Talk:Destiny's Road

Rework

This entry needs to be reworked, though I'm too tired to tackle it now. Not only is it brief and without x-ref to hydraulic empire, but the first and last pagraphs overlap greatly. --Belg4mit 08:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The past events are fairly wrong; the crew did not know there was a problem until Base One dropped out of communication and then they returned to find idiots. I'll work on it when I get a chance.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:11, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Misleading intro?

"Jemmy is descended from the original Destiny colonists, who were stranded when their landing craft (which created the Road) deserted them." - I don't think this is quite accurate. The landing craft is still at Terminal. The people with sprinkles keep coming back to Spiral (after the one-year? break). This is really desertion (their original leaving is a bit cloudy, but considering that they were intentionally creating the road to and from Base One/Spiral as they went, I find it not quite right to use the unmodified words stranded and deserted. Kdammers (talk) 03:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

True. There was also a spacecraft, Argus, I believe the name was, that abandoned the Destiny colony entirely and went to build a colony on an asteroid, and which has apparently died out.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this correct?

"in the past, the merchants have murdered entire towns for disobedience by withholding speckles, and any major disruption in the speckle trade would kill every human on Destiny. All along the Road, he distributes gumdrop candy " --Is this what the book actually says? I just finished it, and I don't recall this at all. What towns, on what page(s)? Kdammers (talk) 03:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not true. The only town mentioned as being destroyed by the merchants was destroyed, at least according to the merchants, after the town launched a surprise attack on a caravan, killing several merchants (I think the name of the town was Wasser Township). And it was a physical destruction of the town site, including the cemetery. The Shire is excluded from the gene transfer of the caravan because a town woman insulted a merchant.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

So it should be changed.211.225.37.54 (talk) 01:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Insulted? I believe the term the book used was "bobbitted" Nite01002 (talk) 11:25, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Overly long?

Is this really a "mid importance" novel. Seemed pretty poor to me. I would rate as "low"

- The Back Story section seems clumsy.

-"The Road was created to enable humans to survive on the planet, as its native life is not nutritious to Earth life" -- how has creating the road made food nutrious? Sterilzing and reseeding perhaps, road building no

-I thought the sterilization was carried out because of the previous troubles on another colony plant (from Heorot). The location of the colony on a pennisula was thought to be more defensible; the sterlization a precaution against hostile indigenous forms.

-do we care / is it important that dead colonists are called lifegivers?

-the sea life as diet food - doesn't really seem to be that important a fact

-do we need the long-winded explanation of why there is little potassium? Isn't enough to simply explain that there is a shortage?

Also, to quote: "A diet lacking in potassium causes decreased intelligence in humans, which can be permanent if it is not remedied quickly – especially if this occurs during childhood." Is this even true? I suspect not. --Travelar (talk) 10:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Not even remotely true; while potassium is essential for neurotransmission, it's essential for all cells to maintain membrane polarization. A severe potassium deficiency would cause premature death long before loss of intelligence.24.108.51.53 (talk) 05:12, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

-anybody know why the road is initially a spiral? Seems like a poor layout. North America has any number of designed colony towns, none of them are a spiral.

"He instead flees by sea" - I thought he fled on foot, back to one of the villages, where he then gets on the boat. (Part of the illogic of the story)

?Anybody know why the boat is just floating there all these years? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Feldercarb (talk • contribs) 20:21, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Planet names

A note on chapter 2 (p. 12) gives the names of the planets in this book. They are taken from Marvel's Norse mythology, with three rather obvious - Volstagg, Hogun and Hela. Destiny was apparently originally named Norn. I would like this to be worked into the article, but I just can't see how to do it.--Auric talk 23:00, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Spurious Sequel

I don't think there's good reason to say this is preceded by "Beowulf's Children". They *may* be set in the same universe, but they occur on totally different and mutually isolated planets. There's really nothing, as far as i remember, to link these books except the common theme of colonization. JW Bjerk (talk) 04:15, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Language / Names

Andrew has planned all along to kill Jemmy, but Jemmy literally gets the drop on him and kills him in self-defense.

I'm not a native English speaker but "literally"? --StYxXx (talk) 17:05, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Jeremy returns as a merchant's chef, unknown to his former townsfolk, to Spiral Town

Who's Jeremy? I guess it's supposed to be "Jemmy"? --StYxXx (talk) 17:05, 4 August 2015 (UTC)