Editing Earths (section)

===Earth Bet===
{{main|Earth Bet}}
'''Earth Bet''', also known as '''Earth B''',<ref name="17.3">[[Migration 17.3]]</ref> is the main setting of [[Worm]]. It is believed to have diverged from Earth Aleph around 1982.<ref>[[Gestation 1.x]]</ref><ref>Breakdown of Haywire's research says we can't get to alt. Earths that are too close to our own.  Closest Earth to our own is Aleph, and deviation from that world started 30 years ago, the moment Scion arrived.  Anyone over 30 was born in both worlds, anyone under 30 wasn't, or the odds are almost impossible (same sperm, same egg, same time of conception required to have the same kid, and that's ignoring all the environmental influences during the pregnancy, and everything post-pregnancy that shapes the personality.) - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/interlude-19-y/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 19.y]]</ref>  It is the home world to Taylor and the majority of the other capes in the story.

Dollar coins were in widespread use, instead of bills, major terrorist attacks did not occur here, but the damage that people with superpowers did more than compensated.<ref name="17.6e1" /> The Cold War fizzled out when [[Scion]] entered the picture<ref>Unlike the major players in the Cold War, the monsters he was thinking about weren’t so rational that they’d stand down with Scion in the picture. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/interlude-15-donation-bonus-2/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 15.y]]</ref> and interfered with nuclear weapons testing.<ref>That's essentially it. [[Scion]] was stopping raiding groups and paramilitary groups in Africa and the Middle East, and then began to respond to weapon testing in much the same way. Scion shot down one test missile from a country away and then hit the launch facility. This wasn't widely publicized, but it did have ripple effects in terms of culture and America's military spending/focus.<br>Part of Scion's motivation in doing so was to prevent a scenario where the shards couldn't find hosts (for much the same reason, he would have gone out of his way to stop, say, [[String Theory]]). Part was [[Norton|Norton's]] instructions. But the countries basically realized that it wouldn't work. - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/15198095 Elaboration on spacebattles by Wildbow]</ref> There are the remains of an abandoned base on the Moon that was being created by [[Sphere]].<ref>[[Sphere]] became newsworthy when he took on a project to build self sustaining biospheres on the moon. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/interlude-11d/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 11d]]</ref><ref name="17.6e1">"“Nine-eleven didn’t happen here.  Endbringers did.  They have one dollar coins in this America, not bills, and they phased pennies out.  Um.  There’s an installation on the moon, half-built and abandoned.  I don’t know.  Stuff is different.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/migration-17-6/ Excerpt] from [[Migration 17.6]]</ref> Superhero comics are somewhat less popular and developed on Bet than in the real world,<ref>[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/3718308 Wildbow on SufficientVelocity]</ref><ref>[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/drone-23-2/#comment-24625 Comment by Wildbow]</ref> but real-life superheroes are featured in the media, including popular [[Video game|video games]]. There was still discrimination against gay people on Earth Bet.<ref>My point was that being GBLT in the setting isn't without occasional difficulties. A counterpoint to your general sentiment that the Wormverse is ok with gay people. I think making things perfectly ok and not mentioning the struggles & issues that a group goes through diminishes those struggles. - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-web-serial-discussion-iii-after-the-end.274031/page-70#post-12862094 Wildbow on Spacebattles]</ref> Betamax are implied to have won over VHS tapes.<ref>Being up late with Amy, a blanket around us and finished bowls of ice cream on the coffee table, a scary movie in the beta player, when Carol came in wearing her costume.  - [[Sundown 17.2]]</ref>

