Ok.  I need to get Tracker and Visitor into my reading schedule, at least.

Do I need to have read the entire series up to that point, or can I jump back in with Tracker?  I'm not as enamoured of the atevi association politics plots as some of my Associates hereabouts.

 

Foreigner is a very long-running story.  There are several others that I'd like to see revisited.  

Oh, yes, Aja Jin.
Good questions. 
 
It’s impossible to miss the irony of Bren keeping this secret after all his complaints about secrecy, and I’m sure it’ll come back to bite him.  It’s already been foreshadowed:

All the guesses and suppositions so far don’t adequately explain Rameriz’s actions in having Jase and Yolanda created and trained in multiple human languages. This has been alluded to multiple times in the series.
Perhaps Ramirez expected to meet humans, either because this is a secret of the ship captains for all these generations or possibly he saw them when he was nosing about.  In either case, he was savvy enough to know that he couldn’t count on politics or language being the same after 500 years and decided to be prepared before he contacted them. 
Which does seem to indicate that at least Ogun knows, as senior captain. Maybe Sabin knows.  Riggins is a complete unknown but seems to be either a) Ogun’s or b) very wary of (if not actively against) atevi and Bren, based on his interactions with Bren in Visitor
In Explorer, when they were planning on taking Reunion, Bren stated that he didn’t think Jase would keep a secret from him and that Sabin knew it, so probably Jase is in the dark about what the ship knows.
 
In Convergence
The agreement with the Kyo is outlined as the Kyo not allowing their war to enter atevi space
When Bren decides not to tell Shawn Tyers, he thinks that if something happens to him that the right people know about it and can tell “the next generation”
Bren’s shiver of premonition about a returning human authority
Shaw Tyers specifically states that they don’t trust the ship (and Bren agrees – but says that Jase can be trusted)
 
So some new human authority shows up (as I suspect they will) – what do they want?
                Bren’s biggest problem will be a breakdown in trust between him and Shawn Tyers
Is Tyers already in political trouble?  He seemed let the Asgard Corporation off the hook; the electorate is getting younger and doesn’t remember how things use to be. In fact, I think in Defender, while they’re on the shuttle together on the way to the station Gin Kroger says as much to Bren.
               
How is it that the humans have arrived?
Didn’t the Kyo agree to keep them out?
Are they there because of Cullen, or just because they’re in the stellar neighborhood.
                Did the Kyo fail to take Bren’s advice and return Cullen to his people?  In Visitor, when Bren asked Cullen if he was from Reunion or Phoenix and then passed it off as “a loss in some company debit column” or something like that … Did Cullen possibly say something about  Phoenix and company debit columns that somehow led them to the atevi world?
 
How prepared are atevi?  Maybe more prepared than you might expects them to be.
In Protector when Bren saw the ship security get off the shuttle, he thought of Geigi sitting in his office, sipping tea and looking very satisfied.  Oh yeah, Geigi fully intended the aiji to get this tech.
Do you really think all that gear could be in Bren’s Bujavid apartment and Banichi and company didn’t look into it?  But I wonder very much if they shared their information with either their guild or the aiji … after all, they withheld information on the comm tech Geigi gave them before they returned to the planet.
 
And, just as a side observation, I think that Tabini-aiji, however much he holds Bren in high regard, would prefer to work with the rather more pliable Jase paidhi, who just gave him all that new tech – and Jase said nothing to Bren about it … because Tabini-aiji told him not to?
 
Ah, I’m going to have to read the whole series again and take notes this time!  
 

Aja Jin wrote:

The biggest event the entire series IMO is Cullen. It turns the whole history on its head. Do some of the Phoenix leadership know where Earth is or at least approximate direction if not distance? It would explain their exploration after building Alpha. 

Better stated, the biggest event is concealing the existence of Cullen. In any other human society, it would eventually come out. I expect the reaction would be enormous and that Bren and the human leadership would not fare well. Their allies would be upset about not being in on the secret, and their opponents would exploit it. So, nothing good would flow. 

Then the Atevi. They are not vested in the same way (although they did give up Mospheria), and their Government works differently. But Man'chi is not forever and is not immune to outside influence. It can shift very rapidly.

The question is, how long is too long for the secret? Try to hide it "forever", or find a way to release the information ? 

Disclosure, especially under adverse circumstances, would certainly create a "situation", which is one of CJ's favorite plot devices. 

I doubt that Bren wants it secret for that long. Get the people off of the station. Get the Atevi settled down. Build the 2nd ship for the Atevi. Then a third ship because the Atevi are never going to go with just 2 ships. Then the Atevi ship, the original ship with the ship people and the third ship for the island people go to visit the Kyo. Three governments visiting the Kyo would fit the Atevi's style better. When they are there, they can find out about the humans home world and bring the information back to a more stable world. 

I doubt this plan will work. My head canon is that there are now multiple human governments. The Kyo makes peace with one of them and they ask for help. The Kyo don't want to make peace and then get themselves into another war so they go back to Bren for help with the new humans. An alternate head canon is that the now senior captain Ogden dies and Jason moves up to 2nd captain and Sabin 1st captain and they find out a lot of stuff about what really happened when the ship got lost 200 years ago. 

I'd bet that the ship's senior captains and senior navigators knew all along. It took two years and all of their fuel to travel between the two space stations. I bet when they got the readings, they found out that they were 20 or 30 years away from home. The ship can't go for 20 or 30 years without repair. But the ship had both crew and settlers. They didn't trust the settlers to demand the ship go home when they knew they had no chance to reach Earth. So they told them that they didn't know where Earth was. Then the Senior captain and navigator at the time copied the real maps and changed enough on the copies to make it impossible to find Earth with them. Or there was a security feature to put a fake map in place that the captain thought the ship might be captured by aliens to make it more difficult for them to find Earth and it's colonies. But they still had access to the real info. 

So I'd bet the original plan was to spend 10 or 20 years building a station. Then travel to a star closer to Earth and build another one. Then wait for the two stations population to increase enough to build a third. Eventually they'd link back up with Earth and present them a string of new stations. 

But the first station mutinied. The second station wanted to keep in control and they didn't know or care where Earth was. They had no intention on building a new station until the old one was filled. And they'd probably want to build it in the same system. They let the ship go exploring because the two groups were growing further and further apart and it was getting difficult to control. 

Then the ship found aliens and there plans to build new stations was stopped. 

Last edited by scenario_dave (5/28/2020 10:29 pm)

This will be a kind of joke. Imagine a situation where several characters from different series appear on the same debarkation zone: Bren Ilisidi Banichi Cenedi Prakuyo Cullen Pyanfar Tully Viktahkt (aka Skukuk) Jik some stsho, any stsho.
Who will the stsho be more afraid of, Viktakht or Ilisidi?
What will Jik's reaction be to Banichi and Cenedi? He will realize he has met his match, with respect, curiosity, and caution. (After all, he can work with quasi lions and get along.) His curiosity will drive him closer to Banichi, to investigate from close up. He will be fascinated.
If Prakuyo gets upset and starts emitting his sonar will the stsho turn to jello, literally? 
Will Ilisidi try to poison Pyanfar? I don't think so. She would recognize somebody who wouldn't put up with it.
How will Viktakht react to Banichi? He will stand tall, lift his chin, stand firm, but emit caution and respect.
How will Banichi react to Viktaht????? He will stand in front of Bren, as a shield.
Suppose all the "aliens" leave the room and only Bren, Cullen and Tully remain. What do they do? I see a small smile developing on all of them, a recognition that they are all doing the same job. "These guys understand me".

Last edited by lynxlacelady (7/21/2020 7:22 pm)