Okay, how do y'all pronounce the following names in your heads?

Drago – So, I read it as "Dray-go" first, and I think that is the natural way to read it. But then his father is named Dragon, which I then started pronouncing as "Dray-gon" in my head before later realizing that is spelled like the word "dragon," and maybe should be pronounced as such? If it is, then is Drago "Draah-go"? That just sounds funny to me. I'm gonna stick with Draygo / Draygon / Drayco

Jerez – I read her name with the English pronunciation of J at first, then realized with the last name Rivera it's probably actually the Spanish pronunciation. This then immediately deepened the rabbit hole I'm in about Language & the sector dialects, but that's for another post. Anyway, how do y'all pronounce Jerez?

Keren – Probably supposed to be pronounced like Karen, but in my head I continue to say "Ker-EN" because I like how that sounds better

Holger – hard or soft G?

Leveque – Levek? Levek-ay?

Jorgen Eklund – Definitely yorgen, which lends credence to jerez being herez

Riak – Rye-ak? Reeak? I switch every time with this one

We know that Hospital Earth randomly assigns first and last names to its wards based on a list that hasn't been updated in a century. Makes enough sense.

This isn't really a question, it's just sort of an observation that I feel there is maybe more to be said about?

Anyway, Keon Tanaka. Tanaka is a Japanese surname and it's implied that Keon has Asian features.

It's also pretty well established that despite most 21st century languages being (ostensibly) dead, there are family names that keep a lot of old cultures alive, plus some foods and whatnot, especially in alpha sector. Jerez Rivera, Madrigal, Dalmora Rostha, and the Jains come to mind.

So, are babies sent to be wards of Hospital Earth given surnames that match with their family's culture? Keon seems to have been, but I wouldn't think that Hospital Earth would be so considerate as to do something like that. I would think they'd just have one big list of culturally neutral names that they randomly assign regardless.

I'm curious to know what Drew's last name is– he certainly wasn't given a hispanic first name (that makes me sad), but if he has a hispanic last name it would sort of confirm this theory.

Some food 4 thought

I was just making some minor changes to the structure but noticed that the Summaries need some work. I realize that using Tabs can be a bit confusing initially. At the bottom of the main page there is a box with the individual article links in it. I removed the Summary Tab and instead included all tabs at one location, instead having the Summary Tabs separated out, only marginally less confusing. 🙄

I like tabs to prevent having such loooooong articles but they aren't in common usage so do cause some issues for editors that have never worked with them. I'm posting the links below if anyone wants to add a bit to any of these pages. Feel free to add more sections to any of them if you think it is needed.

Don't feel like you have to add everything, if you just want to write up one paragraph or event, that will be a help. I probably wont get to any of them until fall or at least late summer. Don't forget that some of those events have their own articles, so only Jarra's role in the event needs to be included, not what happened in it's entirety.

Jarra (Reeath) Tell Morrath - Main article, doesn't need any changes.

Jarra (Reeath) Tell Morrath/Earth Girl - Looks pretty good, it wouldn't hurt for anyone to review it and see if it needs more info or editing.

Jarra (Reeath) Tell Morrath/Earth Star - The only thing it it is some headings and quotes. I think the quotes were meant just to help jog Star's memories when she had time to write, they can stay or be removed. All of the sections need either a summary added or expanded on.

The same for

Jarra (Reeath) Tell Morrath/Earth Flight

Jarra (Reeath) Tell Morrath/Aftermath Stories - has the section headings for The End, and the New Beginning but no summaries.

A section for Fian's story needs to be added, but it needs to be strictly about Jarra and not Fian. I’ll Be Right Here Waiting

Needs to be expanded on Fian's article, too Fian Andrej Eklund.

Actually, I would guess that all of the people that had a short story in Earth Prime, probably needs a summary, too.

Please post any questions that you need answer for... Thanks!

I thought I would do a re-read of the 3 books prior to Sol 2781, starting next week and try to drag it out until just before Sol is released, though without knowing when that will be my timing will probably be off. I thought others may have similar ideas so here is a thread to discuss anything that we might have missed or any points anyone would like to make. (or if you just don't want to try and find the original threads or go through and read all of those posts) 😉

So in chapter 11 of Deltan Escape, there’s two mentions of smells. In Hathor Off-World, Fian notices that “the air took on a faint scent of mint”, and in Romulus Off-World he “was aware of the air tasting faintly of ginger”.

