‘Green Way’, which appears to offer faster access about the Gardens, but this magical transport system’s stations are hidden in the design of various gardens(frequently garden gates or toris) and not always made available to outsiders.
Plant-based(such as Biomancy spells) and Earth-based Elemental magic are 20% stronger with regards to duration, range, and effect.

Dimensional Energy Matrix:
Universal: However, is often mistaken for Neutral, as certain technologies(polluting or environmentally damaging) may be stopped dead or outright destroyed by whatever powers that be. Steam engines and electrical wind turbines are permitted, but fission nuclear is not. Several centuries ago, an outside concern attempted to introduce massive factory-farm-style combine rovers; they almost immediately became bogged down in quicksand and were dismantled by a horde of insectile machines. The effort to re-introduce the combines was never attempted again.
In general, only eco-friendly technologies are permitted on the Gardens.

Time Flow:
*Normal

Dimensional Quirks:
*Peaceful---It is said that the founders of the Infinite Gardens, the nature spirit and the machine intelligence, still police their creation. No one species may become invasive, no blight unchecked, no vermin allowed to run loose. Either the problem is dealt with by some manifestation of natural forces(rock or forest may suddenly grow to contain a threat , or a new animal species appear to combat another species) or mysterious machines. Even an attempt by a Xiticix incursion was unsuccessful, swallowed up by giant flycatcher plants, ‘green angels’, and hunted down by ‘warden’ machines.

*Agelessness---Those who visit the Gardens do not appear to age during their stay. And while plants may die, any real effort to revive a flagging plant will be automatically successful.

*Gardeners’ Paradise---Anybody spending six months in the Infinite Gardens will get a +10% bonus to any gardening or herbology skills they possess, +3% to Landscaping skills. A year gets a +25 % bonus/ +8%.
Mystics, Mystic Herbologists, and other nature-inclined characters will also have a +5% to navigate around the Gardens and find specific locations.
Dowsing and water-finding skills also get a +10% to finding water in the Infinite Gardens; even in desert sections of the Gardens, there is easy access to water(usually underground).

*Links---The Infinite Gardens are rumored to have dimensional connections to the fabled Elysium Fields, Garden of Eden, Yggdrasil, and The Earth Elemental Plane. It is also rumored that an offshoot of the River Styx runs through some parts of the Gardens, especially those inhabited by those claiming to be dead.

Notes:
The Infinite Gardens are one of a number of ‘infinite’ -themed universes, some of which appear deliberately engineered.

For my mother: May her garden patch be ever bountiful.

[Alrik Vas]

Why is it whenever someone makes an idyllic, garden-like universe were even the dead can live happily, my first thoughts are:

1.The Coalition burns it down and murders everyone.
2. Sad story: servant boy plays with the Lord's little girl in a garden in childhood. Girl dies, boy becomes the gardener. Years later, he meets a woman about his age, in the gardens. Eventually learns he's seeing his dead childhood friend, projected from the Garden Realm.
3. Uplifting Story: the protagonist ends up the garden realm by accident, can't seem to get back home or make friends. Ends up learning another visitor wants to steal the realm for himself, protagonist works to stop them, making friends and learning lessons along the way.

Basically, an unchanging paradise begs for strife and change, where it ends imperfect, yet stronger for it. Either that or the boot of the CS on the back of it's neck. Hey, flamethrowers, cool stuff, right?

[glitterboy2098]

funny, when i read the title (and before reading the body of it) my first thought was of The Black Garden of Destiny, a dimension of exotic stone structures and lush vegetation.. that is also the home of the alien warmachines known as the Vex, and the location of their Dark God

[taalismn]

Why is it whenever someone makes an idyllic, garden-like universe were even the dead can live happily, my first thoughts are:
Basically, an unchanging paradise begs for strife and change, where it ends imperfect, yet stronger for it. Either that or the boot of the CS on the back of it's neck. Hey, flamethrowers, cool stuff, right?

