Hang on, Mal - you might be misreading that bit.
Did Ms. Kelly know about handwavium before '06, or did she know about magic before '06 and was calling handwavium "magic"? And was the magic she knew about real, or just something her grandmother made up / deluded herself about / was convinced existed by her mother / etc.?
There are other Wiccans in Fenspace, after all; this shouldn't a point that would cause an auto-disqualification (the way it does in some other space-opera settings). On the flip side, we've always left it nebulous whether those other Wiccans knew any real magic or were just using their rituals to guide the 'wave...
But, yeah, if Ms. Kelly knew about the 'wave before the Overfan did, then an explanation is in order.
(Besides ... University of Ottawa! We've got two Ottawa-based writers in the Collective, and it's taken this long for the U of O to be mentioned! And not by one of us...)
(As for sueishness, somebody in Fenspace really should start the Loyal Order of Mary Sues. You've already mentioned there's enough of us... er, them... in the setting.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Did Ms. Kelly know about handwavium before '06, or did she know about magic before '06 and was calling handwavium "magic"? And was the magic she knew about real, or just something her grandmother made up / deluded herself about / was convinced existed by her mother / etc.?
There are other Wiccans in Fenspace, after all; this shouldn't a point that would cause an auto-disqualification (the way it does in some other space-opera settings). On the flip side, we've always left it nebulous whether those other Wiccans knew any real magic or were just using their rituals to guide the 'wave...
But, yeah, if Ms. Kelly knew about the 'wave before the Overfan did, then an explanation is in order.
(Besides ... University of Ottawa! We've got two Ottawa-based writers in the Collective, and it's taken this long for the U of O to be mentioned! And not by one of us...)
(As for sueishness, somebody in Fenspace really should start the Loyal Order of Mary Sues. You've already mentioned there's enough of us... er, them... in the setting.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012