Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! I have finally caught back up! Stuff was good. I am forgetting many details, especially from SOTS and earlier, which kinda has me scratching my head at points, but it's fine in general. Should probably just reread TM and SOTS at some point though. Much like I said in my previous comment there's a lot of intriguing and exciting stuff. The mysteries presented are very compelling.
Okay, so I'd read that chapter a while ago, and now that I reread I have the same question as then: What's up with Jaycee? She's the daughter of Sandy Studs, father of the Figdroids, Jay and (the unfortunately named) Katie. Jaycee seems to obviously hold a connection to Jay, but at the same time the gender is different and if I recall correctly the Figdroids were supposed to be from the Future Dimension and therefore I won't speculate dimensional divergences. But it makes me curious indeed. One possibility is that Jaycee is a biological daughter and one was named after the other, but I dunno. I guess only time will tell.
The mention of Killian is interesting and I wonder what Aiden will find in that file as well as what he's looking for. I know he visited Militiregnum in SOTS and will be going back in the next story, but I wonder how Killian will fit into this one. I guess that with that conversation concerning Aiden and Alex's family, they couldn't leave Killian out just because he's trapped elsewhere. But still I wonder what that'll bring in the near future.
The Darneu is a nice throwback to the Rhoddwr Marwolaeth, though I've got to admit for some reason I'd interpreted their original mention to mean they were only the chunks around Forbidden Valley. In retrospect, it makes sense that it wouldn't be used to describe just those, but having thought that before I was surprised for a moment.
Kate's remembering stuff already... interesting (although for now it's just stuff they didn't intend her to forget anyway + that rocket bit)
And then there's "Nathaniel". My first thoughts were "Why does everyone spell Nathanael wrong?" and "How the heck did Thingguy get here?", then as he started talking more and more buddy-buddy to Kate and knowing stuff from the Stromling series, more and more I started suspecting it might not be the actual Thingguy, especialling considering that "Nathaniel" and "Nathaniel Thaddeus the Second" could potentially be intentionally off. It could be Thingguy (or that is the Thingguy we all know already) after all in some magical way that I don't understand or it could be not and he's just using the name for reasons. What I'm pretty sure about though is that he's Sergeant Ghost Mustache, the "forgotten callsign", I presume (did you also not remember and didn't bother to look it up? :P). Either way though it makes for a pretty interesting and surprising twist. It's nice to see Sergeant again and I wonder how he'll affect Kate's situation.
I kinda had an idea for Sergeant myself, that being that he and Rover are respectively the nephews of Thingguy and Luke, in parallel to how Aiden is Killian's nephew, and I wonder what you're doing with that and if by any coincidence we had the same idea (or if I'll have to abandon mine). I didn't intend to mention this before until it came up in story, but since this is happening, why not?
"Weird, itâs almost like someone rewrote my memory of that" lol, meta humour
âI know Elistrans mature at twice the rate of the rest of us" wut! Guess that explains the 12-year old biker I was just surprised about, but wut? I guess it also explains how 13-year-old Intrepid joined the NF, but still that's some major stuff, affecting a few people. It also brings up the question if we're talking only about physical maturity or mental as well. Cause the latter is kinda urealistic, considering humans developed to mature so slowly exactly so as to accomodate for their brains needing that in order to be as clever as they are. Maturing too quickly would probably lead to a relatively underdeveloped brain. I guess we could give some deviation or even just throw caution to the wind, because sci-fantasy with or without an explanation (e.g. the effect of Imagination allows one to mature faster but still achieve the same level of intelligence). This also begs the question of why Elistrans are different like that and if other planets also feature this kind of differences? Also, how does this work for half-Elistrans?
Hmm. So Teenyweeny Luke traveled to Jirdia. Curious. I wonder what he's looking for there, considering Kate's definitely not there. Well, I suppose there's that Unverse thingo he could be interested in. But then how's the situation there in a dimension several years later + lacking thedude + after a Maelstrom explosion?
I like Ben's dynamic with Rowana, but then I realised I'm not sure how I'm supposed to picture Ben. At first, I thought of him as the young boy whose mind's matured though, given his description as short and also showing up around Mara's waist. But then, you revealed he's actually 14 in the main Rowana time frame + that whole double maturing Elistran speed making him out to be pretty much at adult level (at least physically).
"It never resumed after that" ooooof. It's not that it's been exactly hidden before, but more than ever now it's been becoming clear how Aiden's family has its problems and it's somewhat sad, but also feeling real. I must commend you for being able to do it, because I don't know for the general author, but for me personally at least daring to find faults in how your characters raise their family is tough. At the same time, though, this creates the mystery of what exactly happened leading to "family time being over" or similarly what Luke and Aiden said leading to Luke leaving for years without contacting them.
All in all, it's been some good chapters that I enjoyed very much.