Timeline of We Are Legion

I promised to put up a timeline of the book. So here you go. Note that this is from before the last round of edits, so something might be off.

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    • Joe on March 6, 2017 at 6:42 am
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    I’m interested to find out what Bob-Moot is.

    1. Chapter 59 – Bill – May 2172 – Epsilon Eridani

        • Chris G on April 11, 2017 at 12:29 am
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        Hi Dennis, love the first book and I’m counting the day for the second book to be available on Audible. It looks like from the timeline above the the first Bob-Moot is in 2188 and not 2172. Great visual aid, I had keep referring to the chapter guide in the Kindle to keep everything straight.

        1. Yeah, it’s possible some of the points are out of sync. I haven’t re-checked the timeline since final edits. I’m going to have to deploy an update anyway, once book 2 is out, so I’ll make sure everything matches up.

    • Mike Bowman on March 6, 2017 at 11:34 am
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    Very nice. Very clear. It’s also a handy summary of the salient events in the book.

    What program is that? The only TimeAlign I know of is this: http://timealign.org which is quite fun to play with when doing research.

    Unrelated question: is there or might there one day be a dramatis personae? Perhaps it could be combined with a timeline and added to one of the books as an appendix. All the best fiction books have appendices! Just look at Tolkien! Wrote a whole new book to explain the actual book!

    Unrelated observation: I seem to have a problem seeing a double ‘n’. Every time I look at the URL for this blog I ask myself “Who is Denise Taylor?” 😉

    1. It’s an app that I wrote myself. I just picked a name, and obviously I’ll have to change it if I release this on codeproject. 🙁

      There is a cast of characters at the end of book 2, and probably at the end of book 3.

        • Mike Bowman on March 6, 2017 at 1:57 pm
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        I was going to suggest ‘Time Ruler’, but there’s already several of those.

        You could go slightly pretentious with ‘Continuum’. Or ‘Timefeed’, a play on newsfeed. ‘Tempus modum’? Nah, too King Lear, and all the nerds would misspell it ‘modem’.

        Chrono + Tape measure = Chrontape!

        Timetape?

        You know, I think naming it will be harder than coding it!

        Back on topic: when does the audio version of Book 2 come out? I presume Mr Porter will be reprising his role?

        1. Ray finished recording book 2 a while back. Release of both the audio and e- versions is April 18th.

        • Christopher Bortz on April 14, 2017 at 3:36 pm
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        Great Book. looking forward to Book 2. Love the TimeAlign tool. Hurray for programmers!! Whatever you call it, I’d be interested in using that for some of my own projects. The ability to keep a bunch of character time lines straight is actually important for just about any fictional work, yours even more so.

        1. I’ve got more projects than I can keep up with, right now, but I am intending to release it on codeproject when I get it clean enough.

            • Joshua Caldwell on April 27, 2017 at 12:10 pm

            Name for this timeline: The Bobline

            • Matt Falcon on May 4, 2017 at 12:26 pm

            Drop “the” and it sounds classy. Bobline. It definitely becomes Googleable!

            I’m interested in it as well… for some reason, timeline software seems completely absent in the grand void of the internet.

    • Stephen C on March 6, 2017 at 11:44 pm
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    Thanks! I appreciate you doing this. I’ll make good use of this in the interactive Bobiverse timeline. Now, if I could just get this quaternary star system orbits right…

    • Richard on March 9, 2017 at 8:31 pm
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    Yes Thanks for this, it’s fun to study and browse.

    • ashley richard on March 12, 2017 at 8:28 pm
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    Amazing book so far! chapter 52 and I don’t want it to end. Will there ever be a BOBiverse dictionary of some kind? that would be great for those of us who want to nerd out! and those of us who have bad memories.!

    1. I’ve added a glossary and cast of characters to book 2. I should probably put them up on the website as well.

    • Eric on March 17, 2017 at 1:03 pm
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    Were there chapters omitted from the audiobook? There is a lot of stuff in this timeline that wasn’t in the audiobook.

    1. No, I’ve listened to the audiobook, and it’s identical. The timeline probably contains some book 2 stuff. I tried to trim it down before posting (to avoid spoilers) but may have missed a few things.

  1. Just got an email from Audible about the new book. Going back to re-read the original because I couldn’t be more excited for the sequel! Squeeeeee!

    1. Dangit still waiting for my copy of the email.

  2. Dennis, I’m launching Science Fiction book fan Podcast on April 15th and would love for you to give us 30 minutes of your time to talk about your upcoming book as well as the Outlander series!

