On Mon, Oct 12, 2026 at 7:04 PM dbernat <xxxxxx@gol.com> wrote:

> > one of the Paratime
> > Commissioners says, "This Styphon's House racket is perfect for
> > penetration of that subsector, and in a couple of centuries it'll be a
> > very valuable subsector to have penetrated. We’ll just move in on
> > Styphon's House, and take it over, the way we did the Yat-Zar temples
> > on the Hulgun Sector, and build that up to general economic and
> > political control."
> >
> > And Kalvan's timeline is turned over to Dhergabar University for study.
>
> It could just be my misunderstanding, but aren't two goals in potential
> conflict here?
>
> 1. A desire for research.
>
> 2. The need to keep Styphon in control for potential exploitation gains.
> Kalvan threatens those potential gains.

There's no conflict.  Paratimers taking over the House of Styphon
would happen only on one or, at most, a few timelines adjacent to
Kalvan's timeline.  Or at least, no Paratime story ever gives the
impression that Paratimers engage in massive parallel trading on many
closely adjacent timelines.  The stories are consistent in describing
trading or harvesting on many, many *dissimilar* inhabited timelines,
never trading or harvesting on many *similar* inhabited ones.

Possibly there is massive parallel harvesting of basic resources on
some of the uninhabited timelines.  I don't think such harvesting is
ever described in detail.  However, at some point we need to ask: How
great a volume of resources can even the ultra-rich Home Timeline
actually use?  The Paratimers' home world has neither infinite
population nor an infinite demand for resources.  I seem to recall
their population has stabilized?

I suppose the Homeworld will always have a demand for new luxury
goods, new artwork, and the like.  "Out with the old, in with the
new!"  Perhaps the super-rich even compete for deliberately wasteful
conspicuous consumption, as some do here in our world.  But for basic
resources, raw materials and the like, supply should have reached the
level of demand (or more) long before Verkan Vall's time.

Even if Kalvan was killed and the House of Styphon continued to exist
on that one timeline, Paratimers wouldn't take over the House of
Styphon there, because the university research team would still be
studying the effect Kalvan had on that timeline.

There are plenty of adjacent timelines in the subsector.  There is no
need for Paratimers to harvest resources from Kalvan's single
timeline.

---------------------
Down Styphon!
—David Sooby