[709] a network of stations

man, if they really wanted security they would make a proprietary OS and data interface. making it literally impossible to hack without somehow building one of your own.

"This IS how I really feel. Come here Mez I will bite you."

Coming to think of it, this reminds me of the end scene from Terminator 3. Only not stupid.

I feel slightly concerned that the etheric spider is so close to the courts ether station. I'm half expecting Mondays strip to show the spider creeping out from Jack and into the computer.

It's also kind of weird that there's one standalone computer in the room when everything else seems to be tied to the panels around the room. Is this maybe a sign that the computer Jacks messing with is for something other than surveillance? Because the room-computer looks very much like flight/boat surveillance/control to me.

These ether stations are probably part of the main purpose of the Court - man's attempt to become God. They are attempting a scientific, rigorous study of the ether - and possibly more than just study, but some sort of widespread control.

I think that look is characteristic to most power stations and industrial facility control centers.

Any doubt I had about this chapter (minimal as it was) is now gone. This is going to be as good a ride as any chapter yet!

So, does anyone think that Jack is going to end up turning this thing on with all the safeties disengaged and end up making a giant tesla coil/cause a catastrophic system failure?

While I do think he is going to turn the thing on, I am under the impression that something even awesomer will happen if he does.

If there's a network of those things into the court, that would mean it's a fair bit larger that previously figured.

I'm sorry, just how huge is the Court? When we last saw the power station it shot a beam all the way to the horizon, and apparently that was just to one of 4 others? Plus whatever the smaller dots are.

Using the internet and the height of my dining room, I figure from their eye level on the top of the building the horizon is about 25 miles away. If that 25 miles is the longest distance between power stations, I guesstimate that the entire array is about 75 miles long. And that's all inside the Court. To put that in perspective, it's 77 miles from the centre of London to Southampton.

Of course, don't take those calculations too seriously. It's all based on guessing. I've probably wildly overestimated.

Also, jacks usb drive is glowing red. It's either a blinker usb or PURE EVIL.

Maybe it's bigger on the inside. My guess is that it's spreading, though, semi-organically, like the growth from the tic-toc.

Excellent chapter thus far. Combined with other recent chapters, you really start to get the sense that Events are in motion, and probably have been for a while now.

the spider will travel the Ether station Network and travel to the inter-webs? (ducks)

Another page that (subtly) makes me reevaluate my previous ideas of the extent of the Court. That diagram appears to be a map of the network that implies the stations are roughly equidistant along a route in generally one direction. When we saw this station fire off a bolt to the next one, it shot to the horizon and that was from an elevated point-of-view. The math was done and it amounted to a significant number of miles. If every leg of that route is the same distance, then the necessary size of the Court just got a LOT bigger.

Yeah, given your numbers the Court should cover most of the UK. Even if we allow an order of magnitude error, it would be easily visible from space.

Definitely a "bigger inside than outside" deal.