The Pendragon Adventure/Headscratchers

• In The Soldiers of Halla, why did Saint Dane's energy run dry when the Ravinians of (Third) Earth turned on him? Doesn't he have another six worlds' worth of Ravinians and downtrodden people to draw on?
  • Didn't he also make a massive flume? And have a knock-down, drag-out brawl with Bobby? Wherein he did a whole lot of warping around? Furthermore, other territories could be experiencing an upheaval.
    • Still, it's treated as if that one victory cut off his power altogether. The fight with Bobby should have been negligible. It just seems like the author had an ending in mind from the beginning and didn't account for the story surrounding it when the time came.
      • Ooh, actually, I just had a thought. Saint Dane is always talking about the domino effect, right? It worked for him, why not for Bobby and them? It's a new thought, admittedly, so it could use some polish...but perhaps connecting all of the territories meant more than just allowing travel and such between them. When one decided Saint Dane was kind of a dick, it kicked over the first domino. Also, time has been shown repeatedly to work oddly between territories. That's all I've got.
        • I like the way you think. That wouldn't have been a bad way to go.
  • I was under the impression that all of his followers were on Third Earth, which was chosen as his main seat of power, and that the Ravinians were composed of people from all the territories (except Eelong, i suppose, we didn't see any cat-people there).
• The whole concept of "First", "Second", and "Third" Earth confuses me. When do they start? Do they shift in a fixed posistion (i.e. First Earth being always about thirty years behind Second Earth) or do they shift around. My brain hurts...
  • First Earth is seventy years behind Second Earth. The way that the various territories end up being explained is that they're at points in history where each... 'world' for lack of a better term can be severely affected to follow either Saint Dane's point of view or that of the other Travelers. Some worlds have multiple turning points and thus multiple territories - Earth happens to have three, and Veelox has two (since Ibara is Veelox in the future). So there are really only seven worlds shown in the PA universe and theoretically the territories shift through time whenever the turning point changes - which is why the Travelers always show up at the right time when they're needed. Therefore, First, Second, and Third Earth could really shift at any time or disappear or rearrange themselves; they're just set in the places they are during the PA series because during the time covered by the PA series, that's where the major historical turning points are located.
• This one's been eating at me for a while now... if the territories were picked by Saint Dane for their turning points, why in the name of Halla did he even bother to make Third Earth a territory? Third Earth was a utopian society that, as far as we know, didn't have a turning point UNTIL Saint Dane screwed things up on Second Earth. Third Earth was ALSO the place where Saint Dane was defeated once and for all. Heck, if he hadn't made Third Earth a territory, he would have tipped Earth into chaos a long time ago, because Pendragon would have stopped the Hindenburg from crashing. The ONLY thing I can think of that Third Earth contributed to Saint Dane's cause at all was the metal skin used to create Forge and the dados. And since Saint Dane was capable of traveling without flumes, he could have just gotten it without having to make Third Earth a territory!
  • I don't remember anything about it being Saint Dane who picked the territories. Also, you said 'as far as we know' it didn't have a turning point. Maybe it did, and screwing things up on Second Earth just changed it.
    • OP here. It's actually said in book 10 that Saint Dane picked the territories. Press says that the only reason there are territories rather than worlds is because Saint Dane targeted those ten specific points in time and space, and created the flumes to bridge them together. In that case, even if Third Earth had a turning point beforehand, it seems pretty stupid to include it (of course, that's assuming that the whole dado/Ravinia thing was Saint Dane's plan the entire time).
• A minor plot hole in book 5: Kasha and Bobby take down one of the gigs that's heading towards Black Water. The klee pilot bails out, lands in a lake, and starts swimming for shore. Only thing is, klees can't swim.
  • That had bothered me too, until I realized something: All the klees are different cats on Earth, right? So, Kasha and Boon assumed that most klees couldn't swim, though the klee that piloted the gig could just happen to be one of the cats on Earth that actively swims. It's the best excuse I can come up with.
  • Alternatively, Boon personally can't swim, and he lied to Mark, Courtney, and Spader out of embarrassment.
• Looking back, a lot of things about Solara make no sense when given some thought. Press says that Halla is always growing, and so is Solara... how can that be when Halla is supposedly everything that ever was, is, or will be, and was confirmed to only contain seven worlds (which will eventually have to meet their demise)? Also, when the Travelers are getting ready to go to Solara for the final time, Press makes a comment that they will remember who they were and "all the other lives" they've lived... but that suggests reincarnation, which directly contradicts what Press said earlier about how every individual's spirit is unique, and throws a monkey wrench into the idea that people's spirits all go to Solara when they die.