I'm seriously looking for some feedback here, and in an attempt to make it as relevant as possible, I'm posting this with a recap of my Mother God story. I thank everybody for their feedback on each chapter, but it has kind of posed a problem for me... I was left asking myself if, somehow, I was missing something important with regard to the structure and continuity of my tale, and having thoroughly reread BOTH my books to date and reviewing my notations for characters, timelines and events, I came to the conclusion that the best people to answer this are all of you out there that read my stories. I guess some of the confusion may occur due to the length of time between chapters being posted, and if nothing else, this serves as a refresher so that everyone can catch up. So, here goes... Timeline.............. Hope lands 1000 years after Mother God's confrontation with Lyssa- see epilogue book 1. Also, read Lyssa’s interrogation of a mech in book 1, where he states clearly that Man has been on Klytos V for 5000 years. Hope was in stasis and lost for 6000 years. 6000 – 5000 = a 1000 year gap. 150 years pass with man struggling to terraform Klytos V. Carlos Santos creates the first biomechs, including Pinkie, all of whom go missing on various terraforming expeditions (Santos' plan!) within the first few years, bringing the experiments to an end- Santos disappears around this time- chapters3, 14, 7, the bits about Killian, epilogue book 1... 200 people set out from the Colony to form the tribe known as the Primitives, their reasons unknown- chapter 2, book 2. 50 survive, colonising Thorkis. 350 years pass to bring us to present. Mother God has remained quiet- sentient, but "unbodied", bonded with the planet- chapter 2 book 2 indicates the timeline, as does “Synchronicity”, chapter 18, and several times Lyssa’s thoughts turn to this too. YES, Lyssa is over 1500 years old! She has already died once, it’s not likely to happen again any time soon... YES, Chiara, too, is over 1500 years old! She is not strictly human (born of Mother God and a human mother and therefore a hybrid) and has few of the weaknesses of humanity- see book 1. And answers to some of the questions posed; 1 Where are the humans from the first colony? A thousand years passed before Hope landed, the world was effectively sterilized... Take a guess, you might be right! Or not… 2 Who are One through Seven? One is Bradek (from book 1), trapped in a stasis chamber- last paragraph of chapter 8, book 2. If One is Bradek, perhaps you can guess who the other six are?.... 3 Why implants? Epilogue, book 1- the atmosphere is destructive to the human body, Santos sells the idea as "necessary", due to the lack of medical supplies and the catastrophic effect that the atmosphere has on the human body (epilogue book 1)He has his reasons, and these become clear in book 2 (chapter 7) Pinkie gets used as a guinea pig for the implants- read chapter 9, book 2. References to the terraforming and implant experiments are numerous in the preceding chapters too- read the bits about Killian, chapter3, chapter 7... Pinkie is far from the only one, but he was the FIRST! 4 Why not explore? Lack of food and supplies, the need to maintain a stable base under extreme duress, lack of success with terraforming right on their doorstep- every chapter that references the colony has info about this. The mechs were not even present at this time- the first of the “new” mechs are those created by Carlos Santos, and their ONLY activity is to increase their numbers in total secrecy- chapter 7 book 2. 5 Who is Pan? More to the point, what is he? Part man, part machine, never truly alive... I'm going to leave you guessing for now... 6 Wasn't Mother God dead? NO NO NO!!! Never, not even close. Her PHYSICAL presence was gone, but she was still very much alive- read Mother God's musings (Synchronicity) on the past for more info on this. Read Lyssa's conversation with Malian (chapter 14) to find out even more... 7 So, what’s with “the Book of Pan”? The Book of Pan is the literary ramblings of a being that has never lived. He has no moral hang-ups, no feelings as such and nothing to guide him other than those around him- the Seven. In fact, “Life was just an interesting concept to him” (chapter 12), a subject for study. The extracts are merely included to give you an insight into this most intriguing of characters, and to anchor the heart of the “prophecy”. Although his musings on the truth of Heroes have caused a little debate, the reader must bear in mind that his very nature precludes him from understanding the concept from the human perspective- he is working through the process from an entirely impartial viewpoint, something that very few people can do. So, ultimately, these questions from my perspective had already been answered- but what do YOU think? There are, of course, some unanswered questions.... 1 Where did Pan come from? 2 What DID happen to the first human colony? 3 Who wrote the prophecy? 4 What did Lyssa and Chiara do for 1000 years, waiting for the Ark Hope? Well, this is the meat of the tale. Some clues have already been given, others will follow. Lyssa, Chiara, Malian, Pinkie, the Colony residents, Old Mother, Carlos Santos and Mother God have ALL pondered on the past, giving snippets of information with regard to their history. But this is a story after all, and if I give away everything in the first few chapters, who'd bother to read further? So, as much feedback as possible please. If this story truly IS confusing, then I need to go back and modify it. Perhaps some of you could go back and reread from the start, let me know if there's still a problem when it's read as a whole...