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Last Post 7/2/2010 12:29 PM by  Kerrick
Deathlands Wiki is live!
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Kerrick
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6/24/2010 11:31 AM
    I'm proud to announce that my very own Deathlands wiki is now live. I've been working on it for the last couple months, and I feel that I've got enough information there to open it to the public. I'm gathering and writing all my own material - this is not a duplicate of the archives here. The site features:

    Book summaries (22 so far);

    Information on the Totality Concept, including a comprehensive list of gates and projects;

    All the characters (companions, those who travelled with them, and notable enemies);

    Information about the new world, notable locations, and the flora and fauna of Deathlands;

    And more. If there's something you want to see on the site, feel free to let me know and I'll see what I can do. For now, go forth, peruse, and enjoy.

    http://deathlands.wikidot.com (Because I don't know how links work on this board )
    )3az )3aziah
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    6/25/2010 3:31 PM
    In Fury's Pilrgims, Ryan jumps to an orbiting space station...
    ...Is there still a base on Earth capable of space flight, and if so, where is it...


    Why would they need a base on Earth that is capable of space flight when they can just use the Mat Trans just like Ryan & co. did !

    In Dectra Chain Ryan & co. just narrowly miss someone using the other gateway when they arrive there. They also find several space suits in a locker. Could this redoubt have had some link to the space station(s).
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    Ron Miles
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    6/25/2010 6:25 PM
    That's really excellent work Kerrick, nicely done!

    Say, I took down the wiki here because it wasn't formatted well, but I have a new wiki module that I am installing soon. Is there any chance you would be interested in moving your content here if I gave you admin access to that page?
    "Sadly then I knew the answer. All her life she was a dancer, but no one ever played the song she knew." - The Residents
    Kerrick
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    6/26/2010 11:48 AM
    )3az )3aziah: Oh yeah... I totally missed the lack of a need for spaceships with the mat-trans system. :p There are several places where the companions encounter extraterrestrial gates and find that they're still occupied, or were up until recently (Mars, for example, or the space station in Fury's Pilgrims). It's sad that LJ never expanded on that (and good that Mark did), since it's obvious that there were one or more TC groups still out there doing their thing.

    I have Dectra Chain, but I haven't read it in years... it's packed up in storage along with about 20 other books. I'll get access to them in August, so I'll be able to add all that stuff to the wiki then.

    Ron: Thanks! It would be kind of handy to have everything on the same site... if I bring my stuff over here, we could consolidate it with the archives also. I'd have to see how the new wiki works (the code format they use and all). I like Wikidot because it's very easy to use, and I can use CSS.
    Jax2
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    6/27/2010 11:46 AM

    Good effort for the Wiki, but there are some areas where you seem to rely on misinformation or guesswork. For example:

    In the Outlanders book Iceblood, War Wag One is still situated on the road to the redoubt - apparently the crew left it there, which seems unlikely, given that they were in the middle of a blizzard.

    Nope, War Wag One wasn't situated on the road to Cerberus Redoubt at all...as Sky Dog says to Kane, Grant and Brigid in Iceblood:

    "According to tribal history, it was found at the FOOTHILLS (caps mine). Wasicun invaders were inside of it....it carried them down the mountain, then it stopped to move no more. When the wasicun left it, my people fell on them. The machine was hauled here and hidden, lest other wasicun try to breathe new life into it."

    "Here" is a grove of trees on the tableland, at least sixty miles away from the Cerberus Redoubt.

    In Seedling, the companions jump to a station on Mars. They find several mugs with long-evaporated coffee, and one with stale coffee in it (which means it's probably only a few days old), but no other signs of life.

    They jumped to a mat-trans on Cydonia Compound One. At that point, it was populated by a mixed group of humans and Transadapts. Although the humans were in the majority, that had changed drastically by the time the Cerberus Crew first visited the place in Parallax Red.

     They also spot something partially buried moving toward the station, and they hurry back to the gate and leave. Where did the inhabitant(s) go? And what was the creature/object moving toward the station? The atmosphere on Mars is far too thin to support oxygen-based life.

    More than likely they glimpsed the monorail system that traveled through the dunes to and from the Great Pyramid, as shown in Parallax Red and Mad God's Wrath.

