Excerpt from “Sidestepping: The First Ten Years of Interworld Exploration” by Catherine Brenner (with annotations by Agent 1st Class Maico Tange, IWSS) (Random House, 2020):
What exactly happened in the meeting between Deidre Griest and the United Nations is unknown. To date nobody has leaked the information and all records remain sealed with a review date - not release, just a review - of 2107. The best theory is that Griest told the UN representatives a secret about the nature of sidestepping, or possibly a secret about handwavium learned through her early sidestepping research. Whatever it was, it was enough for the United Nations Security Council, the five most fractious nations on Earth that were going through a very difficult period of post-imperial readjustment at the time, to publicly throw away their differences and embrace Griest’s proposal.
(Note: Whatever happened here sounds very similar to what Van Zandt did or said to the UN on Homeline. Perhaps they had a shared epiphany? --MT)
Under Griest’s plan, a non-governmental organization headed by co-conspirator Tanith Curtis would take responsibility for all sidestep operations under the nominal control of the Security Council. The organization drew its membership from Griest’s initial sidestep team as well as several other informal groups that had sprung up and reached similar conclusions about handwavium and its place in our world. By a strange quirk of fate, all of these groups were connected to each other via informal connections with the community of science fiction and fantasy fandom. Thus the Interworld Exploration Group quickly became known, at first sarcastically and then more sincerely, as The Convention, the name which we know the group as now and probably forevermore.
(Note: A Homeline reader will note that this sounds at least a little familiar, and they’re right to. There seems to be a bit of convergent evolution between Infinity Unlimited and the Convention, but this is only skin deep: there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent of White Star Trading within the Convention, and the organization is far less oriented towards profit in general. --MT)
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
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"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
What exactly happened in the meeting between Deidre Griest and the United Nations is unknown. To date nobody has leaked the information and all records remain sealed with a review date - not release, just a review - of 2107. The best theory is that Griest told the UN representatives a secret about the nature of sidestepping, or possibly a secret about handwavium learned through her early sidestepping research. Whatever it was, it was enough for the United Nations Security Council, the five most fractious nations on Earth that were going through a very difficult period of post-imperial readjustment at the time, to publicly throw away their differences and embrace Griest’s proposal.
(Note: Whatever happened here sounds very similar to what Van Zandt did or said to the UN on Homeline. Perhaps they had a shared epiphany? --MT)
Under Griest’s plan, a non-governmental organization headed by co-conspirator Tanith Curtis would take responsibility for all sidestep operations under the nominal control of the Security Council. The organization drew its membership from Griest’s initial sidestep team as well as several other informal groups that had sprung up and reached similar conclusions about handwavium and its place in our world. By a strange quirk of fate, all of these groups were connected to each other via informal connections with the community of science fiction and fantasy fandom. Thus the Interworld Exploration Group quickly became known, at first sarcastically and then more sincerely, as The Convention, the name which we know the group as now and probably forevermore.
(Note: A Homeline reader will note that this sounds at least a little familiar, and they’re right to. There seems to be a bit of convergent evolution between Infinity Unlimited and the Convention, but this is only skin deep: there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent of White Star Trading within the Convention, and the organization is far less oriented towards profit in general. --MT)
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"