Subject: It... depends.
Author:
Posted on: 2008-10-08 21:46:00 UTC
HST is tuned to World One most of the time; New Caledonia is occupied /now/, the AD 2004 Oxford Gathering caused problems in HQ in 2004 HST, there's Laburnum's interlude, etc etc. But not all cases fit. Agent Vemi, for instance, returned home "only a few days after she'd originally left". In general, however, HQ is synched to World One. We hope.
hS
Right. So how does time spent in HQ compare to the time elapsed in an Agent's home continuum (in this case, World One)?
Is it like an OFU, where if the Agent returns they arrive at the exact second they left, or does an equal amount of time pass in their home world? (I know Laburnum used the latter theory in an interlude...)
However, given the huge collection of portal devices, universes with time machines, and so on that we have access to, I would be inclined to say that you could land in World One at basically any time you wanted, like it was any other fic.
You never know how much time will pass between worlds.
I remember seeing someone say that if, when you're in HQ, you stop and think "Hey, time should be passing," it does. Otherwise it tends to drift. Me, I was just clumsily trying to work out an actual timeline for my stuff on a couple occasions and I was more-or-less winging it, so don't take anything I did timewise as undiluted PPC-canon.
On a related note, I have to say I hope they have a way to slow it down, otherwise S&S and the M-kids would age at four times the rate of a human. Eh, there's probably some drug in some continuum which would slow the aging rate ...
...I've assumed that time in HQ is kind of like the geography. By which I mean that it doesn't stay in place and sort of moves all over depending on the individual. So while time is generally in tune with World One, it might also depend on how much time an Agent thinks has elapsed.
HST is tuned to World One most of the time; New Caledonia is occupied /now/, the AD 2004 Oxford Gathering caused problems in HQ in 2004 HST, there's Laburnum's interlude, etc etc. But not all cases fit. Agent Vemi, for instance, returned home "only a few days after she'd originally left". In general, however, HQ is synched to World One. We hope.
hS
It would be easy to set a remote activator to a time just after the agent left. Depending on how time in HQ has treated them, there may or may not be noticeable age differences to worry about, but that's another issue, and it could probably be solved with the disguise generator or a world with a reverse time flow. The possibilities are endless, really.
~Neshomeh