Sometimes you've just gotta reach for it, you know? Life's too short, however long it may be. :)

--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.

Huh? ... Oh! That's why that phrase was rattling around in the back of my head.

... ah, well, it still works.

--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.

-Droken

When I got to do beta work on this, we referred to this series of events as the "You Done %*#@ed Up, Son" portion of the program.

They've given him quite a few things to think about. We'll see how he does with that.

Not completely, not yet, but only because the case is taking longer to come to fruition than expected. However, she is sort of de facto on the crime beat now, thanks to her connection to the Organized Crime Task Force. It doesn't pay as well as Section 4, on account of it's essentially freelance work at this point, but it's a damn sight more satisfying.

>Who's watching the old homestead(s) back in The Big Universe(s)?

Which ones? Tsuwabuki's chapter of the Order of the Rose has things pretty well in hand in Cephiro, the Jeraddo chapter has been getting along fine without the founders for several years now, the house on Tomodachi is basically in mothballs now, the World Wide Building has automated facility management, and Fritz has Kate's place well in hand while she's on her student teaching assignment in Sakuragaoka (particularly since Juri still lives there!).

>There's a strong appearance of the Trinity having pretty much given up
>on living or travelling Outside, and count on people coming to see
>them instead (hence all the techno-magic communication systems across
>the Void).

Given that Corwin spent the first week of Honest Hearts on Turing III and Utena went to the B'hava'el system twice in as many weekends in May, I'm not sure this is entirely in evidence.

>IIRC the baby World Engine automates most, but not all, of the
>Pillar's duties to Cephiro, so what's going on with the things the
>Engine doesn't take care of when the Pillar's spending massive amounts
>of time not just not in the same universe, but in a parallel dimension
>as well?

The latter doesn't particularly make a difference - if he's out of Cephiro he's out of Cephiro, it doesn't matter how far out. As for the former, I'm not sure a couple-three months qualifies as "massive amounts of time," but even if it does, see the above remarks about Tsuwabuki and company. If anything comes up that requires the Pillar's personal attention, they'll let him know.

>Is this helping dear old Akio run around unchecked (and will
>Akio be checking out the old homestead(s) in The Big Universe(s)?)

Akio can't get into Cephiro, and if he were to turn up in person at e.g. Kate's place, well, you remember Professor X's old line about a great swell of pity.

>Akio aside, does anything happen in the Diqiu universe when the Avatar
>goes off to a non-Diqiu-ish Spirit World, such as Valhalla?

Not really known, that's kind of why it's taking more than a month to process her visa application. Probably it's no different than when she's out in the Big Universe - maybe slightly better, since it's much easier to get to the Spirit World from Asgard than from, say, New Avalon.

--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.

That's why it was written "homestead(s)". So nobody is keeping an eye on the Tomodachi place or the condo in the World Wide Building then. Is this bad or no planning on their parts when, as said several times in the past, they've got a number of folks who'd like to do Bad Things to them and theirs.

>>There's a strong appearance of the Trinity having pretty much given up
>>on living or travelling Outside, and count on people coming to see
>>them instead (hence all the techno-magic communication systems across
>>the Void).
>
>Given that Corwin spent the first week of Honest Hearts on
>Turing III and Utena went to the B'hava'el system twice in as many
>weekends in May, I'm not sure this is entirely in evidence.

Two weekends in a period of how long? (I thought I'd written "given up on living or travelling Outside unless absolutely required") Awful big and fancy place it sounds like they're building for an ocassional vacation home.

>>Is this helping dear old Akio run around unchecked (and will
>>Akio be checking out the old homestead(s) in The Big Universe(s)?)
>
>Akio can't get into Cephiro, and if he were to turn up in person at
>e.g. Kate's place, well, you remember Professor X's old line about a
>great swell of pity.

No, I don't remember Professor X's old line. If Nanami can drive to Valhalla (which happened), and Drax (Peri's friend) can *fall* to Cephiro from up around that way (which happened), then Akio can get to Cephiro if he really wants. Unless authorial tastes run differently.

I was under the impression that the house on Nekomikoka Rd. was either outright sold or at least being sub-let to somebody else. And while nobody's physically watching the place, if Beings of Nefarious Purpose can get through a Corwin-optimized security system undetected, nothing short of stuffing a handful of Valkyires in the place is going to stop them, and by "Valkyries" I mean "VF-1s", in order to make it physically impossible to enter the premises without violating the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

>No, I don't remember Professor X's old line. If Nanami can drive to
>Valhalla (which happened), and Drax (Peri's friend) can *fall* to
>Cephiro from up around that way (which happened), then Akio can get to
>Cephiro if he really wants. Unless authorial tastes run differently.

