Re: [HoE] Lost colony speculation-spoiler

[Damnaged Goods <jason@tanet.net>]

<snip> From all appearances, HI just built the Tunnel and then sent ships
through to
find out where it "ended."  There, out of anywhere in the galaxy, it ends
near a populated planet.  Now, if the original HI scouts built another
Tunnel near Faraway, how could they be sure it would open up back by Earth?
My theory is that the ships didn't need to build another Tunnel.  They left
through the same Tunnel that was left orbiting Earth for so many years.<snip>

I Agree, RR.  Up until now, I hadn't thought of the tunnel as anything but
a amoeba like "hole" in space, with no clearly visible boundaries.  You
know, the thing you see in Star Trek every 7th or 8th episode.  I do like
your idea of a "Gateway" much more, however.  It makes much more sense, and
is more of the Mad Scientist thing to do.  I also strongly agree that the
gateway on Earth, and that on Farawayis are one-in-the-same.  It's a
doorway, let's say.  You walk through the doorway, and then turn around,
and the room is as you left it, a meer second or two before.  In this case,
however, the time difference is a bit more dramatic....  

As far as the portal goes, the images floating across my Mind's Eye harken
back to a good movie I saw last summer:  "Lost In Space."


<snip>A few small miscalculations caused the device to "miss" by a few
thousand years, and lead to Faraway.  Disheartened, the Doc decides life
just isn't worth it, and releases the plans for the city-buster a year
later.<snip>


I also agree with you there.  Hellstrom's original motivation for taking up
such an involved interest in Science was to numb his senses to the pain of
his wife's untimely demise.  The Reckoner's embraced him, and gave him
incredible genious and power, but everything he ever created was for the
benefit of his masters.  He wasn't knowingly under their control, I would
say.  He was meerly trying to drown himself in though & work.  I don't
believe that he decided life wasn't worth it, and released the City
busters, though that is humorous.  I believe that that, too, was part of
the Master Plan, and he didn't realize what he had done until the various
nations of the world actually used his company's greatest creation, the
City Busters.  The books confirm that he then woke up from his zombie like
trance and realized what he had done.  When the bombs fell, and the world
went to hell, I believe that this was the moment when the Doc turned off
the portal, moments after the Unity arrived back through.  That's why the
portal seemed closed on the Faraway side.  I believe the Doc reset the
portal to go back and try and undo some things, perhaps to save his
wife....  And in doing that, he left the Faraway side portal to be reset as
well, which it was, to another time/place/reality or whatever.


-DG
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