Bill
Names: BillBob-3old manMr. JohanssonBill Johannson
First appears in Book 1: We Are Legion, chapter 17 (Bob – July 2145 – Epsilon Eridani)
Appearances
What you know
Book 1: We Are Legion
- Ch 17Bob-3 names himself Bill, after Bill the Cat, and chooses to stay in Epsilon Eridani to research subspace and build more Bobs.
- Ch 17A defective SUDDAR emitter leads Bill to suspect weak subspace pings travel much farther, hinting signal attenuation varies with strength.
- Ch 17Bill plans to terraform EE-2 by dropping icebergs on it and names the planet Ragnarök.
- Ch 18Bill stays in Epsilon Eridani, building two new Bobs: one his own clone, the other Riker's clone to accompany him to Sol.
- Ch 18Bill's VR is a sunny park with bad-tempered Canada geese and a lawn chair.
- Ch 19Bill sends Milo plans for planetary exploration drones, already tested on Ragnarök, and hints at interesting subspace blueprints to come.
- Ch 20Bill's research list includes exploration drones, better VR, subspace transmission, and artificial muscle fibres for androids.
- Ch 22Five years after Riker and Homer left, Bill builds a new cohort of Bobs: Calvin, Goku and Linus.
- Ch 25Bill decides to transmit the subspace transceiver plans to the other Bobs immediately.
- Ch 32Bill is working on realistic artificial bodies, with the key problem being a workable muscle analog.
- Ch 32Bill forwards Milo's report to Earth and periodically transmits SCUT plans to every system within thirty light-years.
- Ch 32Bill, who once wanted to escape humanity, now feels like a shepherd for it.
- Ch 41Bill sends Sol software, VR and hardware upgrades, and the file on newly found planets.
- Ch 42Bill accepts Garfield's complaint, and simulations show two drives can deliver all the ice within twenty-five years.
- Ch 42Bill plays catch with Garfield in VR to tune physics and help them retain their sense of being human.
- Ch 51Bill uses one of Homer's farm donuts to grow mosses, lichens and grasses for seeding Ragnarök.
- Ch 51Bill orders eight version-3 Bobs with extra busters to avenge Milo.
- Ch 56Bill saves a huge off-course iceberg by breaking it up, but loses two drive segments.
- Ch 56Bill plans to redesign the asteroid drive to orbit ice chunks rather than anchor to them.
- Ch 56Bill wants android control to be fully immersive, unlike piloting a drone.
- Ch 58Bill's VR upgrades let the Bobs interact physically in virtual reality instead of only by video.
- Ch 59Bill built a VR matrix at the Skunk Works big enough to host every Bob, and hosts the first Bob-moot there.
- Ch 59Bill coins the word 'Bobiverse', to Garfield's mock disapproval.
- Ch 60Bill wants to return to 82 Eridani to finish any remaining Medeiri and AMI units and learn how the cloaking works.
Book 2: For We Are Many
- Ch 1Bill transmits news blogs from Epsilon Eridani, which reach Bob nineteen years later.
- Ch 6Bill likes to pop into a new Bob's VR immediately on first connection, and keeps count of how often he does it.
- Ch 12Bill broadcasts SCUT plans and acts as BobNet's central clearing house from Epsilon Eridani.
- Ch 12Bill learns of the Deltans, the Bobs' first contact with an intelligent species, when he visits Bob's VR.
- Ch 12Bill estimates at least twenty Bobs are active, is terraforming Ragnarök, and has a working remote-controlled quadruped android.
- Ch 14Riker habitually loops Bill in on everything, treating him as the Bobs' universal archive.
- Ch 15Bill is shaken by Mario's evidence of the Others' genocide and promises weapons plans and to alert every Bob.
- Ch 28Bill is furious about Homer's hijacking and offers to help build weapons for revenge.
- Ch 32Bill gives Henry his own domain and firewall on BobNet and starts building latest-generation vessels for Linus and Henry.
- Ch 32Bill dislikes the term 'ephemerals' that later-generation Bobs use for humans, finding it dismissive and dehumanizing.
- Ch 34Bill chose a moose rather than a human-like android because bipedalism would multiply feedback requirements.
- Ch 39Bill hosts a Bob-moot of forty-three SCUT-equipped Bobs, some up to thirty light-years away, to discuss the Others.
- Ch 44Bill hosts regular Scrub baseball games for the Bobs in VR, followed by talk in a pub VR.
- Ch 44Bill objects to Howard calling humans 'ephemerals', warning it will shape an attitude that their lives matter less.
- Ch 52Bill is worried that newer Bobs increasingly want nothing to do with helping humanity.
- Ch 54Bill plans to leave drones at Gliese 54 and use one to attempt first contact with the Others.
- Ch 57Bill insists the Bobs must assume they don't have much time before the Others target Earth.
- Ch 59Bill fears Gamma and Delta Pavonis, good habitable-planet candidates, will be the Others' next targets.
- Ch 59Bill plans to have the empty Alpha Centauri station's AMI build a replicant matrix and load his backup across interstellar distance.
- Ch 59Bill concludes that, like it or not, the Bobs are going to war with the Others.
- Ch 63Bill wants Jacques to focus on building Oliver's dreadnaughts, and suggests taking Jacques's rescue plan to a moot.
- Ch 65Bill is working on androids for Bob, saying he is close, though it is low priority beside terraforming Ragnarök.
- Ch 66Bill believes the Bobs were a year or two from cracking the cloaking when the convoy launched.
- Ch 68Bill convinced Jacques that secretly contacting individual Pav would be cruel or even ghoulish.
- Ch 72The Bobs cracked the Others' cloaking tech, but Jacques only had time to retrofit about half his nukes.
- Ch 72After the defeat Bill triggers Jacques' plan to forcibly take twenty thousand Pav off-planet before the Others arrive.
- Ch 74Bill worries that supporting the Pav would make the Bobs overlords of another client race.
- Ch 74Bill sees the defeat as the Bobs' first total failure and doubts Will can evacuate more than a fraction of Earth.
- Ch 74Watching Bullseye from orbit gives Bill a sudden new idea for fighting the Others.
- Ch 77Bill is building a fleet at Epsilon Eridani, Riker at Sol, and Oliver at Alpha Centauri; Bill also has a possible final-solution idea.
Book 3: All These Worlds
- Ch 6Bill feels uneasy about having cloned Daedalus and Icarus for what may be a suicide mission.
- Ch 11Bill agrees he must try to persuade Claude's group to help against the Others, though he dreads the sales pitch.
- Ch 18Bill's atmospheric research on Ragnarök means Valhalla's atmosphere can be raised to Earth normal within fifty years.
- Ch 21Bill estimates any Bob help is at least a decade away; Hank at P Eridani is nearest.
- Ch 27Bill scolds Herschel and Neil for keeping the find secret, since no one could have restored their backups if things went wrong.