The existence of [[tinker]]s led to a tech boom,<ref>I then got to watch Madison rattle off my very impressive sounding list of ways capes had changed the world.  She cribbed almost all of my stuff; fashion, economics, Tinkers and the tech boom, the fact that movies, television and magazines had been tweaked to accommodate cape celebrities, and so on. - [[Insinuation 2.3]]</ref> although this was severely limited by the difficulty of reverse-engineering tinker technology.<ref>There's more to it, but Gearboy might not understand all the factors going into the crafting or maintenance process. He leans on his power for some things.<br><br>Creates a situation where, even with Gearboy creating detailed guides and painstaking video tutorials that walk through how he repaired a simple hull breach in his robot suit, you could get metallurgists and robot designers working together as a committee and missing some critical detail like how ambient humidity during the weld impacts the cross-exterior conduction and complex stresses for the future, or even power-granted awareness of planetary gravity/rotation/tidal influences on nano-crystal matrices.<br><br>TL;DR: It's bullshit. - [https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/3001128 Sufficient Velocity comment] by [[Wildbow]].</ref><ref>Think about it this way - you sit down to build something, you have a partial idea in mind, your power supplies the rest of the instructions and components.  You get into the zone, you tinker away, and a lot of your actions become automatic.<br><br>The shard, meanwhile, is working in concert.  They supply the ideas and the mental pictures, what's necessary and what's up to your imagination.  Then, as you get underway, they assess variables like ambient temperature, radio waves, earth's superposition in the galaxy, the materials you're working with, fine tuning to an extreme.<br><br>People using a camera can't track all of the individual details, so they copy what they can, but the pieces don't fit together, the metal has superfine stresses and vulnerabilities they aren't aware of, the elements don't jibe, and it just doesn't work. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/3olmsx/are_tinkers_magic/cvya0ko/ reddit comment] by Wildbow.</ref><ref>Tinkers may think they grok what they're doing, but the reality is that they're letting their passenger use extraordinary senses, awareness, and inspiration to fill the gaps. They start working, they focus on aesthetic and on other effects, but all the while, the passenger is figuring out some other stuff behind the scenes, or tweaking reality. TL;DR is that tinkers can't pass on tips to humanity. Even Masamune, even Dragon. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/49zwhs/new_version_of_weaver_dice/d19gb7b/?context=3 Wildbow on Reddit]</ref> The "roundphone" was one infamous product that failed despite heavy focus-testing.<ref>“This costume is focus group tested, moron,” Shortcut said. He reached up and flicked one of the circular discs that seemed to intersect his costume, like Halloween knife-headband combination that kids could pay a dollar for, to make it look like the knife was stuck through their heads.<br><br>“So were the Jeep Rockaybe, the Roundphone, and the second Iron Giant movie, so good for you, you’re in shit company,” Sidepiece retorted. - [[Polarize 10.9|Polarize - 10.9]]</ref> 

Some occurrences from the real world after 1982 were paralleled on Earth Bet. Justin Bieber, Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio were all famous on Earth Bet.<ref>In the chapter Taylor sees the Undersiders unmasked, she comments that Alec’s ‘pretty rather than handsome’ looks, along the lines of Justin Beiber, Marcus Firth, young Leonardo Decaprio, etc, etc, aren’t her cup of tea.<br>So at the very least, between Taylor & Vista’s comments, we can surmise he’s famous for having girls squeal over his looks. Is he a singer/sometime jerkass actor, though? Could have deviated in this reality, sure.[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/sentinel-9-5/#comment-1718 Comment by Wildbow]</ref><ref>He was pretty, with a triangular face, light blue eyes and full lips pulled into a bit of a scowl.  I pegged him as having French or Italian heritage.  I could see where he would have girls all over him, but I couldn't say I was interested, myself.  The pretty boys – Leonardo Decaprio, Marcus Firth, Justin Beiber, Johnny Depp – had never done it for me.  - [[Insinuation 2.6]]</ref> Google Docs existed,<ref> Kid Win watched the white text scroll by with details on the connection's activity.<br>
Google docs – pages of technical stuff, the boy was adding notes on gold wiring, shortform notes on antigravity, 3D crystals.  The next page the boy visited, five minutes later, was an email account. - [[Sentinel 9.4]]</ref> as did free Hotmail and Yahoo email addresses.<ref>"Very few school email addresses, mostly throwaway accounts from hotmail and yahoo," -
 [[Hive 5.4]]</ref> Smartphones were popular.<ref>"Is your phone really a priority?" Trickster asked.<br>
"Yeah," Rory said.  "Yeah it is."<br>
"Then you should have known better than to use it here," Trickster said, shrugging.
<br>"Give it back," Rory turned to glare at ‘me'.  At my swarm-double.
<br>Trickster chuckled, "Never really got that smartphone craze.  People go gaga over the things." - [[Colony 15.8]]</ref>

Different countries reacted differently to the presence of [[parahumans]]. In the [[United States]], [[Australia]] and part of [[Europe]], they were regarded as superheroes and supervillains, governed by [[unwritten rules]] against killing and heavily merchandised, and with the [[PRT]]<ref>[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/buzz-7-7/#comment-878 Comment by Wildbow]</ref> and [[Birdcage]] serving as legally-questionable adjustments to the legal system in reaction to them.<ref>[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/interlude-6/#comment-729 Comment by Wildbow]</ref><ref>[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/buzz-7-7/#comment-896 Comment by Wildbow]</ref>

