No...no, he needed the gates still, probably had tabs on several of them at the time, through Ball. Possibly more, since they knew where we were going.
[ He went over this with Ellie before, a little, tossing ideas back and forth like a particularly robust game of squash. Nate skims the material in Lance's attachment and wonders whether the reason behind pulling out of space real estate was because Henries realized he couldn't use the gates in their then-existing forms. He required the unwitting assistance of the Displaced to turn them all on, for whatever mysterious purpose. ]
Two groups of us volunteered. Two groups were conscripted and marched. Four gates were activated around the same time, which let us travel between them. That was deliberate, there had to be four groups.
[ There was a reason for it, some very specific mechanism, like hitting four panels in a puzzle at the same time to open a door. ]
In Shambhala there was this enormous tree at the center of the city, and all the legends talked about a sapphire that was studded in the middle of the trunk. It was supposedly this great source of power. When we got there, it was just a massive chunk of blue resin. All the "power" was just...tree sap that spread through every root and vine, the instant it was compromised with a flame, the whole city collapsed. It held it together.
[ With nothing to bind it, a once-great civilization was shattered and reduced to rubble. The source was gone. ]
Shifting from looking for a gate on Pluto to looking in the trench was more like...I don't know, it feels like moving away from treating the surface symptoms and going to the source. Maybe the gates wouldn't work without it?
no subject
[ He went over this with Ellie before, a little, tossing ideas back and forth like a particularly robust game of squash. Nate skims the material in Lance's attachment and wonders whether the reason behind pulling out of space real estate was because Henries realized he couldn't use the gates in their then-existing forms. He required the unwitting assistance of the Displaced to turn them all on, for whatever mysterious purpose. ]
Two groups of us volunteered. Two groups were conscripted and marched. Four gates were activated around the same time, which let us travel between them. That was deliberate, there had to be four groups.
[ There was a reason for it, some very specific mechanism, like hitting four panels in a puzzle at the same time to open a door. ]
In Shambhala there was this enormous tree at the center of the city, and all the legends talked about a sapphire that was studded in the middle of the trunk. It was supposedly this great source of power. When we got there, it was just a massive chunk of blue resin. All the "power" was just...tree sap that spread through every root and vine, the instant it was compromised with a flame, the whole city collapsed. It held it together.
[ With nothing to bind it, a once-great civilization was shattered and reduced to rubble. The source was gone. ]
Shifting from looking for a gate on Pluto to looking in the trench was more like...I don't know, it feels like moving away from treating the surface symptoms and going to the source. Maybe the gates wouldn't work without it?