Kevin's Watch

[This topic will be spoilerish. I know we have some new readers about, so beware here.]

Each part of the GAP cycle has two names.

The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story
The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge
The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises
The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order
The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die

What do these names mean?

With a few exceptions, I cannot decipher what any of these names mean in relation to the story. It's poleaxed me since day one, and after several years I remain uninformed.

The Real Story: that one's easy - we know why that's the title.

This Day All Gods Die: probably refers to the demise of several major powers in GCES-ruled space, both good ones and bad. And the author has hinted that many major characters have parallels as the gods in Wagner's Ring Cycle.

Forbidden Knowledge: ??? I can only think it must be referring to the knowledge represented by Davies.

A Dark and Hungry God Arises: ??? Dios' plans entering the execution stage? Or Angus-as-cyborg?

Chaos and Order: ??? No freakin clue here. There's some mention in an earlier book describing the forces of order and chaos. That must be germain, but I don't see how it applies to the story in this book.

What the heck is "A Gap Into" anything, anyway? Is it like "a crack into"? That doesn't fit with the definition of "the gap", which is not a crack or a passage but instead it is a shortcut across normal space. So "The Gap across" would seem to be more explicable.

The Gap into Conflict: Possibly as simple as, here's where the conflict begins.

Teh Gap into Vision: ??? What vision? whose? when was the vision in this book?

The Gap Into Power: ??? Someone getting power? Someone bypassing power?

The Gap Into Madness: ???

The Gap Into Ruin: ??? Possibly about the risk and uncertainty of the outcome?

Finally, the conjunction of the two names implies a relationship. As in: The Real Story is the Gap Into Conflict. Conceivable.

If so, what do the other parings of names imply?

The Gap into Vision <-> Forbidden Knowledge: ???

The Gap into Power <-> A Dark and Hungry God Arises: ???

The Gap into Madness <-> Chaos and Order: ???

The Gap into Ruin <-> This Day All Gods Die: ???

I believe some of the individual titles are more references to the Ring Cycle than they are specific to the plot of the Gap.
Forbidden Knowledge - Angus' datacore editing, which SRD has compared to the Rheingold. It also could refer to people learning of anti-mutagens, force-growing, etc.
A Dark and Hungry God Arises - Fafner becoming the Dragon. Not sure what this could parallel in this particular volume of the Gap, though in a general sense it refers to Holt Fasner's rise to power.
Chaos and Order - Related to SRD's idea of the interaction of these two forces (I think this was talked about in SRD's foreword to one of the books, unless it was in the tRS afterword) - chaos being space and humanity's expansion into it, order being the UMCP, a controlling factor.
This Day All Gods Die - In Der Ring des Nibelungen, the death of the gods with the breaking of Wotan's rule. In the Gap, the end of Warden's role as leader of the UMCP.

Murrin wrote:A Dark and Hungry God Arises - Fafner becoming the Dragon.

I assumed this referred to Fasner's ascent, since this is the book in which we find out out how he and Warden came to their current positions.

Murrin wrote:Chaos and Order - Related to SRD's idea of the interaction of these two forces (I think this was talked about in SRD's foreword to one of the books, unless it was in the tRS afterword)

It's in one or more of the "ancillary documentation" sections in this very book.

"The Gap into..."

Remember, the 'gap' itself is rather large (the gap drive was created to shorten the distance right? Fluked, but created nonetheless) so in actual fact, this "gap" is a misnomer.

Murrin wrote:Chaos and Order - Related to SRD's idea of the interaction of these two forces (I think this was talked about in SRD's foreword to one of the books, unless it was in the tRS afterword) - chaos being space and humanity's expansion into it, order being the UMCP, a controlling factor

I love the themetic elements of this book. You can feel and read the themes throughout: matter cannon, Hashi's understanding of the events, etc. Great book!

Loremaster wrote:

Murrin wrote:Chaos and Order - Related to SRD's idea of the interaction of these two forces (I think this was talked about in SRD's foreword to one of the books, unless it was in the tRS afterword) - chaos being space and humanity's expansion into it, order being the UMCP, a controlling factor

I love the themetic elements of this book. You can feel and read the themes throughout: matter cannon, Hashi's understanding of the events, etc. Great book!

Don't forget that singularity grenade! We wants one, preciousssss....

As I see it:

The Gap into Conflict I think looks at the conflict between the beliefs Angus, Morn and Nick have about each other and the truth. They all think they understand the other two but in actual fact they often couldn't be more wrong. So Angus hurts Morn because he thinks she loves Nick, when she really hates and fears Nick as much as she does Angus.

The Gap into Vision extrapolates on the "vision" that caused Morn to destroy Starmaster...

The universe spoke to me and I did what it said.

...and her attampts to control it.

The Gap into Power is named such as this book starts to deal with the "powers" of humanity at the time - the UMC, the UMCP, and the GCES.

The Gap into Madness is reflected in Davies struggle to figure out who he is...

And I don't even exist! I'm just a reflection of you!

...and possibly also in Nick's suicidal obsession with killing Sorus and Ciro's decline after being infected by Sorus.

The Gap into Ruin speaks not only of the ruin of many of the former "powers" - Warden, Fasner and Cleatus Fane, but also of the destruction of Calm Horizons and the possible destruction the ship may have wrought.

That's some of what I think anyway.

I liek the fact that he used the Gap Into with each Title.

I also noticed that he uses the term 'Gap" often in all the books...not just talking about going into the Gap, but any time he was talking about a space somewhere, he called it a Gap.

variol son wrote:As I see it:

The Gap into Conflict I think looks at the conflict between the beliefs Angus, Morn and Nick have about each other and the truth. They all think they understand the other two but in actual fact they often couldn't be more wrong. So Angus hurts Morn because he thinks she loves Nick, when she really hates and fears Nick as much as she does Angus.

The Gap into Vision extrapolates on the "vision" that caused Morn to destroy Starmaster...

The universe spoke to me and I did what it said.

...and her attampts to control it.

The Gap into Power is named such as this book starts to deal with the "powers" of humanity at the time - the UMC, the UMCP, and the GCES.

The Gap into Madness is reflected in Davies struggle to figure out who he is...

And I don't even exist! I'm just a reflection of you!

...and possibly also in Nick's suicidal obsession with killing Sorus and Ciro's decline after being infected by Sorus.

The Gap into Ruin speaks not only of the ruin of many of the former "powers" - Warden, Fasner and Cleatus Fane, but also of the destruction of Calm Horizons and the possible destruction the ship may have wrought.

That's some of what I think anyway.

nicely put, VS!! i do believe i agree.