My initial interpretation was that this was a sensory effect, based on Drago hearing musical notes while going through drop portals, but I’m fairly sure now that that’s only for drop portals. However, this leaves me uncertain of what the cause of the different smells are.

It could be perfumed air in off-worlds, but I didn’t notice any mention of a smell in Hercules Off-World. Alternatively, it could be that each planet has its own scent (and Fian is just used to Hercules), perhaps caused by imported Earth plants or alien ones with similar aromatic compounds. Except that might risk violating the rules about transporting biological substances, since air around you gets portalled.

Of course, I’m probably wildly overthinking a minor atmospheric detail, but what are your thoughts?

We've heard mention of the song "Old Lang Zine" as a song traditionally sung at Year End a few times now–

"The achingly familiar music started playing, and a group of amateur but enthusiastic voices sang an approximation of words that dated back to centuries before Language was adopted as a common tongue of humanity. If anything, the fact that some of the individual words were similar to modern ones just made their exact meaning more confusing." (Deltan Escape)

And I wasn't sure if this was based in reality or not, so I looked it up, and it turns out there's a traditional Scottish song called Auld Lang Syne that it seems to be based off! I guess most British people would already know about this, but as an American I'd never heard of it. It's in the Scots dialect, so only like 80% intelligible to a standard English speaker.

"Auld Lang Syne" translates directly to Old Long Since, but less literally to "Days Gone By" or "Long long ago," that sort of vibe.

Here's the lyrics:

[verse 1]

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And days of auld lang syne?

[chorus]

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet

For days of auld lang syne

[verse 2]

We twa hae run about the braes

And pu'd the gowans fine

But we've wander'd mony a weary fit

Sin days of auld lang syne

[verse 3]

And we twa hae paid

l'd I' the burn

Frae morning sun 'til dine

But seas between us braid hae roar'd

Sin days of auld lang syne

[chorus]

[verse 4]

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp

And surely I'll be mine

And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet

For auld lang syne

[verse 5]

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere

And gie's a hand o' thine

And we'll tak a right gude-willy waught

For auld lang syne

[chorus 2x]

Anyway, I just thought this was interesting! I'm sure most 28th century folks think "Old Lang" means something relating to "Old Language," that's what I thought at first anyway, but nope, it's a different spelling of a scots dialect phrase.

Dacian from Playdon's chapter in Earth Prime would be THRILLED to know the origins, if he doesn't already.

Just in case anyone is feeling the urge to add anything to the wiki here are some pointers to areas that need something.

First, the easiest way to discover what all pages exist already is to go to the "Explore" list in the Top Navigation (1st position). that list is generated by fandom and can't be changed. The 3rd item in the drop down list is "All Pages". If you click on that link it will bring up a list of all articles already written, but everyone of those articles may need either clean up editing or some additional information added.

There is also a category, Article stubs‏‎ that has some articles in it that need extensive information added to it. Some of them, we still don't know enough to add much more then what is already included.

I haven't added any of the new info on the Hover luggage, I've been undecided if it should have it's own article or just be a part of the Hover Technology article. I actually don't think it would matter either way.

Frankly, I would appreciate the help as I now have 4 wiki's to manage and two of them (1 of Star's and 1 of mine) need extensive revisions - not Janet's, we each managed 2 wikis).

There is absolutely no obligation or hurry. If there is something you want to add but you don't have time right now, feel free to post your interest here and others can hold off from doing it.

Star had set up a Sandbox area, where you can all use the same one or you create individual ones for your own use which is better for on going articles. Portal Future Wiki:Sandbox is the instructions. I've been using it and have added it to other wikis, it really works great especially when you don't have time to work on something all at once.

Not a whole lot has been added from the 2781 sequence yet, but one of the things you want to be careful about is to not revel any major plot points yet. This is because there may be people that would just read that for free at the wiki and not buy the books. Normally for series that have been published for years there is no harm, or for TV and Movies, because the actors and staff are paid differently then an author. An author, as we all know, is paid by the books sold, so we don't want to interfere with that income or she just may give up writing for us. ;) or get irritated at us.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post here. Thanks

Ed. to add: Be sure and check out the Help‏‎ category too!

Just wondering where mining and harvesting other natural resources is taking place since they are determined not to ruin their current planets. It leads me to wondering about asteroid mining?

What about wood after they clear their initial continent? I believe they retain natural wildlife refuges for the native species even on their inhabited continents. I realize that they probably don't need or use much wood or wood based products.

Since they are using solar power for energy, there shouldn't be a need for harvesting oils and natural gas, but I think there are other gasses that are used in science?

