Headscratchers / The Light of Other Days

• The more time you have to deflect a meteor: the easier the job. Why the hell did everyone assume 500 years meant death?
  • It's only been a few years since the thing was spotted at the start of the novel and it seems its to big to get rid of with any tech envisioned at the time (its implied to be a repeat of the Big splash that created the moon "not" a mere dinosaur killer). The human race also isn't in a good place as the novel opens and space travel is collapsing so simple despair cannot be ruled out.
• So: on "the day of the crucifixion", there were apparently so many wormcams that they 'blotted out the sun' (and were the reason for that scene in The Bible). But... wouldn't that many wormcams seriously mess up space enough to cause noticable damage of some sort?
  • It seems to just be glossed over. However... Assume that the wormholes are side-by-side on a grid, in one layer. Then, produce another layer, with a grid of wormholes, offset so that no-ones view is blocked. And so on. They don't have to be 'touching', in this case, but will still block someones view, with enough 'layers'. And they don't have to be close enough to destroy space...