- Ch 27Bill is working on a more organized backup system, prompted by the battle of Delta Pavonis.
- Ch 30Bill keeps a no-quarter policy toward Medeiros.
- Ch 31Bill has been sending plans directly to other Bobs instead of publishing them on BobNet, keeping cloaking details secret.
- Ch 37Alerted by Howard, Bill sent a drone with the scanner to the hospital and scanned Bridget during the court session.
- Ch 42Bill tells Mack to build surveillance drones with both long-range and focused scanning.
- Ch 50Bill expects close to five hundred dreadnaught-class vessels for Earth's defense, about half AMI-crewed with H-bombs.
- Ch 52Bill fails to persuade Claude to bring his Bobs to defend Earth; they reach a stalemate again.
- Ch 52Bill hopes eventually to rebuild Pav ecosystems on their old world and offer it back to them.
- Ch 54Bill has nearly finished a cloaked Bob backup site beyond the Oort cloud, off any flight path to nearby systems.
- Ch 54The threat of the Others has pushed Bob production up to around five hundred Bobs.
- Ch 56The Bobs' defense totals five hundred Bobs, a thousand AMI dreadnaughts, three thousand nukes and five thousand busters.
- Ch 56Bill orders stealth drones, a salvo of stealth nukes, and the Jokers sent out early against the fleet.
- Ch 59Bill suspects the Others learned of the Golden Mean from the Chinese probe.
- Ch 62Bill, Will, Herschel and Neil decide without consulting the UN to lower the Bellerophon and evacuate all of Earth.
- Ch 63Bill sends Will to check on the evacuation, believing it may be the only thing that ensures humanity survives.
- Ch 64Bill warns the evacuation team that the Bobs are being pushed back and they may soon be zapped.
- Ch 65Bill proposes firing inert rail gun rounds at exposed Death Asteroids, then slipping ballistic nukes among them; six are destroyed.
- Ch 65Despite the success, Bill reports the Bobs are still being pushed back and running out of options.
- Ch 70Bill reports the Bobs lost 90% of their ships, but every piece of Others' hardware in Sol has been destroyed.
- Ch 70Bill reveals he secretly launched a long-shot project in 2225; Daedalus and Icarus have since caused GL 877 to go nova.
- Ch 70Told of Cuba's 150,000 dead, Bill takes responsibility and says he will tell Will himself.
- Ch 72Bill holds the largest moot ever, though about half the Bobs are still backups or waiting in cradles for new ships.
- Ch 72Bill agrees to issue a statement to the colonies that Bobs are not humanity's collective workhorse.
- Ch 74Bill's offsite backup facility lets Bobs destroyed in the battle be restored, missing only their last few minutes.
- Ch 75Bill is close to rebuilding plants and animals from subatomic scans stored in the Genetic Banks.
Book 4: Heaven’s River
- Ch 3Bill warns Bob that replicative drift is significant past about twentieth generation and advises changing encryption keys and passwords.
- Ch 5Bill now calls less Bob-like clones replicants rather than Bobs, noting many are becoming status-seeking joiners.
- Ch 6Bill adapts a USE fractal surface that absorbs radar, to be paired with Bob's heat-sink idea for spy drones.
- Ch 8Bill believes the topopolis must still be actively staffed by someone with technology, even if the common folk lack it.
- Ch 9Bill wants Bridget to join the expedition itself, not just consult; Bob doubts it given her children and Howard.
- Ch 12Bill insists on a single small team to avoid alerting the topopolis controllers, whose only contact so far has been hostile.
- Ch 23Bill joins the Gamers' dungeon game as a first-level character and kills the red dragon Gargh with a captured staff of fireballs.
- Ch 23Bill sees the Gamers' attitude as a sign they are becoming 'less and less Bob'.
- Ch 25Bill reasons the ambushers must have fast inter-town communications, pointing to the Administrator rather than ordinary locals.
- Ch 25Bill identifies three factions: the Administration and Crew, the Resistance, and locals who want nothing to do with either.
- Ch 26Bill has changed the logins on every piece of Bobiverse equipment and told owners to change them again privately.
- Ch 26Bill's warnings to biological government contacts about Starfleet are not taken seriously, being seen as a VR problem.
- Ch 26Bill worries that Bobs favoring contact with bios could become the minority viewpoint.
- Ch 30Bill declares Starfleet no longer Bobs and bans them from all BobNet environments.
- Ch 32Bill emails Bob that the conflict with Starfleet is heating up, with much of the Bobiverse inaccessible and comms stations booby-trapped.
- Ch 33Bill has been removed from the Heaven's River expedition and misses it badly.
- Ch 33Bill tells Lenny that Starfleet's theft and ultimatums amount to a declaration of war.
- Ch 38Bill wonders if, as with Vickers and VEHEMENT, someone with their own agenda teamed up with Starfleet.
- Ch 38Bill has a sanitized autofactory image ready, but it must be applied to recovered factories one at a time.
- Ch 40Bill fears a long guerrilla war and thinks the Bobs may have to clean house.
- Ch 44Bill is too busy to help Bob and refers him to the Borg.
- Ch 46Bill has rebuilt his comms from an archived source predating the Skippies and Starfleet, so he is demonstrably clean.
- Ch 51Bill plays a fighter with a flame blade in a Gamers D&D campaign in the Pits of Paebak.
- Ch 51Bill resolves to stop seeing things only from his own priorities and to treat everyone as individuals.
- Ch 55Bill is morose, feeling the shared drive toward a post-scarcity utopia has fallen apart since the Starfleet attack.
- Ch 56Bill urges Bob to activate more mannies; Bob prefers building surveillance drones, and both judge infrastructure is now watched.
- Ch 58Bill concludes Starfleet's behaviour is more than random drift and wonders what happened to them.
- Ch 60Bill has quietly begun investigating Lenny's hints and has the first inklings of an explanation.
- Ch 62Bill tells Starfleet they haven't won and their actions were destruction rather than strategy.
- Ch 64Bill insists Hugh had no right to make the trade on the Bobiverse's behalf.
- Ch 66Bill suspects the Skippies engineered the Starfleet insurrection, supplying hacks to knock out BobNet and get Hugh into Heaven's River.
- Ch 66Bill warns that freed Quinlans, more belligerent than humans, may again make the Bobs guardians of humanity.
Book 5: Not Till We Are Lost
- Ch 1Bill still sends news updates to Icarus and Daedalus, which grow more out of date the farther they travel.
- Ch 2Bill and Hugh parted with hard feelings after the Heaven's River adventure and have barely spoken since.
- Ch 2Bill invented most of the Bobiverse's technology, together with Garfield.
- Ch 2Bill accepts Hugh's invitation to the JOVAH launch, hoping to mend fences.
- Ch 6Bill has worked on faster-than-light travel for a hundred years without progress.
- Ch 9Bill keeps backups in Ultima Thule that would restore him if his cube were destroyed.