    In several books Cold Asylum, one or more of the companions jump to an extraterrestrial gateway (there's on on Mars and several more in orbiting space stations). Pilgrimage to Hell mentions that the US had three, and Russia two, but the occupants likely would not have lasted more than six months or so after Skydark before their supplies ran out and they starved to death. It's possible they could have been supplied by bases on Earth and rotated out personnel, but if so: where are these bases? Nearly every redoubt the companions have found was deserted, and none of the rest had any signs of contact with the space stations.

    The primary Russia space-station, Shostakovich's Anvil was featured in Mars Arena and referenced in several other DL and OL novels. Parallax Red was built as an international space-station and it was equipped with a mat-trans unit to go back and forth to Mars and Earth.

    •Note #1: (In Latitude Zero, Major Ward mentions hearing a rumor that there are still people living in space, who have been living and breeding for a hundred years. He never mentions where or when he heard this, though. ) •Note #2: The Outlanders series explains a lot of this - Overproject Majestic deals with the US space program - but I've decided to leave it here as a Deathlands-specific mystery.

    Major Ward was most likely referring to the Manitus Moon Base, which was occupied by US and UN military and scientific personnel at  the time of the nukecaust. What became of that place was fully explained in Devil In The Moon and Dragoneye.

    There are very few remaining DL specific mysteries, at least in the last 13 plus years. There's been too much cross-pollination between the two series. For example, the character of Silas Jamaisvouz of Dark Emblem was first referenced in the inaugural OL novel, Exile to Hell,  published a year before.

    Same as with the genetic engineering explanation for the various human "mutie" species, from scalies to swampies. It's all an interconnected fictional universe now. 

    Kerrick
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    6/27/2010 12:43 PM
    Good effort for the Wiki, but there are some areas where you seem to rely on misinformation or guesswork. For example:


    Considering (as I've mentioned) that I've only read the first 2-3 Outlanders books, it's understandable that I'm lacking information. Once I get the majority of the DL books done, I'll turn to the OL stuff and start filling in the blanks.

    In the Outlanders book Iceblood, War Wag One is still situated on the road to the redoubt - apparently the crew left it there, which seems unlikely, given that they were in the middle of a blizzard.

    I actually got that from the archives. The book summary says "[The Shaman] takes the group to go see War Wag One, that had been sitting there since Ryan Cawdor lead them deep into the darks." so I assumed it had been sitting on the road in the mountains since Ryan and co. left it. I haven't read Iceblood myself. Your version makes a good bit more sense.

    They jumped to a mat-trans on Cydonia Compound One. At that point, it was populated by a mixed group of humans and Transadapts. Although the humans were in the majority, that had changed drastically by the time the Cerberus Crew first visited the place in Parallax Red.

     Ah.

    The primary Russia space-station, Shostakovich's Anvil was featured in Mars Arena and referenced in several other DL and OL novels. Parallax Red was built as an international space-station and it was equipped with a mat-trans unit to go back and forth to Mars and Earth.

    Right, but where were they getting supplies? Cydonia? I mean, what happened after skydark and the redoubts on Earth were all evacuated? The space stations can't have been self-sufficient.

    There are very few remaining DL specific mysteries, at least in the last 13 plus years. There's been too much cross-pollination between the two series. For example, the character of Silas Jamaisvouz of Dark Emblem was first referenced in the inaugural OL novel, Exile to Hell, published a year before.

    Trader's still missing! I know Magus is nothing more than a deus ex machina, but I'd like to see someone provide more explanation/background about him, too (like how he's managed to replace so much of his body with metal, and where he does it). He's just too cool of a character to have appear randomly without any explanation. Then again, his mystique is part of what makes him interesting. *shrug*
    Jax2
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    6/27/2010 2:11 PM
    Posted By Kerrick on 27 Jun 2010 12:43 PM 
    I actually got that from the archives.


    O-h-h-h

    Then it was definitely misinformation...sorry.

    Posted By Kerrick on 27 Jun 2010 12:43 PM
    Right, but where were they getting supplies? Cydonia? I mean, what happened after skydark and the redoubts on Earth were all evacuated? The space stations can't have been self-sufficient.

    In the case of Shostakovich's Anvil the fact it was uninhabited was one reason it fell to Earth. As for Parallax Red, the personnel were supplied from both the moon base and Cydonia until they ended up abandoning the place altogether.

    Yep, the fate of Trader is a DL specifc mystery...one that's dragged on unresolved for 15 years at this point so it really isn't considered a very pertinent plot point by the editors or the writers.