Because our hardened cynicism sez all good things must end, asking for happiness only attracts those want to see you screamcry, God hates you when you ask for anything, happily ever after is attainable only with serious drugs, magic kingdoms are built on the oppression of the peasants, and eternal goodness is a mask for something darker, like an authoritarian tyranny with clowns and mimes?

Yeah, the Gardens are more an exercise in prose, and a nostalgia for happier times, but hey, occasionally you need to conjure up a few happy times and places for your inner child,

Note, however, that the Gardens have a rather formidable 'immune system'....the Green and the Machine got VERY good in their war against each other. Now that they're working TOGETHER...
I may do more on the 'agents' of the Garden guardians.

[Alrik Vas]

"I come from the eternal garden! I fight for balance in nature with the nano-machine soul of the universe! GO GREEN MACHINE!"

[taalismn]

"I come from the eternal garden! I fight for balance in nature with the nano-machine soul of the universe! GO GREEN MACHINE!"

I now want to create superheroes who were born and raised in the Eternal Gardens and now want to go to other universes to spread the word(and generous amounts of fertilizer with the complimentary new EverSpreader(TM) and GardenWolverine(TM).

[Nekira Sudacne]

Why is it whenever someone makes an idyllic, garden-like universe were even the dead can live happily, my first thoughts are:

1.The Coalition burns it down and murders everyone.
2. Sad story: servant boy plays with the Lord's little girl in a garden in childhood. Girl dies, boy becomes the gardener. Years later, he meets a woman about his age, in the gardens. Eventually learns he's seeing his dead childhood friend, projected from the Garden Realm.
3. Uplifting Story: the protagonist ends up the garden realm by accident, can't seem to get back home or make friends. Ends up learning another visitor wants to steal the realm for himself, protagonist works to stop them, making friends and learning lessons along the way.

Basically, an unchanging paradise begs for strife and change, where it ends imperfect, yet stronger for it. Either that or the boot of the CS on the back of it's neck. Hey, flamethrowers, cool stuff, right?

Maybe you are just a bitter cynic unable to deal with the concept that people can be happy and paradise can be acheived

Or maybe it's because a perfect paradise is really boring to tell stories about.

[glitterboy2098]

#2, alternate. Little girl finds magical way to reach the garden realm, has lots of fun hanging out with the elderly gardener. as she grows up she is unable to go back. she grows up, gets old, then finds a way back to the garden realm, where she becomes a gardener.. only for herself as a little girl to arrive and befreind her, due to interdimensional travel weirdness.

[taalismn]

#2, alternate. Little girl finds magical way to reach the garden realm, has lots of fun hanging out with the elderly gardener. as she grows up she is unable to go back. she grows up, gets old, then finds a way back to the garden realm, where she becomes a gardener.. only for herself as a little girl to arrive and befreind her, due to interdimensional travel weirdness.

Time Loop or alternate universe selves...yeah, that can make for some interesting social relationships..like giving good/bad advice to your younger self...except that you might set up a predestination paradox for yourself, or completely screw yourself up because you don't know a minor detail about the alternate universe your 'younger self' comes from.

And yeah, I just saw the description of the upcoming 'Garden of the Gods'...

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

"I come from the eternal garden! I fight for balance in nature with the nano-machine soul of the universe! GO GREEN MACHINE!"

I now want to create superheroes who were born and raised in the Eternal Gardens and now want to go to other universes to spread the word(and generous amounts of fertilizer with the complimentary new EverSpreader(TM) and GardenWolverine(TM).

GardenWolverine(TM)? Is that like the ultimate evolution of the famed GardenWeasel?

[taalismn]

[
I now want to create superheroes who were born and raised in the Eternal Gardens and now want to go to other universes to spread the word(and generous amounts of fertilizer with the complimentary new EverSpreader(TM) and GardenWolverine(TM).

GardenWolverine(TM)? Is that like the ultimate evolution of the famed GardenWeasel?

Exactly, only now you can mulch asphalt, concrete, and parked cars with it.