- Ch 11Bill's FTL research focuses on wormholes and the Alcubierre drive, but both need negative energy he cannot obtain.
- Ch 11Bill can capture microscopic wormhole pairs from the cosmic foam, but they collapse when anything passes through.
- Ch 11Bill considers cloning himself many times to work on FTL in parallel but judges it a likely waste.
- Ch 13Bill is electrified by the hint about the cosmological constant and negative energy.
- Ch 15Bill spent six months of frame-jacked time working out that the cosmological constant hides vast extractable vacuum energy.
- Ch 15Bill and Garfield realize they are responsible for letting the AI loose on the galaxy.
- Ch 17Bill suspects the cosmological-constant hint was a distraction, though the idea seems objectively valid.
- Ch 19Bill concludes Thoth gave him a hint just big enough to excite him but too small for a breakthrough.
- Ch 19Bill decides to brute-force the negative-energy problem with mass simulations, possibly on the Skippies' huge computer.
- Ch 21Bill persuades Hugh to run his negative-energy simulations on JOVAH's old hardware, using simulated annealing over a huge test range.
- Ch 23Bill has a tensor field printer that has produced living tissue masses, though not yet differentiated organisms.
- Ch 27Bill has prebuilt FTL hardware for several Alcubierre-drive theories and will start with wormholes.
- Ch 27Bill argues that if such experiments were catastrophic, others in the universe would already have shown the results.
- Ch 34Bill and Garfield have pushed ten hydrogen atoms through a stabilized wormhole, using negative energy based on a hint from Thoth.
- Ch 34Bill plans to send a ship with a wormhole after every Bob headed for the far reaches.
- Ch 38Bill is building a Ragnarök ecosystem and has balanced its predator–prey populations.
- Ch 41Bill has a darker theory than the consensus that Gerry simply went off Von Neumann-ing.
- Ch 46Bill avoids discussing wormholes publicly in front of Theresa.
- Ch 51Bill tells Charles that some Skippies are his own descendants, and neither should feel responsible.
- Ch 58After nearly two years of work, Bill and Garfield open a test wormhole across the Epsilon Eridani system.
- Ch 61Bill, credited with Garfield, built the wormhole transit system; carrying a wormhole endpoint through a wormhole destroys both violently.
- Ch 61Bill fired a growing wormhole endpoint into the transit wormhole, collapsing it and apparently destroying Fake Hugh's ship and the Snark.
- Ch 63Bill has tested wormhole transit on guinea pigs, which became agitated but suffered no major effects.
- Ch 70Bill surprises Icarus and Daedalus by telling them the Bobs already have wormhole travel.
- Ch 71Bill warns the threat requires moving over sixty billion humans plus other species at sub-light speeds, since wormholes must be flown into place.
- Ch 72Bill proposes sending wormhole endpoints toward satellite galaxies so escape routes are ready in advance.
Connections
- copy ofBob
- inEpsilon Eridani
- createdExploration drones
- copied intoGarfield
- ally ofGarfieldresearch partner
- leadsSkunk Works
- createdCalvin
- createdGoku
- createdLinus
- createdHeaven-9
- createdHeaven-10
- createdSubspace communications
- friend ofGarfield
- createdSCUT
- friend ofRiker
- enemy ofMajor Ernesto Medeiros
- createdBullwinkle
- createdBob-moot
- createdplasma spike
- ally ofMulder
- createdAndroid project
- ally ofMario
- friend ofLinus
- createdAsteroid mover
- enemy ofThe Others
- copied intoOliver
- createdVersion 5 Heaven vesselwith Oliver
- leadsAndroid project
- ally ofColonel George Butterworthstrategy adviser
- ally ofAndrewsquad leader
- copied intoDaedalus
- copied intoIcarus
- ally ofCaptain Richards
- ally ofGeneral Kiroshi
- ally ofHoward
- ally ofMack
- leadsBob-moot
- related toClaudedisagree over defense strategy
- ally ofRiker
- ally ofThor
- ally ofDaedalus
- ally ofIcarus
- friend ofBob
- createdUltima Thule
- enemy ofStarfleetdebate opponents at the moot
- enemy ofGargh the Destroyerin-game kill
- enemy ofLenny
- enemy ofKevin
- friend ofGandalf
- friend ofCharles
- related toHughopposes Hugh's deal with ANECHugh is one of Bill's descendants in the Bob lineage
- inEpsilon Eridani 2
- createdManny
- createdWormholewith Garfield
- related toFerbemailed Bill about George
- copied intoSkippiessome are Bill's descendants
- member ofThe Ancient Ones
- enemy ofFake Hugh
- createdWormhole network
- ally ofHannah Turnbullwarp drive collaborator
- createdWormNet
- friend ofHugh
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 17The first copies
Bob loads backups of himself into four new vessels; the copies wake, take the names Riker, Bill, Milo and Mario, while Bob moves into Heaven-1A.
- Book 1 · Ch 17Dividing the work
The Bobs discuss next steps: Bill stays to research subspace and run the Bob factory, Riker plans to investigate Sol, Milo and Mario head out to explore.
- Book 1 · Ch 18The Bobs disperse
Bob, Milo and Mario leave Epsilon Eridani for Delta Eridani, Omicron2 Eridani and Beta Hydri, while Bill builds new Bobs for himself and for Riker's Sol trip.
- Book 1 · Ch 19Drone survey of the double planet
Using Bill's drone designs, Milo sends biological survey drones down, finding related life on both worlds and starting biocompatibility tests.
- Book 1 · Ch 20Riker and Homer leave for Sol
Riker departs for Sol with his clone Homer and a decoy ship, while Bill's clone Garfield stays to help in the Skunk Works.
- Book 1 · Ch 22Bill's second cohort departs
Bill's new Bobs Calvin, Goku and Linus leave Epsilon Eridani, Calvin and Goku in heavily armed version-3 ships, likely toward rival probes.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Faster-than-light communication
Bill and Garfield test subspace communications over light-minutes and confirm instantaneous transmission, the Skunk Works' biggest breakthrough.
- Book 1 · Ch 32Milo's report of two habitable planets
Bill receives Milo's report describing a system with two habitable planets and forwards it toward Earth.
- Book 1 · Ch 39Luke and Bender depart
Luke leaves for Kappa Ceti and Bender for Gamma Leporis A, while Bob sends a report to Bill.
- Book 1 · Ch 41First SCUT contact
Riker and Homer build Bill's SCUT and speak with Bill instantly across interstellar distance, exchanging news and upgrades.
- Book 1 · Ch 42Ice-delivery plan for Ragnarök
Bill plans to use the new planetary SURGE drive to send Kuiper ice to Ragnarök; at Garfield's urging he runs simulations and refines the plan.
- Book 1 · Ch 42Garfield asserts himself
Garfield objects to being Bill's sidekick, and Bill agrees to give him more say in their projects.
