(urth) AEG partial timeline

[Dave Tallman]

Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> There is no basis, textual or otherwise, to suppose that Klauser served more
> than the usual 8 years for a political appointment made by a two-term
> president. I listed the order of ambassadors in an earlier post. As stated
> in chapter 1, ambassadorships are normally given to major campaign
> contributors. It is the norm for each newly-elected president to make his
> own appointments, and the president is limited by law to two elected
> four-year terms. It is very unlikely that Klauser served more than one
> president. There is also no reason to suppose that Bob Chase served only
> four years as ambassador.
>   
The textual basis for giving Klauser a longer-than-normal term is the 
apparent age of Gideon Chase. An effective ambassador might be kept on, 
especially if a president was succeeded by his vice-president and both 
served eight years.

But the book also says that weird things happen with time between 
Woldercan and Earth. "The distinctions we draw between past, present, 
and future are discriminations among illusions" (p. 298). The message 
announcing Gideon's birth arrived on Earth before the birth happened. 
Could some trick of relativity allow Gideon to arrive back on Earth 
several years before he was born? Something like that could have 
happened to the adult Reis too, giving him a few years with a temporal 
"clone."

I gave Bob Chase only a four-year term because Klauser only met Gideon 
as "a small boy" (p. 297). The occasion of their meeting is most likely 
when Klauser came out to replace the ambassador. I think a four-year-old 
is more likely to be described as "a small boy" than an eight-year-old. 
(It also fits better with Gid's claim to have no memories of Woldercan). 
If we allow a time-shift for Klauser's outbound trip this timing is 
debatable, too.