Iodine? all humans need some and as of now it can't be totally synthesized. (Janet would probably hate that question so I probably wont ask it of her or expect that there will be answer in one of the books) perhaps one of the other planets has seaweed with usable iodine in it or perhaps they have seaweed farms on Earth.

"Ignatius had left details of those discoveries in what he’d called his time vaults. Five repositories of knowledge here on Earth, and one on each of the first twenty worlds to be colonized. Those time vaults were supposed to release their secrets to the human race in the year 3290, exactly a thousand years after the first successful drop portal experiment." -Array 2781

There's really not much textual evidence that could be used to speculate on any real grounds here, but does anybody have any wild ideas as to what is in the time vaults?

Crazy shit that all exists in other sci-fi works: time travel, telepathy, immortality, the multiverse is real, it's all a simulation, entropy reversal, etc etc

I hope this gets brought up again in future, since it's such an interesting little piece of information for it to not have any future implications.

Anyway, thoughts ???

Every time I've read something about the Chimera getting to other planets via the portals it has always kind of confused me. How did that happen? Were they leaving portals active on Thetis so all the Chimera had to do was walk through one? How did they even figure out that it was a good idea to go through one? Supposedly they were animals, would an animal follow a human or was it an accident? such as a chimera is chasing a human that jumps through a portal and the chimera is right behind them?

Or are they intelligent enough to figure out that if their prey was disappearing when they stepped through that thing, then they should step through it to and find lots more prey?

The first scenario should have resulted in few infestations, imo, but the second one where the Chimera figure out that they should go through an active portal leaves some very unsettling ideas behind. Such as if they were intelligent enough to be able to "reason" in 2510 what are they going to be able to "reason out" in 2790?

Has anyone else had any thoughts along these lines?

As promised, @Amshene :)

This one fought with me lol. I prefer to do hair either tied back or short, but of course Fian's hair is neither. And his eyes also took forever for some reason. Still not 100% happy with it, but nothing I do is making it better, so I just called it a day haha.

I want to do Raven soon, because I want to do the stripes, but I'm still working out what he looks like in my head. And I'm super busy w/ school rn. As I always am. So idk who/when I'll post another.

Anyway, when I first read Earth girl many years ago, Fian wasn't my favorite. I didn't hate him or anything, I just didn't care that much about him. But over the years I've come to appreciate him a lot more, especially now with Deltan Escape. He's incredibly smart, and incredibly strong, and doesn't often give himself a ton of credit for either.

Scythe is a trilogy I believe, but I've only read the first book. It was a great book though. If you're into speculative fiction with elements of both dystopia and utopia (wonder who in this wiki would enjoy such a thing...) you'll definitely like Scythe. It posits a future in which humans have unlocked immortality, but they haven't unlocked interstellar travel. People can still die due to extremely severe injury, but illness has been eradicated and death of old age no longer happens.

As a result, overpopulation has become a problem. To deal with this, a group of people called "scythes" have the authority to kill. They have to kill a certain amount of people every year, in fact. They're treated as almost godlike figures by society. These scythes are also the only people exempt from constant surveillance by "The Thunderhead," an all-powerful sentient AI that runs Earth in place of a government. The Scythes have their own internal government system, as the Thunderhead voluntarily rejected controlling the Scythes.

The first book follows two teens, Citra and Rowan, who are recruited to train to become Scythes. It's a great read that asks a lot of interesting questions about human nature.

Artwork by me again! Keon is such an underrated character. Yeah, he's hilarious comic relief, and yes he is the absolute king of "work smarter not harder," but I also really like the complexity he got in Earth Prime. He's as pissed about his situation as Jarra, he just copes with it differently. So I tried to show a bit more serious of a Keon, maybe how he looked in the memorial scene in Earth Prime.

Yeah I did use Zendaya as a reference because in my head Jarra looks like Zendaya.

Also, would this be more appropriate as a blog post?? I wasn't sure which place to put it. Anyway, enjoy :D

Just finished this book by Douglas Preston and, Lincoln Child. It is an archeology thriller set in and around White Sands, NM.

I have read other books by this duo and have always found them very tense and riveting. Many of their books have an occult horror component but the Nora Kelly series are more RW, but not really, just no occult horror. This one is all about buried treasure in the New Mexico hills with a lot of historical facts, but not long dreary explanations. I looked up a few references on Wikipedia, because there were references to events that I wasn't familiar with.