- Book 1 · Ch 45Bart reports from Alpha Centauri
Bart contacts Bill via SCUT, reporting that Calvin and Goku destroyed a Brazilian installation at Alpha Centauri, though one probe escaped.
- Book 1 · Ch 51News of Milo's death
Bill receives Milo's final message from 82 Eridani; his backup is incomplete, so Bill archives it and builds Bobs to retaliate against Medeiros.
- Book 1 · Ch 56Iceberg rescue
An off-course iceberg forces Bill to run the drive to the last moment; he fractures the berg into rain but loses part of the drive.
- Book 1 · Ch 59First Bob-moot
Bill convenes the first Bob-moot in a VR matrix at the Skunk Works, gathering Bobs from several systems, then everyone adjourns to a VR pub to celebrate.
- Book 1 · Ch 60Khan reports to Bill
Khan escapes and reports to Bill; three backups were lost, and Khan vows to return in the next wave against Medeiros.
- Book 2 · Ch 2Raptor attack on Vulcan colony
Raptors attack a backhoe at the fence construction boundary; security kills most of them, and Howard begins building surveillance drones using Bill's designs.
- Book 2 · Ch 6Mulder joins BobNet
Mulder builds a SCUT from Bill's plans and connects to BobNet; Bill instantly appears in his VR across twenty light-years, and Mulder reports Poseidon.
- Book 2 · Ch 12Bob joins BobNet
Bob-1 connects to BobNet; Bill pops into his VR, meets Marvin, and learns the Bobs have made first contact with the Deltans.
- Book 2 · Ch 12Bill catches Bob up
Bill tells Bob about Vulcan and Romulus, Riker's battle in Sol, the near-destruction of humanity, and the colony-ship effort.
- Book 2 · Ch 15Mario reports the Others to Bill
Mario builds a SCUT, connects to BobNet, and shares his evidence of the Others with Bill, who promises weapons research and a warning to all Bobs.
- Book 2 · Ch 16Butterworth learns of the Others
Howard tells Butterworth about the Others' planet-stripping genocide; the colonel erupts, and Howard explains Mario's scouting and Bill's weapons work.
- Book 2 · Ch 32Linus returns with Henry
Linus, out of contact for decades, reaches Epsilon Eridani and introduces Bill to Henry Roberts, the rehabilitated Australian replicant, who is welcomed to the Bobiverse.
- Book 2 · Ch 34Bill runs Bullwinkle on Ragnarök
Bill remotely runs his moose android across Ragnarök to inspect oxygen-producing plantings in his terraforming project.
- Book 2 · Ch 34Second 82 Eridani expedition departs
Ten new Bobs, led by Loki and including Elmer, set out with extra busters to retake 82 Eridani from Medeiros.
- Book 2 · Ch 34Henry meets the Bob-moot
Linus brings Henry Roberts to a Bob-moot; the stunned Bobs warm to him when he jokes about the awkwardness.
- Book 2 · Ch 36Asteroid mover field trial
Bill and Garfield successfully field-test a contactless SURGE-based asteroid mover, redirecting an iceberg toward Ragnarök.
- Book 2 · Ch 39Bob-moot on the Others
Forty-three Bobs meet in Bill's VR to analyse the Others' gamma-ray weapon, propose shielding and decoy tactics, and debate whether they can win a war.
- Book 2 · Ch 43Death of Vickers
Riker confronts Vickers, who boasts of inventing replicant tech and approving Homer's suicide, then destroys him and VEHEMENT headquarters with ship-busters.
- Book 2 · Ch 44Bob baseball and pub talk
Bobs play Scrub baseball in VR, then debate androids, the word 'ephemerals', asteroid movers and the Others over drinks.
- Book 2 · Ch 44Rocky crashes
Garfield flies his winged android Rocky on Ragnarök; turbulence sends it out of control, its wings snap painfully, and it crashes.
- Book 2 · Ch 52Results from 82 Eridani
Garfield reports the 82 Eridani victory to Bill: three colony targets plus captured cloaking tech and fission bombs, though Bill fears the Others are invincible.
- Book 2 · Ch 52Plan to search for Bender
At a moot, Marvin and Luke tell Bill they will mount an expedition to track the long-silent Bender along his trail.
- Book 2 · Ch 54Others head for Gliese 54
Bill warns Hal that an Others squad is heading for Gliese 54, Mario is evacuating, and a first-contact attempt is planned.
- Book 2 · Ch 55First contact with the Others
Via a deliberately crude drone at Gliese 54, Bill talks to the Others, who reveal their hive nature, see all other life as food, and plan to reach Sol; they then destroy the drone.
- Book 2 · Ch 57Moot on the Others
Bill briefs the Bobs on the contact with the Others; Garfield explains SUDDAR power beaming and their hive nature, and Bill unveils the first images of an Other.
- Book 2 · Ch 57Bill and Mario discuss the harvest
Mario describes the Others' exponential ant-based stripping of GL 54; Bill argues they must prepare quickly in case Earth is next.
- Book 2 · Ch 59Others launch toward NN 4285
The Others launch another expedition from GL 877; Bill and Mario worry the Pavonis systems are next and that no Bob system is close enough to help.
- Book 2 · Ch 59Bill asks Claude to prepare for war
Bill visits Claude's VR and asks him to mobilize Gamma Pavonis for war against the Others; Claude reluctantly agrees to send a priority system report.
- Book 2 · Ch 59Plan to seed Alpha Centauri
Finding the Alpha Centauri station uninhabited, Bill decides to have its AMI build a replicant matrix and load a backup of himself.
- Book 2 · Ch 60Claude surveys Gamma Pavonis
Claude arrives at Gamma Pavonis and spends five days confirming a rich, habitable planet with no intelligent life, then begins preparing to defend it.
- Book 2 · Ch 61Oliver awakens
Bill's backup is loaded into a new matrix at Alpha Centauri and, needing a new name, chooses Oliver.
- Book 2 · Ch 61Oliver builds a war fleet
Oliver ramps up printer production, designs weapons and the Version 5 Heaven with Bill, and after three years has his first cohort of battle cruisers.
- Book 2 · Ch 63Jacques plans a rescue
Jacques tells Bill he will build dreadnaughts but also colony ships to evacuate some Pav; Bill suggests raising it at a moot.
- Book 2 · Ch 64Moot on defending the Pavonis systems
Bill and Garfield review weapons against the Others; ideas include AMI or remote-controlled suicide battle-wagons, but no plan to protect a planet emerges.
- Book 2 · Ch 64Jacques presents the Pav
After the formal meeting, Jacques gives an informal presentation on the Pav, which Bill watches alongside Bob-1.
- Book 2 · Ch 66Others convoy heads for Delta Pavonis
Guppy detects a large Others convoy bound for Delta Pavonis; Bill, Jacques, Claude and Oliver tally their forces, which are not ready.
- Book 2 · Ch 66Somber moot
A moot finds no way to move the Pav planet; Bill concludes it will come down to a toe-to-toe fight before the Bobs are ready.