    As for Magus...the most obvious "Axlerverse" specific explanation is that he's from The Anthill or as a couple of people over the years have suggested, he's one of the guises of Colonel Thrush.

    Between the two, I think the former suggestion is a bit more likely.

    What I'm stating is there's no key mystery in the "Axlerverse" that once revealed is going to shock readers so they'll all say, "NOW it all makes sense!"

    It's not like Lost or anything like that.

    I mean...once you know that the nukecaust was part of a 3,600 year old plan to wipe the Earth clean so its original rulers could reclaim it, that's pretty much the whole ball o' wax.
    Kerrick
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    6/27/2010 10:43 PM
    In the case of Shostakovich's Anvil the fact it was uninhabited was one reason it fell to Earth. As for Parallax Red, the personnel were supplied from both the moon base and Cydonia until they ended up abandoning the place altogether.

    Ah, okay.

    Yep, the fate of Trader is a DL specifc mystery...one that's dragged on unresolved for 15 years at this point so it really isn't considered a very pertinent plot point by the editors or the writers.

     
    True enough. I figure he's really dead this time.

    As for Magus...the most obvious "Axlerverse" specific explanation is that he's from The Anthill or as a couple of people over the years have suggested, he's one of the guises of Colonel Thrush. Between the two, I think the former suggestion is a bit more likely.


    I hadn't thought of the Anthill connection, but it's been almost 15 years since I read Stoneface. Good call.

    What I'm stating is there's no key mystery in the "Axlerverse" that once revealed is going to shock readers so they'll all say, "NOW it all makes sense!" It's not like Lost or anything like that. I mean...once you know that the nukecaust was part of a 3,600 year old plan to wipe the Earth clean so its original rulers could reclaim it, that's pretty much the whole ball o' wax.

    Yeah. I think the DL writers (and LJ in particular) threw in those little mysteries for fun - they had no intention of ever resolving them; it was just something to make people wonder about. I'll probably just end up deleting that page.


    Unrelated question for anyone who cares to answer: I'm torn between listing every single ville that appears in the books and simply listing the ones that are noteworthy for some reason (like the companions' hometowns, places like Newyork, etc.). The former would make the wiki more complete but contain a lot of superfluous information, while the latter would save me some work and keep it relatively uncluttered. Similarly, I'm debating between listing the major antagonist from every book (most of whom are quite forgettable) and simply sticking with the noteworthy ones. I mean, does anyone really know or care who, for example, Baron Silas Hunter (Salvation Road) or Chang and Elias (Separation) were?
    Ron Miles
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    6/28/2010 5:18 PM
    Kerrick, did you get the email I sent you? If not, please contact me at ron@jamesaxler.com
    "Sadly then I knew the answer. All her life she was a dancer, but no one ever played the song she knew." - The Residents
    Kerrick
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    6/29/2010 1:39 AM
    Yes I did. I don't check my mail very often.  I'll check it out.
    Daeglan
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    7/1/2010 2:06 PM
    has anyone thought of plotting the Redoubts using google maps? Maybe one can see a pattern
    Kerrick
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    7/1/2010 8:11 PM
    I hadn't thought of using Google Maps - good idea. I'll include that on the wiki. There is a map in the Archives (http://www.jamesaxler.com...s/dlwsg/redloc.htm), but there's no real "pattern" as such.
    Ron Miles
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    7/1/2010 11:55 PM
    You are just moving right along with the wiki content, that is awesome! I haven't had any time to help out with that yet, plus I mostly want to stay out of your way until you get all of your current stuff updated. Just let me know when you are ready, and we can start encouraging other people to make content updates as well.
    "Sadly then I knew the answer. All her life she was a dancer, but no one ever played the song she knew." - The Residents
    Kerrick
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    7/2/2010 12:29 PM

    I should be done this weekend. I just have to add the book summaries and make sure all the links work properly, then I'll start working on the two timelines Chris wrote up (Outlanders and Deathlands). I figure it'll be better to keep the DL one separate, since it the OL one is freaking huge, and the DL one covers only a small section of time (mostly events noted in the books). After that, it'll just be down to miscellaneous DL/OL files from the archives.

    Speaking of: Does anyone have a good (uncorrupted) version of the picture of Ryan/Krysty/JB and the map of the US? I'd love to be able to post those on the wiki. I have the insert, but I don't have access to a scanner.

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