    We’ll make is super, insanely, unbearably easy to join the conversation & even send you a Mic if you need one. We use Cast (a google chrome app) to record and definitely polish it up in post (so you can tell us to get rid of anything you didn’t like, haha!)

    • Paul Robert McHugh on March 31, 2017 at 11:17 pm
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    Dennis, I am now on my 5th listening of your book. Thank you for you vision and story telling. Each time read, i find something I missed. What a wonderful story but regardless how it comes about, we will as a species go to the stars. I am 65 and know i won’t live to see this happen, so how about a video game of “We are Bob”? Just the thought of me being Bob and then making more Bob’s to explore the galaxy gives me goose bumps.
    Please research this and make it happen. Halo, Destiny and the like tells me it could be done.

    Sorry but one more thought, Graphics! maybe something along the line of a story board would be wonderful for those special moments in the story. You could even have a deluxe signed edition made. I hope I don’t sound silly. Am I alone wishing this could happen?
    You are Legion!

    • Rich Bowman on April 5, 2017 at 6:48 pm
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    I reluctantly bought your book on audible after Multiple suggestions by the app. I’ve been frustrated with the repetion of the same story in sci-fi books but was desperate for something to listen to. I figured I’d give it a shot and if it wasn’t good I would just get a refund.

    I loved it. I got excited about a story for the first time in a very long time. I immediately preordered the sequel after finishing it. I got impatient for my availability email and went searching, which led me here.

    I like your byline about being frustrated so you wrote your own. I’m to that point myself but I’m 40, in grad school, and trying to write a thesis. If writing a novel is anything like a thesis, I’m not sure I have it in me…

    • Thomas on April 19, 2017 at 4:54 pm
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    Already finished your book really enjoyed it. Good job all around.

    • Nikola S on April 21, 2017 at 1:53 am
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    First, kudos – superb work, great plot and an ode to all of engineers/geeks who like to get down to nitty gritty details. Talking of which, I have a question: how long does it take to build a SCUT transciever? Looking at this part of the timeline:

    2158 – News about Vulcan reaches Epsilon Eridani
    2162 – SCUT plans reach Sol
    2168 – News about Vulcan reaches Earth ???

    leaves me confused, as I was under impression it would not take 6 years? My assumption is that as soon Riker builds SCUT transciever, he would have heard about Vulcan from Bill. I can’t go back easily to other timeline references to cross check (the downsides of an audiobook, sigh).

    1. Riker did learn about Vulcan as soon as he built the SCUT. The 2168 reference just indicates when the radio transmission from Vulcan would reach Earth. It didn’t turn out to be relevant to the plot, but when I was planning out the timeline I had to make sure I allowed for light-speed transmission times.

        • Nikola S on April 21, 2017 at 7:59 am
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        Ah, ok, thanks, makes sense now, did not realise that “News” refers to the original radio transmission from Vulcan. I see that this timeline was very useful when planning out the plot and for spotting continuity errors, so I need to keep that in mind.

    • Corwin on May 2, 2017 at 7:38 pm
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    I had a question on the Kiwi VEHEMENT leader, how old is he, if he created the initial BOB design, I would assume he did it way before 214x and he was killed around 218x, so was he in his 70s when he was cratered?

    1. Yes, it’s within a lifetime, but he’d have had to be a young man when he designed it, and an old man when he was vaporized.

        • Russ Vanderpool on December 2, 2017 at 8:05 am
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        This Vehement’s leader goal was to allow the human race to disappear – and of course to help it along. Yet in fact, the Bobiverse ultimately saved the human race from the others… because — well – Vickers invented replicant systems 🙂 love the karma.

    • Carl on May 17, 2017 at 3:39 pm
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    This is great! It really helps keeping track of things. I stumbled across it while Googling around looking for a visual map of the Bobiverse. Any chance of creating a map of all the star systems with annotations of who is where or who went where and when?

    • Travis on June 27, 2017 at 11:01 am
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    Hello Dennis. Just wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the first book. I couldn’t stop listening to it. Heard about it from a random stranger and gave it a try. I truly look forward to the next few books. Thank you for creating this for all of us to enjoy.

    • Luke Wild on July 22, 2017 at 7:04 pm
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    Hey Denis,

    Really enjoyed the first book, been listening to the audio book and not long started book 2. I’m a big gamer and started playing a game called SOMA today, it reminded me A LOT of your book, don’t know if you game and don’t want to spoil the plot, but if you do, check it out. Keep up the good work.