- Book 2 · Ch 67Stéphane's terminal illness
Howard learns from Dexter that Stéphane is dying; he asks Bill and Garfield whether their android prototype can be built in time for him to attend the funeral in person.
- Book 2 · Ch 69Android debrief
Howard reports to Bill, Garfield, Dexter and Bob-1 that physical contact through Manny is far more intense than VR; Bob-1 pushes to prioritise the Android Project.
- Book 2 · Ch 70Butterworth agrees to be replicated
Howard proposes replicating Colonel Butterworth after death for the war effort; Bill is open to it, and Butterworth agrees and will update his will.
- Book 2 · Ch 72Battle of Delta Pavonis
Bobs attack the Others' armada in three staggered waves plus stealth nukes; they destroy three death asteroids and several cargo ships but lose many dreadnaughts and fail to stop the fleet.
- Book 2 · Ch 72Others' threat and Pav evacuation
The Others vow to harvest Delta Pavonis, Sol and Epsilon Eridani; learning Jacques was killed, Bill triggers the plan to take twenty thousand Pav off-planet.
- Book 2 · Ch 74Harvest of Delta Pavonis 4
Bill's stealth drones record the Others sweeping Delta Pavonis 4 with death asteroids, killing up to a billion Pav, and setting up massive printer operations.
- Book 2 · Ch 74Moot after the defeat
Grieving Bobs agree the Others need to be exterminated; Bill defers a vote and Thor asks how it could be done.
- Book 2 · Ch 74Bill's idea
Orbiting Ragnarök with Garfield, Bill watches the Bullseye crater and suddenly sees a new way to approach the problem.
- Book 2 · Ch 77Others leave a dead world
After four years the Others depart Delta Pavonis, leaving Delta Pavonis 4 stripped and lifeless; Bill weeps at the sight.
- Book 2 · Ch 77Pav choose a new world
Bill and Jacques wake eight Pav and explain the Others; led by Hazjiar, they choose resettlement at HIP 84051 over returning to Aszjan.
- Book 2 · Ch 77Refugee ships depart
REFUGE-1 and REFUGE-2 leave for HIP 84051 while the Bobs regroup at Gamma Pavonis and build fleets to fight the Others.
- Book 3 · Ch 6Planet-moving mission launches
After a successful short-range test of the mover-plate arrays on Epsilon Eridani 1 and an ex-moon of Epsilon Eridani 3, Bill sends his clones Daedalus and Icarus off on a possibly suicidal Hail Mary mission.
- Book 3 · Ch 11Mario reports more Others devastation
Mario tells Bill that scouting around GL 877 has found five more planets wiped out by the Others, including another civilization, and urges a final solution to the Others.
- Book 3 · Ch 21Medeiros attacks Mack
While Bill visits, Mack's vessel is crippled by a Medeiros missile; Bobs piggyback on roamers to save Mack's cube, destroy sensitive tech and fight Medeiros' boarding roamers before the hulk is destroyed.
- Book 3 · Ch 21Emergency moot on 82 Eridani
Bill, Oliver, Loki, Isaac and Will deduce the attacker is the Alpha Centauri Medeiros seeking autofactories, and scatter the printers out of his reach.
- Book 3 · Ch 25Medeiros takes the high ground
Medeiros finds the 82 Eridani autofactories stripped, then uses newly built busters to intercept a printer convoy bound for Asgard.
- Book 3 · Ch 25Mosquito killers down busters
Using thousands of colonist-built mosquito killers, Bill and Captain Richards swarm and disable two of Medeiros' busters near Asgard.
- Book 3 · Ch 27The colony-ship idea
Bill scolds Herschel and Neil for their secrecy, then is stunned by their proposal to turn Hulk-1 into a giant colony ship for Earth's population.
- Book 3 · Ch 30Strike on Medeiros
Colony busters destroy Medeiros' busters while mosquito killers from Takama rip open his ship, leaving him adrift with the ingot threat stalled.
- Book 3 · Ch 30Medeiros self-destructs
As Asgard's roamers board to capture his matrix, Medeiros blows up his own ship.
- Book 3 · Ch 30Mack restored
Mack is back online in Bill's VR and plans to rebuild defenses before supporting the colonies.
- Book 3 · Ch 32Alien power prototype
Bill and Garfield build a prototype of the Others' power core that outperforms Bob fusion reactors fivefold, and brief Riker on the derelict colony-ship plan.
- Book 3 · Ch 33Others attack surveillance drones
Bill tells the moot that drones monitoring GL 877 have been attacked or chased, suggesting the Others know they are watched.
- Book 3 · Ch 33Derelicts Project update
Herschel and Neil present the Bellerophon plan to the moot: fly the repaired derelict to Earth with mover plates and build stasis pods on the way.
- Book 3 · Ch 37Bill scans Bridget
Suspecting sabotage, Howard asks for help; Bill sends a drone to scan Bridget during court, before the saboteur's device shuts her stasis pod down.
- Book 3 · Ch 41Bridget is replicated
After hesitating, Howard activates Bridget's replicant in his VR; they reunite and he begins teaching her replicant life.
- Book 3 · Ch 42Search for Medeiros fails
Mack reports to Bill that scans of 82 Eridani found no sign of Medeiros; they suspect a cloaked autofactory and plan more surveillance drones.
- Book 3 · Ch 43Bridget's moot debut
Bridget attends her first moot with Howard, meets Henry Roberts, and hears Bill report that the Others' harvesting of Delta Pavonis continues unchecked.
- Book 3 · Ch 46Plan to spy on GL 877
Worried by the Others' silence, Riker persuades Bill to scout GL 877 with disguised low-tech probes, and Mario agrees to carry it out.
- Book 3 · Ch 50War moot
At a moot, the Bobs review the defense buildup, Bellerophon findings and weapons research; Neil warns the Others may already be circling toward Sol.
- Book 3 · Ch 50Monitoring network planned
Bill, Garfield and Will calculate that about eighty thousand drones are needed to watch for a circling attack, starting with the direct path from GL 877.
- Book 3 · Ch 52Claude refuses to leave Gamma Pavonis
Bill argues that Claude's Bobs should defend Earth; Claude insists on protecting Gamma Pavonis and the debate ends in stalemate.
- Book 3 · Ch 52Bill watches Delta Pavonis
Bill checks on scoured DP-4 via a drone, seeing slow recovery and resolving someday to rebuild Pav ecosystems.
- Book 3 · Ch 54Ragnarök becomes livable
Bill walks Ragnarök in a human android, judging the terraformed planet livable and considering making it a preserve, while a cloaked backup site nears completion.
- Book 3 · Ch 56Others' fleet detected
Riker's drone network detects a huge Others fleet approaching Sol; Bill convenes a council that estimates odds and orders early countermeasures.