Those seem to me to be entirely different situations- Akio is personally barred from Cephiro by the results of the Tournament, and probably a hard-coded setting on the World Engine as well. That doesn't mean the Engine is set to (or capable of) banning "all Svartelves in Creation" from the realm, just like the Asgardian World Engine doesn't ban all daemons.

Or, to put it another way, do you really think Akio would have intentionally sent *Touga* to perform a task of importance if there was another option? Note, I'm not counting their current foray into DSM against this logic, as I fully expect Touga's job description on this mission is some more eloquent wording of "ablative armor".

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I think you'll find that I didn't say that. Nobody lives there at the moment. That's not the same thing.

(Also, that only applies to Corwin's apartment. Several of the other floors of the WWB are occupied. Master Chief John-117 Spartan lives on one of them.)

>Two weekends in a period of how long?

Couple months? Not even the entire spring semester. Far too short a time to be drawing conclusions like "given up on".

>Awful
>big and fancy place it sounds like they're building for an ocassional
>vacation home.

I believe the industry phrase is "scope creep". Architect got carried away. :)

>>Akio can't get into Cephiro, and if he were to turn up in person at
>>e.g. Kate's place, well, you remember Professor X's old line about a
>>great swell of pity.
>
>No, I don't remember Professor X's old line.

Rhetorical.

>If Nanami can drive to
>Valhalla (which happened), and Drax (Peri's friend) can *fall* to
>Cephiro from up around that way (which happened), then Akio can get to
>Cephiro if he really wants.

Nnnno, he really can't. Well, I guess he could get to Cephiro if he felt like it, but he can't get in, so that would be a spatially awkward and effectively pointless trip. The minicosmos that is Cephiro is configured not to let him, personally and specifically, in. It's kind of like a network firewall.

--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.

(I could be wrong in my placement of Aunt Bell's home, honestly, but I'm at least reasonably sure I'm not. Two weeks of the flu, brain not operating at optimal RPM, etc.)

The only real fly in the ointment here is DSM on Jeraddo and their 'visiting professor' problem, which I suspect we're about to see come to fruition one way or the other.

You'll see this on the re-read, but Ms. Wong will be accompanying the Avatar and the Anti-Comet taskforce as an embedded reporter.

>Who's watching the old homestead(s) back in The Big Universe(s)?
>There's a strong appearance of the Trinity having pretty much given up
>on living or travelling Outside, and count on people coming to see
>them instead (hence all the techno-magic communication systems across
>the Void).
>

Keep in mind that they have a very tiny babby right now. :) They're building a home, but they've got more than a few places around town, as it were. Once Annabel's a little older, spending more time in Cephiro, Asgard, or New Avalon gets a lot easier. Even when you can move around magically, they still have a lot of stuff that has to come with them. :)

>Akio aside, does anything happen in the Diqiu universe when the Avatar
>goes off to a non-Diqiu-ish Spirit World, such as Valhalla?

That's one of the reasons why the White Lotus is so nervous about Korra going afield - nobody knows what would happen if something major went down while she was out of town. Or, for that matter, if anything happened to her.

Yes, but I was asking if that had happened yet. Apparently not.

Jeanne

	Jeanne Hedge http://www.jhedge.com 1st Courier of the Heavenly Prophets for Tianxia "Never give up, never surrender!"

Everybody does.*

--G.
* not everybody
-><-
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.

>>Why did I feel like I was watching an episode of "Everybody Loves
>>Corwin" ?
>
>Everybody does.*
>
>--G.
>* not everybody
>-><-

Just before Corwin dozes off, while they're cuddling on the futon after getting Garnet back, he expresses his amazement at her handling of certain matters, and she quotes back the old Animals song "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" song, which he has quoted to her in the past: "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good." (And then follows it up with, "Anthy, I'm not so sure about sometimes.")

--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.

First full part of a Symphony/OOTR series, yeah, I think it is. I converted An Avatar in New Avalon, which is of similar length, after the fact to see if it could be done, and there have been several compilations (A Fire to be Lighted and Desolation Angel) re-released under the stylesheet too, but this is the first major story not to have a plain-text release at all.

--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.