You can read this one without reading the first one in the series, I had started it but it was about the excavation of the "Donner Party" camp site when they were stranded and frankly I couldn't deal with it. This one came out a year ago but I didn't even look at it. The third one just came out and since I am having problems finding anything else to read I added it to my hold list at my local library, ebook, so hopefully I will get it any time now. So a couple of days ago I decided to read the sample of this one to see if I would like it and was immediately hooked The library had it available to borrow, so I downloaded, stayed up late reading it until I was finally too tired to go on and just finished it, they are pretty good size books. Really, Really Good!

Hope you enjoy it if you decide to give it a try! If you have any questions I will be happy to answer them.

I thought I would make a new category where we can share book recommendations that we think others may like, when we are waiting for a new Janet Edwards release.

We should probably stick with one book per post or one series if that is what you are recommending. Then others can ask questions if they are interested and want to ask something about it.

Or if you have read it to please feel free to add your comments, they don't have to be positive, how you honestly feel would be valuable info to others.

Hey everyone! I'm new to this forum.

I first picked up the Earth girl series several years ago. I think it was mid-2018? I got the first book out of used bookstore and then bought the others as ebooks since they are really hard to find. (Then I let my best friend borrow my copy of Earth Girl and he lost it, so, now I don't have that anymore either.)

Anywho, I have been lurking on this forum for a bit. I reread the main trilogy on and off through 2019 and 2020, and then in 2021 when I was on an international trip, I read the books again. I think I started them shortly before I left for the trip, because I remember doing some reading on the plane, and then also while I was in Europe. Right before flying back I was in the airport and I happened to check the Kindle store and discovered there were several short stories associated with the main trilogy. So here I was, in the airport trying frantically connect to the Wi-Fi as I was in the line for the gates to get on the plane, so that I could quickly download everything onto my Kindle.

Anyway, that background aside. I have read most of the books at least a few times by now and I am obsessed. I am quite excited that there is an entire forum here to talk about them, though it doesn't seem too busy. However, I would imagine that those of us who are really fond of the series will congregate here.

I've had so many thoughts about the series for so long. Just various questions and opinions and I figure I can share them here.

Just a warning, there will likely be spoilers in here and also I talk a lot. If you can use 20 words to describe something that can be described in five words, I will use all 20 words. It's bad. Anyways, here we go.

First off, I find it super interesting how in the series about Drago, the Tell clan spends so much time thinking about how they can basically defend their honour and defend themselves against the possibility of Jarra coming back to challenge them legally. It's interesting to me how they don't realize that someone on Earth really has no idea how the clans work. I think it is mentioned, though (it's been a while since I read them) that they are aware that most people outside of Beta sector don't understand their clan system. I guess they don't think about Earth at all, because they are really ignorant about how Earth works. From what I can understand, Earth has access to the different sector news, but most people on Earth don't bother to watch them because it's pointless to watch news about a place you'll never be able to go. Plus I get the impression that a lot of the people with immune syndrome just kind of stopped looking for information about other worlds long ago in an effort to not feel bitter or deprived. If I was in that situation, I think I would just kind of focus on what was happening on Earth, because there's no point thinking about all the worlds I can't go to and all the people who are prejudiced against me.

Anyways, back to the point, they seem to be under the impression that as soon as Jarra contacted her parents she would become aware that she's part of Beta sector and instantly come raining hell down upon them. I guess they never accounted for the possibility that she might not want to contact her parents. Also, with the anonymization process that they mentioned the babies go through, there is essentially no way she could have figured out she was part of Beta sector on her own. As a side note, is it ever mentioned why she kept her first name? Because I thought babies that were born with immune syndrome and accept it as wards of hospital earth were given new names completely. Yet she kept her first name. Is this because of the military tradition of the Honour Child? And if so, did hospital Earth know about that?

Speaking of the military, when she decides to look up information on her parents, she gets that mail from military support that is labeled version 2. She figures that the first version was created when she was 14, and updated when she turned 18. So, obviously it's told from her perspective and she doesn't know much about this process, but if she was really anonymous and theoretically the military could not possibly know who she was before she reached out to them. But from the way she describes the whole process, it happened so fast that it almost feels like the military did have a file on her, and if that's the case, why did they apparently have no idea who she was? Because the Tell clan is a military clan, so theoretically they should have been able to find that information much sooner than they actually did. I am also allowing for the possibility that in Sol 2781 they do figure out who she is, and they just wait to contact her for whatever reason.