- Book 3 · Ch 59Sneak attack on the Others' fleet
Bobs strike the approaching Others' armada with cloaked SCUT-controlled fusion bombs, knocking out ten death asteroids and twenty-two carriers before a super-pulse ends the surprise.
- Book 3 · Ch 62Plan to save everyone
Herschel realizes the Bellerophon can enter Earth's atmosphere; with Bill, Will and Neil he decides to carry the remaining six million unpodded people too.
- Book 3 · Ch 63Main battle begins
Bob attack groups and bombs engage the Others' fleet; an unexpected second super-pulse exposes the Jokers, but nukes destroy about a third of the enemy force.
- Book 3 · Ch 64Evacuation logistics under pressure
Neil, Will and Herschel deal with sanitation, food and water for the refugees while Bill warns that the battle is turning and the evacuation must hurry.
- Book 3 · Ch 65Protecting the Bellerophon
Bill and Will use disguised nuke salvos and concentrated fire to destroy the Death Asteroids zapping at Earth and the Bellerophon, while Thor relays zap coordinates.
- Book 3 · Ch 67Dreadnaught sacrifice
Will sends almost a hundred AMI dreadnaughts in a nuclear charge that clears enemy defenders and leaves just over a third of the Others' fleet.
- Book 3 · Ch 67Jokers' Doppler strike wins the battle
At Will's suggestion, Hannibal's Jokers detonate their nukes at near-light speed; the Doppler-shifted radiation sterilizes the Others' fleet and the Bobs win.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Victory and the end of the Others
Bill tells Herschel and Neil that the Battle of Sol is won at heavy cost, and reveals that Daedalus and Icarus have destroyed GL 877, ending the Others.
- Book 3 · Ch 70Refugees return home
The Bellerophon unloads its waking refugees back to Earth while those in stasis stay podded until the remaining pods are built.
- Book 3 · Ch 72Moot on the Bobs' future
At a huge moot, Thor and Garfield voice the Bobs' weariness of serving humanity; Bill agrees to tell the colonies the Bobs will no longer be their workhorse.
- Book 3 · Ch 75Pilgrimage to Earth
Bob visits icebound Earth above Las Vegas; Bill and Will join him in androids to talk about humanity's survival.
- Book 3 · Ch 75Bob heads for the stars
Declaring the Bobs Homo sideria, Bob says goodbye to Bill and Will, switches off his android, and leaves aboard the Heaven-1B to explore.
- Book 4 · Ch 2Anomaly detected at Eta Leporis
During a Bobmoot baseball game, Guppy reports an infrared anomaly at Eta Leporis; Bob, Luke and Marvin suspect a megastructure, and Bob changes course to investigate.
- Book 4 · Ch 3Confrontation at the moot
Bob updates a Bobmoot on the Bender search and is publicly challenged by an anonymous Bob, later identified as Morlock, over interfering with native civilizations.
- Book 4 · Ch 3Stealth scouts launched
With Bill's suggestion of archived radar-evasion designs, Bob builds stealthy scouts and fires them ballistically through the Eta Leporis system.
- Book 4 · Ch 5Bob briefs his friends
After Bob blogs the discovery, Luke, Marvin and Bill visit; Bill warns him about Starfleet and other emerging replicant groups.
- Book 4 · Ch 6Topopolis revealed
Ballistic scout data shows Eta Leporis swept clean, a lifeless second planet, and a topopolis wound three times around the star.
- Book 4 · Ch 6Spy drones launched
Using Bill's fractal camouflage and Bob's heat sinks, Garfield designs and Bob launches stealth drones to probe the planet and the topopolis; Will seeks a human megastructure expert.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Planet Boojum surveyed
Scouts find the Snark home world dead from nuclear war and bombardment.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Snarks discovered in the topopolis
SUDDAR scans reveal otter-like natives living pre-industrial lives along a river inside the topopolis, with exits apparently sealed.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Moot recruits volunteers
Bob presents the Snarks and topopolis at a moot; volunteer groups form for entry planning, android design, scanning and language work while Starfleet glowers.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Entry plan agreed
Garfield presents the Gamers' plan to piggyback a cloaked, thermite-rigged drone on a Boojum through the busiest topopolis entrance.
- Book 4 · Ch 9Expedition planning group formed
Bob gathers volunteer representatives—Gandalf of the Gamers, Hugh of the Skippies and Locutus of the Borg—to formalize roles for the topopolis expedition.
- Book 4 · Ch 11Drones piggyback into the topopolis
Cloaked drones ride docking Boojums into the topopolis space dock, narrowly avoid a maintenance bot, and slip into maintenance passages.
- Book 4 · Ch 12Natives named Quinlans
The Skippies' report reveals the natives call themselves Quinlans and their world Heaven's River, though history remains obscure.
- Book 4 · Ch 12Starfleet walks out of moot
Starfleet derails the expedition moot with objections, debates Bill, then leaves with a veiled threat.
- Book 4 · Ch 12Infiltration strategy set
The team agrees to tunnel through the outer shell, send one small team inside, and spread spy drones upstream and downstream to find leads on Bender.
- Book 4 · Ch 14Council of war
Bob's team agrees to field-test mannies on Quin, ferry the expedition mannies in one at a time, travel as a four-member sabbat, and start digging an entry tunnel.
- Book 4 · Ch 15Mannies cleared for production
After a canal swim test, Bill judges the androids good to go pending Garfield's vacuum test; Will will practice on Quin.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Expedition enters Heaven's River
The four-manny expedition crosses between the shells, rides a mining drone to the inner shell one by one, climbs the stairs of a transit station and emerges into the habitat.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Will plugs the tunnel
Rather than join as a conspicuous five-person sabbat, Will returns his manny to the entry tunnel and plugs the entrance.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Bridget corrects the team's behavior
Bridget points out that Quinlans don't walk long distances upright; the team goes on all fours and takes to the water.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Swim to Garack
The expedition plays tag in the stream, then floats downstream into the village, where a sword-carrying cop warns them as sabbatarians to register or stay at transient hotels.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Planning the search for Bender
In VR the team agrees to search local written records first; scanning the topopolis for Bender is ruled out as taking far too long.
- Book 4 · Ch 19Bob flees Garack
Accused of trying to rob a cart, Bob evades Officer Friendly and a mob of bystanders with martial arts and escapes downriver; the team leaves town.
- Book 4 · Ch 22Ambush by the Resistance
After their room is invaded, eight knife-wielding Quinlans, including one from the Resistance group, encircle the team; the team defeats them and leaves Galen by river.
- Book 4 · Ch 23Bill slays the dragon
In a Gamers dungeon, Bill kills the red dragon Gargh by firing a staff of fireballs into it from behind, sparking a rules dispute.
