Cindy's lakeshore gatherings now usually had 3 large frogs, 2 rabbits, 2 adolescent cats, and a wayward duckling, plus her stuffed frog, of course. Cindy was now constantly bringing anime clips and "explaining" how anyone could grow up strong and eventually become a superhero. In her mind, Earth was just too "messed up" to "let the energy and harmony flow".
To prove this to herself, she set up assorted obstacle courses for herself and her little friends. They, of course, mostly just watched silently, but her gradual addition of treats did produce some results from all but the frogs. Cindy herself was a bit depressed at her own very slow progress, and envied the agility of the young cats - their ability to get treats from her was almost ninja level. But they rarely actually did the obstacles as intended.
Still, the group remained dedicated and friendly, always careful not to harm one another in play. In another manner, though, reality intruded - mice were the enemy. Cindy parents (and the mother cat) had made that quite clear, and they were not to be allowed to establish themselves in Lakeside.
Unknowingly guided via Dreamworld, several tadpoles made their way past the life-sparse wild shoreline to the waterfall, where the boy's seeding had created a lush, living foothold.
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After a long, confused silence, it was now the turn of Geologists to say that Gateworld was impossible, but their findings were to the delight of Architects everywhere. Just as with water depth, there were limits to compression pressures of all kinds in Gateworld, which made nearly all seismic readings total nonsense - they would have to be researched and recalibrated all the way back to their most basic assumptions.
What delighted the Architects, though, was that buildings didn't need anywhere near the level of support they did on Earth, AND there was a "maximum gravitational load per area". Which, in practice, meant there was no limit to the height of buildings other than being able to handle the max load and being stable enough to resist wind forces.
On the flip side, cavers speculated the possibility of endlessly deep systems of caverns, since no trace of the usual crust/mantle dynamics of Earth had been found. Whatever passed for vulcanism on Gateworld, it was NOT based on plate tectonics, scientists assured everyone.
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Marc had gotten a few scout planes with pilots into the skies of Gateworld, and the rough results were that pilots with a firm destination in mind would experience highly predictable tailwinds on their way. But when engaging in maneuvers, or even just drifting off and letting the autopilots do the work, the tailwinds quickly dropped off to insignificance.
Further, the airspeed of the tailwinds climbed quickly with altitude once the aircraft was over a mile up, starting at about 50 MPH at 1.2 miles and more than doubling for each additional mile (actually, 2.7 times per mile was the current measured rate). Because it worked effectively only for straight-line travel, they hadn't tested it past 6 miles - not wanting to risk the loss of a plane and crew.
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Even at that, scout planes at 4-5 miles were quickly filling in parts of Marc's official Gateworld strategic map.
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Shane was back at Salt Lake, playing with his new sense every night. The range was gradually improving, as was his balance and coordination while using it, but the main thing was the only "light" it could see was the wispy stuff coming towards him from the lake, and, for that, there didn't appear to be much range limit. Since he could always "see" the lake to orient himself, he didn't have to worry about getting lost in the dark while near the lake.
Now less afraid of the process, he was able to watch, and start to feel, the tendrils of wisps as they moved to and into him. Shane ended up calling the new aspects of sight "Darkvision" and "Manavision", but he wasn't sure if they were both actually the same sense or not. Darkvision sensed anything nearby, while Manavision acted much more like normal sight. He had at first thought the "mana" was producing actual light, but it didn't register on his cameras or night-vision goggles.
The other thing that surprised Shane was that he spotted a sandpiper flying along the far edge of Salt Lake, and he wondered for a bit what circumstances had led to it getting sucked into the Gate. Seaweed was becoming a common sight now, as were jellyfish, crabs, and assorted minnows. He knew there were larger fish from his streamshore scavenging, but hadn't actually seen any in the lake yet.
There were also quite a few assorted insects - enough that he was starting to worry about bug bites.
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Rachel's group finally had 2 other investigators fill up their "Gate slots" and vanish, using double perimeters - but they hadn't yet returned to tell what happened. Both had crossed over fully equipped, though, and had planned to stay a few days, so no one was really worried yet.
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The Korean Empire had quickly discovered that Gateworld did not have the old limits on construction, and a few very impressive structures were ongoing. They were also working very hard on Gateworld hydropower, their scientists (after failing some initial attempts) finding that it was best to use a "stepping" system, with each set of generators being powered by a mere 20 foot drop - since extra drop height seemed to just lose out on all the expected extra power production.
Power and fuels were the big stumbling blocks to industrial development - no one had yet found fossil fuels in Gateworld, and geothermal sites were rare. Solar and water were going to have to take over for most power production, and that wouldn't be quick or cheap. It also had the effect of making Gateworld mining very challenging, especially since all imported equipment had to fit through the Gates.
At least mineral resources were common in Gateworld, especially the lighter elements (everything up to iron). Sadly, there were almost zero nobel gasses to be had.
No longer having to worry about radioactive waste, North Korea's remaining Earthside workforce concentrated on increasing nuclear reactor power production and creating a high-capacity grid to their Gateworld capitol. Not wanting to waste jets or fuel, they were exploring Gateworld via high-altitude balloonists, going up over 10 miles and laughing at the "chicken" American jets that flew below them. An adept balloonist could fly rings around a supersonic jet 2 miles beneath them, they quickly discovered.
The jet pilots were not happy, and quickly reported these circumstances, along with requests to be allowed higher ceilings. Unknown to them, North Korea was losing about 5% of their balloon pilots per day - due to "unknown circumstances".
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Ki Sung Lee was one such pilot. He had lost orientation and all visual contact with known landmarks after overshooting his intended target. His attempts to establish his location proved futile, and his radio equipment was totally silent - beyond all signal range, he imagined. Hours later nothing had changed - darkness fell and he could see nothing at all other than his lit instrument panel.