[Rausch]

The themes have been laid out.

There are "good guys" and "bad guys" not based on their character but their actions.

All these characters have had choices, pinacles in their life, and based on these choices they are either worthy or not worthy of being taken by the others. The good have had opportunities to go wrong (or stay on the path) and the wrong have had opportunities to do good.

The idea of the inherent nature of man to be greedy and selfish and only dedicated to his own motives also plays into the idea of the button. To continue to push it requires the sacrifice of self (and perhaps sanity) to preserve the whole, while the motives to let the clock tick down are always selfish. Also, the idea of global warming/man-has-torched-the-ecosystem-and-now-it's-our-responsibility-to-right-it line of thinking.

Again, it's still a story about redemption, the reprocussions of our actions, and the moral journey of man.

The setting hasn't been solved because it's irrelevant. The idea is that everyone is less than the suggested 7 degrees of separation from everyone else. We're all connected. All of our decisions and actions count. Everything we do effects others in ways we don't realize at the time.

Our actions determine outcomes we can't imagine.

And even if Kate chugs days-old urine in a bottle she's still hot'ern teabagging a can of jalapenos...