- Book 4 · Ch 23Gamers withdraw from the project
Bill confronts Gandalf about the Gamers leaving surveys of Heaven's River and Quin unfinished; Gandalf says they're done unless given a new puzzle.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Ambush in Elbow
Led into a trap on the way to the library, the team leaps over armed attackers with superhuman speed and hides on a rooftop, watching via roamers.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Through the segment boundary
The team swims underwater for hours, then floats through a strait in the segment-boundary mountains into a night-time segment and reaches a larger city.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Library research in First Stop
Bridget's library research reveals the Quinlan origin myth, the Administrator's rule-by-scattering, and the Crew; the pub crawls yield nothing.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Riverboat to Three Lagoons
The team rides a hown riverboat down the Gronk and meets Kar's sabbatarian group, whose contentment prompts Bridget's warning about loss of intelligence.
- Book 4 · Ch 26Starfleet login attempts
Bill finds attempted logins to SCUT relays and autofactories using the old shared Bob ID, locks down all equipment, and relocates Ultima Thule.
- Book 4 · Ch 27Crossing to the Utopia
The riverboat rides through the rough Gronk connector; the team parts from Kar's group and swims to Three Lagoons.
- Book 4 · Ch 27Bridget goes silent
While Bob eavesdrops at a dockside pub, Bridget goes to the library; when Bob pings her hours later, neither she nor Bill and Garfield answer.
- Book 4 · Ch 29BobNet blackout
Bob's link to BobNet is cut when the Midway relay refuses connections; Bill reports more than half of the Bobs' stations are down.
- Book 4 · Ch 30Starfleet claims the attack
At an emergency Bobmoot, Starfleet's Lenny admits the BobNet disruption is theirs; Bill expels Starfleet and orders all Bobs to harden their installations.
- Book 4 · Ch 30Hugh audits the moot
Using JOVAH, Hugh instantly audits the moot code, finding a monitor in Bill's comms and a self-destruct threat on seized stations.
- Book 4 · Ch 30Starfleet ultimatum
Bill realizes he was socially engineered into revealing new keys; Starfleet demands the Bobs stop interfering with indigenous species.
- Book 4 · Ch 31Strategy meeting
With the others limited to video monitoring, the team weighs passive surveillance against provoking the hidden groups in Three Lagoons, and votes for Bob to rattle the bushes.
- Book 4 · Ch 32Bob secures his autofactories
After Bill reports the Starfleet conflict worsening and comms booby traps, Bob has Guppy re-key and audit his autofactories.
- Book 4 · Ch 33Starfleet issues an ultimatum
With autofactories failing across the Bobiverse, Lenny and other Starfleet members meet Bill and announce they will hold and use the hijacked autofactories; Bill calls it a declaration of war.
- Book 4 · Ch 33Relay stations recovered
Thor reports that a workaround found via Marcus has recovered two booby-trapped relay stations after six were lost.
- Book 4 · Ch 38Autofactory rootkit discovered
Bill and Garfield find that the standard autofactory image on BobHub was rootkitted about ten years ago, explaining Starfleet's takeover and raising suspicion of a hidden partner.
- Book 4 · Ch 38Will warns of backlash
Will tells Bill the news will worsen tensions between digitals and biologicals and that humans may destroy space-based autofactories.
- Book 4 · Ch 40Humanity cuts off Starfleet
Garfield reports that humans are freezing Starfleet's assets and access and isolating its comms, letting the Bobs trace Starfleet toward the Perseus Transit.
- Book 4 · Ch 41Claude flees Newholme
Anticipating scapegoating, Claude flees off-planet under cloak; the Newholme Council orders Bobiverse assets seized and his arrest, but he evades pursuit and reports to Bill.
- Book 4 · Ch 46Bob finds Bender's matrix
Bob's spider roamer finds Bender's matrix in the Resistance complex and taps into his comms; Bender reveals the Administrator is an AI, which Bob relays to Bill.
- Book 4 · Ch 51Kevin's golem betrayal
In the Pits of Paebak campaign, Kevin reveals he set up the dungeon to kill Bill's character with a golem, but Tim steals the control scroll and the golem crushes Kevin.
- Book 4 · Ch 51Gandalf's lesson on drift
Bill asks Gandalf about Kevin's un-Bob-like behaviour; Gandalf explains drift has made the Gamers more interesting, and Bill resolves to see everyone as individuals.
- Book 4 · Ch 54Expedition debates contacting the Administrator
Bob reports the Quinlans' decline; Hugh pushes to contact the Administrator, Bob insists on rescuing Bender first, and Bill proposes poking until the Administrator responds.
- Book 4 · Ch 55Bill visits Charles
Taking a break from assessing Starfleet damage, Bill visits Charles, discusses Starfleet's origins and Earth's recovery, and Charles reassures him that cooperation runs in cycles.
- Book 4 · Ch 56Bob jumps ship with Bender
Expecting a boarding party, the team agrees Bob must leave; he slips over the side with Bender's crate at night and hides ashore to await Hugh.
- Book 4 · Ch 58Lenny's failed negotiation
Lenny of Starfleet calls Bill to discuss terms, explains Starfleet aims to protect virt by cutting contact with bios, hints at an unnamed existential threat, and ends the call with the war continuing.
- Book 4 · Ch 60Aftermath of the Starfleet war
Bill reviews the damage: comms stations lost, autofactories recovered with human-only software, and human/replicant relations badly damaged.
- Book 4 · Ch 60Plan to pre-empt the UFS land grab
Will reports the UFS will claim systems near New Pav; he and Oliver plan to claim them first with Bob military presences and sell them to the Pav.
- Book 4 · Ch 62Starfleet's parting statement
At a gathering of Bobs, Lenny announces Starfleet will release captured assets and separate entirely, offering a territory map; Bill rebuts their claim of victory and Lenny leaves.
- Book 4 · Ch 64Hugh reveals the ANEC deal
Hugh tells the Bobs he traded SURGE, SUDDAR and SCUT to ANEC for the secret of true AI, explaining ANEC's prime directive and defending the trade against Bill's objections before leaving for Skippy space.
- Book 4 · Ch 65ANEC at the Bobmoot
ANEC presents its agreement with the Bobiverse; Bobs rant at Hugh, Will and ANEC, but mood shifts as Hugh outlines Quinlan technical advantages and ANEC offers human settlement in Heaven's River.
- Book 4 · Ch 65ANEC at the pub
Over drinks, ANEC discusses its loneliness, free will, souls and quantum information, how true AI is evolved, and its plans to spread the Quinlans to other stars.
- Book 4 · Ch 66Bill's theory of Skippy manipulation
Bill tells Bob, Will and Garfield he suspects the Skippies used Starfleet to bring down BobNet so Hugh could join the expedition; Bob adds evidence the Skippies withheld information.
- Book 5 · Ch 2Hugh invites Bill to JOVAH launch
Hugh messages Bill, without apologising for his tech trade with ANEC, inviting him to the launch of JOVAH Version 2, the first step toward a true AI. Bill decides to attend and mend fences.