    • Samuel on July 23, 2017 at 12:54 pm
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    This was really helpful. It’s been over a month since I heard the first book, so I needed to remember those major events in the first one; without using the Bob family tree that would spoil the entire second book.

    • Simon on August 8, 2017 at 7:58 pm
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    Any chance of getting one of these with books 1& 2? I’ve now read the first book three times and the second book twice, but it’s still so nice having this!

    By the way, I’m a huge fan and also a programmer. Question, what have you spent most of your career doing? Front end? Back end? Languages you like?

    1. I’ve upgraded from Win7 to Win10 and the transition has been, er, less than seamless. Among other things, I can’t install XNA, so I’m in the process of switching to Monogame.

      Anyway, long story short, the apps that I wrote are in a non-working state right now. As soon as I get them fixed, I’ll put up a full timeline and a full starmap for the series.

      To answer your question, I’ve done mostly application programming, in everything from Cobol to c++, c#, and Delphi.

    • Meg on August 13, 2017 at 7:59 pm
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    Hi! This is such a fantastic series, it’s not often that I laugh out loud with books, but like the Bawbe says, belly laughs are pretty great ^_^ Thank you.
    So I’m a closet Star Trek nerd (except for e…never heard of it). And I kind of was curious if your original alignment of Bob #2 with Riker was a commentary on the character of the original (nerd rephrase, the TNG) character of Riker. Yes this is a biased question. I’ve always thought that WTR is kind of a pompous ass. But don’t worry, I’ll keep borrowing your books from the library if you disagree, yuck, yuck. Kidding, I’m incurably addicted to Audible–great narrator, your choice or the publishers?

    1. Yeah, I don’t know if Frakes played him that way deliberately, but Riker always struck me as someone who was trying to convince the world that he really did have a sense of humor.

      Ray was assigned to the project. I didn’t know enough about audio books at the time to know if that was good or bad. Turned out well. 🙂

  3. Do you have any updates to the time lines, genaelogy and starmaps?

    The best would be a poster which i could hang on my office wall, i would pay for those!

    If not, maybe its something i could do for you? The father of my wive owns a photoshop and knows how to quality print (on metal even).

    1. I think there are already a couple of genealogies floating around, done by fans. But I’ve had no time to work on it lately.

    • Gregory Casamento on February 13, 2019 at 12:08 am
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    Dennis, I absorbed all three books with great enthusiasm. I love that you are as big a sci-fi fan as I am. You work is replete with references to two of my favorite things Bloom County and Star Trek. 😉 This book gives me hope with respect to my own science fiction work. I’m writing a book called “Night Falls”… I can’t say much more. Lovely and engaging work.

    • Andy on April 2, 2019 at 5:16 am
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    Quick question, if I could. Can you tell me how many chapters are in the first book? Does it end with the first colony ship arriving at Vulcan and Colonel Butterworth being woken up? I am concerned that Audible may have cut out a few chapters…Thanks!

    1. Book 1 ends with them arriving at Omicron Eridani. The final sentence is “Roddenberry would be proud.”

        • Andy on April 4, 2019 at 4:44 pm
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        Great, Thanks much!

    • Matthew Orme on June 3, 2019 at 6:20 pm
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    I absolutely love your books! I can honestly say that no other book has made me literally laugh out loud so many times at the jokes and awkward happenstance of certain situations like your stories do. The humor is great and the technical nature of it all is engaging and addicting. I feel as if I am flying through the star systems with the Bobs and experiencing everything just as they are, and experiencing the emotion of it all with them as well! I am most of the way through book 2 and never want them to end. Keep going, keep writing… =D I am not sure what happens in book 3, but I’m crossing my fingers for book 4-10. haha. There is so much universe to explore! 😉

    And I think I saw someone else mention this somewhere as well, but I hope for a “We are Legion” computer game someday as well.

    Anyway, thank you. I enjoy your work immensely.

    • kano on June 8, 2019 at 8:09 am
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    Book 3, Chap 70 is the gnarliest space battle move I have ever contemplated. Thank you for sharing your prose, creativity, and imagination with us.

    • Shawn on September 13, 2019 at 5:43 am
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    Loving the first book, glad my partner lent me their copy.

    Have you pulled together a timeline like this that includes books 2 and 3?

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