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May-01-14, 09:51 PM (EDT)
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"Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline"
 
   One thing I've noticed while working on Desolation Angel, specifically the parts having to do with the Ragnarök, is that the timing of events described in Twilight doesn't work. One of the few time stamps in the story itself has the opening scene in Zoner's office taking place on September 5, 2390; the next scene is tagged "six days later" (coincidentally the 11th of September, written four years before that date would have any particular outside significance).

Then an elaborate series of events are depicted without any time stamps and involving few explicit indications of how long anything took (and those, as we will see anon, are deeply suspect), after which the following occur in distinct succession:

- The overnight before the Last Battle.
- The battle itself, taking all of the next day.
- The race to rebuild the World-Engine, which is shown to take place in the evening.

The very next time stamp we have, and the one on which I based the dating of the Twilight-linked parts of Desolation Angel, is in the output from the World-Engine's reactivation, and shows that Yggdrasil was rebooted at 7:43 in the evening on September 12.

Working backward from there, that indicates that the Last Battle must have been during the day on the 12th. But the scenes depicting Skuld's recruitment of Gryphon et al. were already established to have happened on the 11th, and it's obviously not especially early in the morning or anything when she turns up in New Avalon.

What this means is that Gryphon and his team are supposed to have flown - in hyperspace! - from New Avalon to Tatooine, and then from there to Enigma X-21, in the course of a single day. There are references in the second and third episodes to those flights having taken about three and five hours, respectively, which is frankly insane. During that same span of time - no more than a regular workday - Concordia (which fair enough, I guess, she has fold drive), Charlemagne (warp drive), and Chimaera (hyperdrive only!) are all supposed to have dropped whatever they were doing, pulled in all their related assets, and made it to X-21 as well.

Following this, everyone transits the black hole and arrives in Asgard, there are meeting with the gods, all the enormously complicated logistical assets involved in the operation have to be landed and organized, camps set up, and so on. It's still Tuesday while all of that is happening. Even if Asgard is in some cosmic equivalent of the Alaska time zone, it's all just not very practical, particularly the preposterously short Daggerdisc flight times and the same-day X-21 force rendezvous.

I think I was trying to account for this, unconsciously, when I set the original version of Agreement in Principle on the first of September, the idea being that they already knew the game was afoot in Muspelheim and were setting bits of the machinery in motion according to a preliminary timetable. The problem there is that there's no way for the Phoenix Queen's crew to get a line on what's going on before Gryphon and co. are informed of what's going on by Skuld and get the aforementioned WDF, GENOM, and CFMF forces moving. Before then, there's nothing in the æther to indicate that anything is happening.

What's needed is a more realistic version of the "middle" portion of the Twilight timeline. All of G&Co's running around to organize the team and whatnot could not realistically be accomplished in much less than a week with a hyperdrive-equipped starship, however fast. It's a long damn way from Tatooine to anywhere, but particularly a black hole in the Enigma sector. That is also a more realistic time - just - for the redeployment of three major warships belonging to three different fleets, converging on X-21 from the far corners of known space; and - most importantly for our present purposes - it gives Azula's crew enough time between her capture and Go Time to figure out what's happening and get the Phoenix Queen over there as well.

I don't think I'm going to bother modifying Twilight itself to fix this mess - at last not right away - but it needed addressing for the revised timing of Agreement in Principle. I didn't want to move the endpoint (that has implications for Corwin and Leonard's birthdays), so what went before it needed rearranging.

I tinkered with it for a while this morning, and this is what I finally came up with.


DateEvent(s)
Friday, August 24, 2390MegaZone possessed by Loki; disappears.
Saturday, August 25(silent machinations)
Sunday, August 26Balder slain.
Monday, August 27 - Friday, August 31Little Fimbulvetr. Urd decamps to Tatooine to get as drunk as possible. Bell withdraws to Tomodachi. Muspelheim forces gather. Archduke Ozai has an idea.
Saturday, Sept. 1Skuld arrives in New Avalon. Gryphon, R-Type, and Redneck put out calls for Concordia, Chimaera, and Charlemagne (respectively) to withdraw from current operations and make best speed to Enigma X-21. Gryphon's team departs in Daggerdisc for Tatooine; Redneck's team departs (means unspecified) for Tomodachi.
Sunday, Sept. 2 - Tuesday, Sept. 4(transit days)
Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2390Gryphon's team recruits Urd on Tatooine. Redneck's team recruits Belldandy on Tomodachi, then mirror-transits to Daggerdisc at Tatooine. Daggerdisc departs for Enigma X-21.
Thursday, Sept. 6Agreement in Principle (revised). Azula captured; Veronica uncovers comm traffic relating to aforementioned fleet reassignments. Phoenix Queen heads for X-21.
Friday, Sept 7 - Sunday, Sept. 9(Daggerdisc en route; task force elements rendezvous over course of 8th through 10th)
Monday, Sept. 10Daggerdisc arrives X-21 late PM. Midgard task force prepares for transit.
Tuesday, Sept. 11Task force transits X-21. Midgard forces arrive, AM. Day spent setting up camps, coordinating logistics, etc. (Still probably should be a multi-day process but w/e.) Phoenix Queen transits X-21, arrives Asgard mid-day, right in the middle of the scrum. Night of Dread.
Wednesday, Sept. 12Ragnarök. World-Engine rebuild/restart. Metroplex Conference. Party begins.
Thursday, Sept. 13, 2390Party continues into wee hours (all day for some). Katara-Azula Armistice. Most of Midgard contingent departs late in day. Avatars return to Spirit World.
Friday, Sept. 14Phoenix Queen departs Asgard.

Also, here's a quick-and-dirty calendar version, which may make it a little easier to envision. Not everything from the table above fit in the boxes, but you get the idea.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline [View All] Gryphonadmin May-01-14 TOP
   RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline jonathanlennox May-01-14 1
      RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Gryphonadmin May-01-14 3
          RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline JeanneHedge May-02-14 11
              RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Gryphonadmin May-02-14 12
                  RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline JeanneHedge May-07-14 19
                      RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Gryphonadmin May-07-14 20
   RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline VoidRandom May-01-14 2
      RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Gryphonadmin May-01-14 4
          RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline mdg1 May-02-14 9
   RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Mercutio May-02-14 5
      RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Zemyla May-02-14 6
          RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline The Traitor May-02-14 7
              RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Senji May-02-14 8
                  RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline The Traitor May-03-14 13
                      RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Terminus Est May-03-14 15
                          RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline The Traitor May-03-14 16
                              RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Bushido May-04-14 17
                                  RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline The Traitor May-06-14 18
   RE: Musings on Twilight's AFU Internal Timeline Peter Eng May-03-14 14


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