[Dragaera] Timeline v 2.0

[Jonathan Carey]

I spent my lunch starting to read over the timeline document and had a
number of thoughts re: Too Many Brusts. And my apologies in advance,
but this is friggin complicated:

First off, I'd like to mention that we actually know the way things
work: Steve is dreaming the stories up and it's super-cool that he's
got that imagination, but he's an Author, and that's what Authors do.
And to me, it's impossible for him to have written what he did without
a serious amount of material written up that never gets into the
books.  Or at least, never gets into the book he's currently writing.

I think that we should cleave to that as much as possible, because to
do otherwise introduces discrepancies and contradictions as a product
of lies being more difficult to maintain than truth.  On the other
hand, they say that Truth is stranger than Fiction.  To which I reply:
be that as it may, but it has remarkably little to say about whether
or not Truth is stranger than Fantasy.

Getting back to the Timeline, it seems to me that a number of the
problems that crop up tend to revolve around whether or not this was
recorded by Vlad or known by SB at such and such a time.

My theory is this (as an example only, specifics only to allow
shortening of thought): Vlad records the events of Taltos - Phoenix
with enough random tangents and digressions to populate, but not
complete, a number of other books.  SB receives all this data all at
once, and has to sift through it and frame it into the various
stories.  Steve then publishes it on Earth.  SB then goes back for
more.  Receives (again, as an example only) Athyra through Issola in
one package, not as much, though---for example, Issola might have been
mostly contained in the first package since it's so badass, but not
enough was there for the complete story to come out, and/or Steve
delayed its release because it's hard to follow that act.  Rinse and
repeat as necessary.

Why is this my theory?  It serves as a possible explanation for
"discrepancies" that have cropped up in the Timeline v 2.0.  Who can
keep track of all that data without a few slip ups?  Who can receive
that amount of already flawed data and prevent a few MORE slip-ups?
Even Tolkien got it messed up with certain characters/plots/timelines.

Viewed through this lens, we have the "cracks and shards"--instead of
being flaws that destabilize the story--they are merely simple
historical errors.  The result of this is that our job (mostly Alexx's
it seems) is to sort out what is a historical error and instead of
being brought out of our willful suspension of disbelief by "story
flaws" they're fodder for our hunting through the space between the
lines.  Ah ha! we have another discrepancy, brought about by
translation, poor recall (on Vlads or SB's part) or whatever.   Great!
 Let's dig in and find out to the most complete degree possible, what
we believe REALLY happened.  It allows us to take a hand in crafting
these stories which is really the only way to go if you want to stay
sane.  The collective conscious is greater than the sum of its parts,
imho.  Obviously Steve is the author--but he's not perfect and he's
not able to keep track of every single detail--so this allows us yet
another tool to help him, and gives him another explanation for
mistakes that he obviously wants to undo, but can't because...once
it's out there, it's out there.

Jon