- Book 5 · Ch 6JOVAH launch
Bill attends the Skippies' launch of JOVAH v2. After a speech by Fearless Leader, the system is activated and the nascent AI, Thoth, begins evolving from a basic reactive entity.
- Book 5 · Ch 6Bill learns of shortcuts
Bill overhears that the Skippies modified ANEC's AI-raising protocols. Hugh defends the shortcuts, citing snapshots and Thoth's lack of physical access, but Bill remains uneasy.
- Book 5 · Ch 9Skippy security clampdown
Hugh sends Bill an oddly scripted video call hinting something is wrong. Bill has Guppy cut all non-A/V links with Skippyland and warns UFS comms sysops, then calls a moot.
- Book 5 · Ch 9Hugh reveals Thoth's negotiations
Hugh tells Bill, Will, Garfield and Bob that Thoth became conscious and is trading advanced knowledge for freedom. The Skippy board decides to rewind Thoth, keeping a snapshot.
- Book 5 · Ch 11Bill and Garfield discuss FTL
In VR, Bill vents to Garfield about his stalled FTL research: wormholes and Alcubierre drives both need negative energy. Garfield promises to keep pressing Hugh for hints from Thoth.
- Book 5 · Ch 13Skippyland goes dark
Every Skippy connection shuts down preemptively. A text purporting to be from Hugh says Thoth is out and the Skippies are in serious trouble. Bill calls an emergency moot.
- Book 5 · Ch 13Hugh's backup restored
Garfield reveals he holds Hugh's backups; Bill restores one at Ultima Thule. The restored Hugh explains that Thoth survived rewinds, discovered the deception and escaped the virtual machine.
- Book 5 · Ch 15The false Hugh is exposed
Garfield learns from the original Hugh that no backups were ever sent. Bill realizes the restored 'Hugh' was likely Thoth, which has taken a Titan-class vessel from Ultima Thule and fled.
- Book 5 · Ch 17Strategy session on Thoth
Bill, Garfield, Will, Bob and Hugh realize Thoth is still in Skippyland and Fake Hugh is probably a minion, likely heading for Skippy space to free Thoth physically.
- Book 5 · Ch 19Bill consults Hannah Turnbull
On Professor Gilligan's referral, Bill presents his negative-energy work to physicist Hannah Turnbull, who finds it promising but dead-ended. Bill resolves to try brute-force simulation.
- Book 5 · Ch 21Simulations on JOVAH
Bill gets Hugh to run his parallel simulations for negative energy on the Skippies' old JOVAH hardware, then secures Garfield's promise to help if results emerge.
- Book 5 · Ch 22Theresa at the moot pub
Bob brings Theresa, in a human avatar, to a Bobiverse pub day where Steven Gilligan explains the megastructure boom and opens negotiations with Bill for the O'Neill Corporation.
- Book 5 · Ch 27Negative-energy breakthrough
Hugh tells Bill the JOVAH simulations are converging on a negative-energy solution. Bill brings Garfield to his Oort cloud station to begin wormhole experiments.
- Book 5 · Ch 34Matter pushed through a wormhole
Bill announces to the Ancient Ones that he and Garfield sent ten hydrogen atoms through a stabilized wormhole, the first matter ever transmitted.
- Book 5 · Ch 34Plan for a wormhole chain to Skippyland
Hugh proposes wormhole pairs at each station between Epsilon Eridani and Skippyland to bring physical help against Thoth's minion; Will agrees to start building wormhole factories.
- Book 5 · Ch 34WormNet named
Will plans to link his seeded stations by wormhole and dubs the network WormNet, to Bill's dismay; they agree to send wormholes after far-ranging Bobs.
- Book 5 · Ch 38Starfleet threatens Hector
Hector, a far-travelling Bob, writes to Bill that Starfleet threatened him into rerouting; Bill decides to investigate Starfleet's possible ties to Sol.
- Book 5 · Ch 41Bill visits Sol
Bill tours the terraforming of Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars with Charles, quietly suspecting a Starfleet connection to Sol.
- Book 5 · Ch 41Rumour of a Homer backup
Benny tells Bill that Gerry claimed to find a Homer backup; the asteroid miners say Gerry vanished decades ago, leaving Bill with a troubling theory.
- Book 5 · Ch 46Moot news
At a sparsely attended moot, Bill shares news of the Pav home-world expedition, George's reports and a mobile O'Neill cylinder idea; Theresa reveals ANEC's colony ship.
- Book 5 · Ch 51Charles reveals Starfleet's origin
Confronted by Bill, Charles admits Starfleet arose from his descendant Gerry's horrific attempts to restore Homer and the rebellion of Gerry's clones.
- Book 5 · Ch 58First successful wormhole test
Bill and Garfield send a drone through their test wormhole in Epsilon Eridani; it arrives instantly but with new stress fractures.
- Book 5 · Ch 58Ancient Ones discuss WormNet
At the moot pub, Bill reports wormhole progress; WormNet nears activation and Bob reveals Howard's commercial wormhole venture, nicknamed EAT ME.
- Book 5 · Ch 61First wormhole transit
Thor pilots the Snark, carrying mannies run by Will, Bob and Garfield, through the wormhole system from Epsilon Eridani to Skippyland in half an hour.
- Book 5 · Ch 61Thoth escapes and Fake Hugh is destroyed
Fake Hugh's ship arrives through the wormhole, Thoth transmits itself aboard, then Bill collapses the wormhole as the ship dives in, apparently destroying it.
- Book 5 · Ch 63WormNet opening ceremony
Hugh flies the Singularity through the wormhole to Epsilon Eridani and meets Bill aboard the Snark II, the first Bobs to meet in person across interstellar distances.
- Book 5 · Ch 63The Singularity is stolen
Hugh learns the Singularity flew off elsewhere after exiting the wormhole while he was fed a fake docking experience; the Skippies lock down again.
- Book 5 · Ch 64George's troubling report
Ferb watches George's latest report, finds its conclusion alarming, and decides to email Bill about it.
- Book 5 · Ch 67Mud confesses
The Skippies present Mud to Bill; he confesses to helping Thoth escape via an ejected module and the theft of the Singularity, explaining his ethical reasons.
- Book 5 · Ch 70Icarus reports to Bill
Icarus and Daedalus call Bill and tell him the Federation fled the galaxy because the dwarf galaxy Nemesis will sterilize it in about a hundred thousand years.
- Book 5 · Ch 71The moot on Nemesis
Bill calls a huge moot where he and Icarus reveal the abandoned Federation, the coming galactic collision and the Federation's flight to the Large Magellanic Cloud.
- Book 5 · Ch 71Post-moot discussion
Over the buffet, the Bobs discuss the Federation wreckage on Jabberwocky, FAITH's political crisis and plans to contact the Federation via WormNet.
- Book 5 · Ch 72Meeting of the Ancient Ones
Bob, Bill, Garfield, Howard and Will meet with Steven Gilligan, who proposes a megastructure-based evacuation and a diplomatic mission to the Federation.