[[Endbringer]] attacks had devastated cities including [[Lausanne]], [[Hawaii]], [[Kyushu]], [[Newfoundland]], [[Moscow]], [[Sydney]],<ref>As stated in Legend’s pre-battle speech (early in arc 8) there’s almost always grievous losses but they aren’t always the same sort of losses.<br><br>You have the events that left the world reeling: Lausanne, Hawaii, Kyushu, Newfoundland, Moscow, Sydney. The attacks that left major areas uninhabitable or unrecoverable, with wide-reaching effects on the rest of the country/region/world.- [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/colony-15-5/#comment-5639 Comment] by Wildbow on [[Colony 15.5]]</ref> and [[Madison|Madison, Winsconsin]], causing wide-reaching repercussions. The destruction of Kyushu led to large numbers of Asian immigrants to the US, a severe weakening of Japan and destabilisation throughout Asia’s pacific border.<ref>In this setting, for example, Japan isn’t a world power and it’s still dependent on international assistance 12 years after Leviathan’s visit to Kyushu.<br><br>But even there, where do you say, “Ok, that’s the sum total of the damage done”? The disaster at Kyushu, the number of refugees seeking living space/work and the pressures on the rest of Asia’s pacific border might have led to some more unrest and tension. Some friction, some ‘small’ wars, infighting and intermingling. Refugees and immigrants. Many settle in major cities across America because President Bradley’s Preservation Act gives them a hand in getting on their feet.<br><br>Do you factor that last point into the damage as well? Lung comes to Brockton Bay in part because of the booming population of Asian immigrants (which hasn’t yet set down roots). Bakuda was born to a Westerner mother and Immigrant father. Do you count the damage they’ve done?- [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/colony-15-5/#comment-5639 Comment] by Wildbow on [[Colony 15.5]]</ref> Attacks by [[Leviathan]] on sources of freshwater led to a water crisis, while other attacks led to economic damage, plagues, civil war and other crises.<ref>But that’s only the major hits, the broad strokes of the brush and all the repercussions/spatter that follows from that. Attacks end in other ways, for example. Legend mentions mass loss of life. There’s economic damage that follows from that, disease and explosions in the population of vermin when a quarter million people die in a concentrated area.<br><br>There’s the deaths of countless heroes, and how that biases things further towards the general villain population. If the selfless throw their lives away for the greater good and it’s primarily the selfish (or the very powerful) who are left, how does that skew things?<br><br>And I should stress that weak points aren’t necessarily just areas which are geographically vulnerable. There’s places where there’s ongoing conflict (like we might point to the middle east over the past decade), places where it takes little effort on the part of the Endbringer to deal maximum devastation (ie. a nuclear power plant, military bases) and spots where a great many resources are invested (be they great minds collected in one place or major projects like Dr. Gramme’s major projects in trying to save the world). Did anyone else catch the mention of the water crisis? Leviathan isn’t always attacking cities, and the world has only so much accessible freshwater. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/colony-15-5/#comment-5639 Comment] by Wildbow on [[Colony 15.5]]</ref> The destruction of port cities in Endbringer attacks harmed the shipping industry, although shipping ultimately continued.<ref>[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-quotes-and-wog-repository.294448/page-2#post-14754477 Wildbow on Spacebattles]</ref>

Earth Bet had a population of roughly 6,979,019,555 in 2011, according to [[the Number Man]].<ref>The best case scenario is that Earth’s population drops steeply over twenty years, until it settles to forty-eight point six percent of where it currently stands.  Three billion, three hundred and ninety-one million, eight hundred and three thousand, five hundred and four.  Give or take. - [[Interlude 14.y]]</ref>

Bet was heavily devastated during [[the End of the World]].
Two years following [[Gold Morning]], Bet was still undergoing evacuation<ref name="P.1"/> and had been deemed uninhabitable. Threats included disease, pollution from abandoned chemical and nuclear sites, and lingering [[parahuman]] threats.<ref>@ Boosher – a big part of what was being talked about in other similar articles was the threat of bandits, bad weather, the wasteland and chasms, unstoppable robot armies, the food shortages. - [[Glow-worm P.1]] </ref><ref>•  Earth Bet has been deemed uninhabitable.  Contrary to popular belief, radiation is not a major concern.  However, many industrial sites were either destroyed or have weathered the last two years of neglect poorly, with chemicals leeching into groundwater and settling in valleys.  Terrible numbers of deceased humans and other living species have led to other health concerns, particularly in previously heavily settled areas that received heavy damage.  There will always be those who attempt to hold onto what we have lost, and many persist in trying to maintain some existence on Bet.  However, new incidents arise on what seems to be a weekly or twice-weekly basis, with one in three having to do with powers, the powered, untended tinker technology, masters, and lingering threats.  We may one day return to Bet, as some groups have fervently expressed a desire to do, but we have a great deal of work to do before this is possible.  It may not happen in our generation or our children’s generation.  Be aware that if you choose to return to Bet (and most authorities agree you have the fundamental right to do so) you may have to re-apply for entry and you will very likely be putting your well being in peril. - [[Glow-worm P.6]]</ref> Some areas experienced unseasonably cold weather, with contaminated snow and groundwater. American refugees travelled for days to reach a portal to Gimel, and faced screening from authorities before being let in.<ref name="P.1">[[Glow-worm P.1]]</ref>