Jim Sharkey wrote: > > After finishing up GURPS Uplift, I took another look at _Contacting > Aliens_. And while it was fun to read again and check out the pics, > etc., and it's cool how it's laid out like a "how to" book for > Terragens agents dealing with Galactics, I noticed a substantial > number of what *appear* to be major editing errors in terms of what > happened when and to whom. > Yes, this was a problem. The reason was that the book was _initially_ made with a much longer lifespan for each race [with races living for hundreds of millions, or even thousands of millions of years], but this would somehow impact on events of c.150 M years ago [if you have read Heaven's Reach you know which :-)], for with races so old those events would not be obscured.
Heaven's Reach is explicit in the mention that most races "live" about 1 million years, then pass to the Retired Order. Races that live much longer [like the Thenanin, 30 My] should be the exception, not the rule. Also, races that do more than _one_ Uplift should be the exception, not the rule [unless you count Uplift-consorting], otherwise there would be too many races with _no_ Clients! The "refitting" of CA to the new timeline was not complete, so we have some "paradoxes" :-) > So I was wondering if you guys thought that was purposeful. That > is, was it written in such a way as to reflect the spotty data > available to Earthclan due to its substandard libraries and > inexperience, or if the book just wasn't run past our Uplift > timeline gurus such as Alberto for a thorough vetting. > I don't remember exactly what I reviewed, but it was basically in the "main timeline", that had been based on GURPS 1st Edition [contradicting the explicit year of Sundiver given in the book]. Both CA and GU 2nd Ed have correct Sundiver - and all dates that follow - in agreement with the Canon, except for minor adjustments. Alberto Monteiro, commander of the TimeLine Legions of Terror _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
