Kevin's Watch

Hoist by my own petard.

Ok...on the subject of childhoods, what was Nick's origin?

--A

He was raised in an orphanage?

I don't remember that although I wanna say "no." I was talking more about how he got to where he was at the start of the series.

--A

What I remember is that Nick was essentially a cabin boy on a ship which is pirated by Gutbuster.

What formative experiences preceeded that and created a youth bold enough to challenge Captain Sorus -- and lose, then spend the rest of his life successfully compensating for that -- until he falls for Morn and is undone by the intersection of Sorus and Morn's defeats of him. Nick is an amazing tragic arc!

Surely SRD has a great back story for this...but I don't remember what it is.

What a drag it is getting old. I have to get that re-read underway!

As I recall, he was born (or at least raised) on a space station. He was rejected for the position he wanted aboard the ship, which led to him selling the ship's information to my namesake with the rather deluded idea that it would get him what he wanted. That idea backfired, but the delusion in which he was the hero of his own story persisted.

...not the best explanation, but it's late. I'll try to add more tomorrow if no one beats me to it. (Don't hesitate to do so.)

Sorus got it. Or at least, that's the answer I was looking for...station born and raised, couldn't get into the academy, worked in comms or something.

Your question Sorus.

--A

Ack! I should have been thinking about the consequences of being correct.

Okay.

What is the approximate total human population in the Gap universe?

There's really an answer to this?

Is it two trillion?

Less than that. Want a clue?

Spoiler

It's mentioned in a conversation between Morn and Vector.

Oh, that narrows it down. 1 Trillion?

--A

No.

Second clue:

Spoiler

The conversation happens in Forbidden Knowledge. Context is the UMCP suppressing information about the immunity drug.

500 billion?

Nope!

Third clue:

Spoiler

In Forbidden Knowledge, close to the beginning.

Spoiler

Since you guys are making random guesses, I might as well give away enough that you can look it up.

Yeah but I'm lazy to look it up.

I say Sorus stumped us and has to ask another question.

--A

Darnit.

Just for that I'm not going to post the answer.

Okay, fine.

Spoiler

It's somewhere around 12 billion.

And now....


What was the name of the probe that brought back the first evidence of alien (Amnion) life?

The Juanita Estivez?

Wow, that was a low number. Seems too low.

--A

Avatar wrote:Wow, that was a low number. Seems too low.

--A

That's what I thought at first. But how much of the population is out in space? (There isn't an answer as far as I know.) Ships have a crew of anywhere from a couple dozen to hundreds. Space stations have thousands of inhabitants. I'd say there probably aren't more than a few million people living offworld. That leaves Earth with a population of 11+ billion. Given current population growth trends, that does seem low, so either one or multiple disasters wiped out a good part of the population, or humans in general accepted that they had to stop reproducing like bunnies. (Or hamsters. Hamsters actually reproduce faster than bunnies. Bunnies just have the reputation because... What were we talking about?) Even given the resources provided by expanding out into space - primarily mining, which is primarily to continue expanding in space rather than to benefit Earth - they're probably harvesting water and whatnot from space as well, but there's still a maximum population that this world can support, and 12 billion actually seems realistic.

Cord Hurn wrote:The Juanita Estivez?

Good guess, but not the answer I was looking for.

Clue:

Spoiler

The answer can be found in the Ancillary Documentation on Intertech in Forbidden Knowledge.

True...it's not like they were really inhabiting planets or anything. Most people still lived on Earth.

I cheated (since my books are right here)...the probe was Far Rover.

--A

Those darn soft-mouthed Golden Labs; you never know what they'll bring back.