[ChicletPrime]

Chapter 4 - From The Stars

• without reading any farther... Xavier?
  
• yup, hi Jeremiah! Xavier lore, here go!
  
• Jeremiah is making cake eyes at the cake serving lady? nice.
  
• okay, so cake lady, aptly named Bella, is part of the Backtrackers? 'planetary shuttle squad two'. unless this is on Philos before they left? oh shit, did Jeremiah leave his lady love behind? 
  
• oh phew. okay. they're on Earth. the cake lady might not be abandoned to time.
  
• do Philos people not eat real food or something? is that why Xavier is so wretched at cooking, and not just because he's crown prince and didn't have to figure it out before now? 
  
• yeah, Jeremiah, not a great idea at all to start a romance with a girl who knows nothing about where you came from or why you're here or how much you want to go back. oh. Jeremiah has to fix the ship launcher? why is it taking so long, is he playing too much with the flower shop?
  
• wow, Xavier said not to .. what? 
  
• okay, so Xavier absconds with the new accelator Jeremiah's been working on, leaving him with the dirty dinner dishes. Traceback II is apparently in terrible shape after some sort of asteroid accident on the way in. i am getting the impression that as "Xavier is the leader of the Backtrackers" that Traceback I was a test flight to prove they could break the barrier at all, and Traceback II was the real mission (whatever that mission exactly was).
  
  
• ah. so a mini explanation that at least some of the reason the Backtrackers broke up a group is because it was taking too long to repair the ship and some of them gave up and decided they wanted to make a new life here, on this Earth. Which is why Xavier is telling Jeremiah maybe to try dating the cake lady.
  
• 'Linkon City' built a huge 'cosmic signal transmission and reception station'?  Linkon City? like, its board of directors or something? whatever passes for the local government? why? 
  
• Note: Xavier can teleport to any place he has been before
  
• Note: the spaceship had hibernation pods and Xavier used them as well. must have been a helluva long journey traversing both time and space.
  
• hah! this seems super important. "Some say that from a higher dimensional perspective, time doesn't exist. The past, present and future unfold in the same space. A person can only see the world before them because their eyes can only percieve the light projected from it. If this is true, then somewhere in the vast cosmos, there might exist a point where light from countless timelines converges. From there, one could see every star that ever existed, from the explosion of the universe to its eventual collapse, and witness every possible ending the world could take under an infinite number of choices. forest in silence and darkness."
  
• let me hazard a guess after staring at these sentences. is that were the Tree Of Life stands? that convergence point? and we (the girlfriend) were born from it, able to travel through all spaces?
  
• So whatever time it as, its now a year later. still no power source found for the spaceship. Jeremiah settles into a new life, which excludes Xavier as they all try not to be tied to each other/found out by anyone searching.
  
• aww, Jeremiah wants to give Bella a wedding ring. this feels both wonderful and ominous.
  
• OH NO CATASTROPHE TIME
  
• there's suddenly a Wanderer. "It pierces right through the psychological defenses of its citizens. people who have never seen such a monster are captured by Death as they're enveloped in fear."
  
• that is a wild set of words to make up a sentence. psychological defenses? captured by Death? enveloped in fear?  the implications of those word choices are fantastic. 
  
• at the sweet cake shop, he sees a marigold buried under rubble.  also interesting. a flower blooming in the crack of a wrecked street is shown/mentioned in the girlfriend's recollection of the 'Rift. Sylus walks by a similar lone flower in one of his cutscenes.
  
• So Jeremiah worked with Xavier at the start of the devastation to defeat Wanderers since only they really knew how. And Jeremiah knows that Xavier rescued "her" then.
  
• On January 1st 2034, the Hunters Assoc is founded and the "President" (of the Hunters Assoc? of the actual government?" announces that they (the humans) might have to coexist with Wanderers now. Jeremiah feels that the real Traceback mission has begun.
  
• 2037 -- Linkon City ate protocores and got stronk. 
  
• awww, Jeremiah built his flower shop on top of Bella's cake shop. Xavier and Jeremiah bump back into each other again. they really must take the "stay away from each other" to heart if they only infrequently connect again, apparently by happenstance.
  
• Xavier has no interest in the state of the spaceship. i could have guessed as much.
  
• apparently Bella always knew something hinky was up with Jeremiah, as she'd seem him as a child. And Jeremiah doesn't age. and it sounds like she wants to go back to Philos with him if he goes? 
  
• Again, the wavyleaf sea lavender. I am sure we talked about this elsewhere - five blue petals, a golden center. forget-me-nots.
  
• Jeremiah feels guilty for Xavier's duty as Captain. "...sometimes I think those of us who left early can live their lives in peace as long as you're still holding on."
  
• Jeremiah asked Xavier, before he left, why he didn't just settle down somewhere 'with her'.
  
• Maybe, this time, he can settle down. If possible he wants a place where he can see the stars.
  
• THIS TIME?