This is silly, but I do wish in a way that she had contacted her parents. She would have had at least 4 years with them, if not longer, because I can't imagine they would have gone off to Kappa sector if they had finally located their long-lost daughter. I guess when she turned 14 on an 18 they accepted that she wasn't going to contact them and moved on. That's really sad. Obviously we wouldn't have a story if she had contacted her parents and if they had lived, but it still bittersweet in a way.

I also feel melancholy whenever I read Riak Torrek's chapter. His partner is died in a tragedy and then he never married anyone again. And he obviously still has PTSD from it, because he mentions that the base sirens are enough to send him into a panic. I mean, he does mention that's fairly normal for the military because apparently many military officers who have lost someone will feel the grief for a long time. And I guess that's pretty normal. It just makes me sad for him, is all. Although it does seem like the military does take care of their own because he says that it took him a few years after the death of his partners to actually be a functional human being again, and at least they didn't just ditch him. I do know that the military in the portal future is a lifelong commitment and they treat you like family, which is obviously not the same as military and real life, who probably would discharge someone if they basically couldn't function for 2+ years.

Also, I hope it's okay to compare some things to the hive future. In that series, there are characters who have unnamed but described down syndrome or autism or something similar. In the portal future, apparently they can solve all of these genetic differences, and it seems also like there's not many people with disabilities because, aside from brain injuries, you can regrow pretty much any other part of the body, so people missing arms and legs or having some other disability is not relevant. But, and this is a gigantic, gigantic but, Torrek does mention at one point that he finds the formal military uniforms really uncomfortable and distracting, which makes me think that he could have some sort of sensory difference or struggle. I also have several sensory sensitivities as part of neurodivergence, so I tend to pick them out in stories and I like seeing that kind of thing portrayed. I also understand that not everyone likes having that pointed out or likes diagnosing characters, so I will just mention right now that I'm not diagnosing anyone with anything, I just took notice of it and I thought it was kind of interesting.

Is it ever described how the portals actually work? Obviously Jarra is bad with science and she hates it, so you wouldn't see it much from her perspective, but I am curious if Janet ever came up with theories of how portals in this universe might function. The drop portal seems to just be literally like, you step through a wormhole or something, but brief mentions of portal interference and the vid that shows the first flight to Adonis indicates to me that regular portals are basically just what we would imagine, which is essentially deconstructing all your atoms and reconstructing them at the other end. Also, if that's the case, I'm not sure why somebody would have portal intolerance that manifests as headaches and dizziness, because I feel like if your body was being deconstructed and then reconstructed every time you stepped through a portal then that shouldn't necessarily be relevant? Or maybe I'm overthinking this and it doesn't matter. Probably that one. 😁

Also, a lot of sci-fi books set in the future tend to be dystopian in some matter. The portal future seems at least vaguely utopian in the sense that people don't seem to be starving, struggling, dying, caught up in wars, etc. There are political struggles like the problem at Hestia and the discrimination against people with immune syndrome and various other things like that, but it seems to be mostly absent of some of the issues we have today. Though, the way everything came about strikes me as somewhat dystopian in nature. Basically, the wallam crane family was able to take over the entire world and force them to stop all religion, and all speak in a common language.

Okay, I know I have more thoughts but I should wrap this up here. I have a note on my phone that has some of my thoughts so I'm sure I can grab something from there for later. Thanks for reading!

So, stasis boxes seem to be capable of preserving their contents indefinitely in the same state in which the contents were put in the box. It can keep food fresh for centuries (the six raw fish). If a living creature were put into a coma and put in a stasis box, the type of medical coma that one can be easily brought out of, would the creature survive indefinitely?

It seems to me that it would be helpful if in the article Carrington Event the first instance of the phrase "Carrington Event" were linked to the Wikipedia article of that name. Is there a way to do this easily?

I realise that we are able insert external links, so I could add the URL of the Wikipedia article Would this be acceptable? Or is there a better way to do it?

(What we shouldn't do is add it as a reference, since Wikipedia, like almost all Wikis, is not a reliable source).

(This is a point about the Wiki rather than the Portal Future. Apologies if this is the wrong place for it)

I cannot see the point of giving publisher etc when citing Janet's books. If we ever cite other books, it's worth it, but what's the point of putting "Wallam-Crane Press", (especially since that made-up name doesn't appear anywhere on the books, that I've found)?

Further, when I add a reference I give a chapter but not a page number, because I know that every time I change the font size on my Kobo it repaginates. Is that not the case on the Kindle?