AEG partial timeline

// Here is an approximate timeline, based on 2066 = /Star Trek/+100 years ("One hundred years ago, men dreamed of it [space travel]. They thought there'd be a world government before it came, that ignorance and poverty would've been eliminated" p 70): * 2036 Bob Chase appointed first ambassador to Woldercan. Gideon Chase born. * 2040 Klauser appointed ambassador to Woldercan. Bob Chase leaves with Gideon, age 4. * 2050 Reis marries first wife (Norma, in my theory). * 2051 Rian born. * 2052 Reis and first wife are divorced. * 2056 Ingstrup elected, Reis appointed as ambassador to Woldercan. Travels with second wife. * 2060 Ingstrup runs again, probably re-elected. Reis remains ambassador. * 2064 New president (seen in chapter 1) elected. Reis replaced, returns to Earth. * 2067 Events of /An Evil Guest/, when Rian is 16. Gideon Chase is 31. Any additions or corrections? I've made Klauser serve 16 years so that Gid can be older.

There is no basis, textual or otherwise, to suppose that Klauser served more than the usual 8 years for a political appointment made by a two-term president. I listed the order of ambassadors in an earlier post. As stated in chapter 1, ambassadorships are normally given to major campaign contributors. It is the norm for each newly-elected president to make his own appointments, and the president is limited by law to two elected four-year terms. It is very unlikely that Klauser served more than one president. There is also no reason to suppose that Bob Chase served only four years as ambassador. -Roy

The textual basis for giving Klauser a longer-than-normal term is the apparent age of Gideon Chase. An effective ambassador might be kept on, especially if a president was succeeded by his vice-president and both served eight years. But the book also says that weird things happen with time between Woldercan and Earth. "The distinctions we draw between past, present, and future are discriminations among illusions" (p. 298). The message announcing Gideon's birth arrived on Earth before the birth happened. Could some trick of relativity allow Gideon to arrive back on Earth several years before he was born? Something like that could have happened to the adult Reis too, giving him a few years with a temporal "clone." I gave Bob Chase only a four-year term because Klauser only met Gideon as "a small boy" (p. 297). The occasion of their meeting is most likely when Klauser came out to replace the ambassador. I think a four-year-old is more likely to be described as "a small boy" than an eight-year-old. (It also fits better with Gid's claim to have no memories of Woldercan). If we allow a time-shift for Klauser's outbound trip this timing is debatable, too.