FOR a certain generation, space has always been the final frontier.

But since Theresa May triggered Article 50, space has been usurped. Time is now the most precious and defining commodity for Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon. And suddenly, there’s not a lot of it about.

After months of guesstimates and projections, EU members and institutions responded quickly to the Prime Minister’s official cheerio yesterday and Brexit finally took on a real shape – a shape that strongly resembles two collective fingers waving across the English Channel at the isolationist, reality-denying Tory leader.

A leaked version of a European Parliament resolution shows European leaders intend to play hardball with Theresa May, veto most of her hopelessly optimistic “deep and special” EU trade proposals and squeeze negotiations. Why not – those EU leaders hold all the cards.

So no, Britain cannot have talks about trade and debt simultaneously – the UK must cough up for the divorce bill (probably £60 billion) before there’s any discussion of a trade deal with the grumpy ex-spouse.

No – there will be no sneaky wee deals letting the City of London keep trading into the single market, while Theresa May tells Scotland (and Ireland and Gibraltar) that only one undifferentiated deal can be done for the whole of the UK. So that means foreign banks which had merely threatened to move HQs will now be actively sizing up office space in Frankfurt and Dublin. What a shame iScotland couldn’t be part of that bidding war.

No – the EU will not permit side deals to be concluded with non-EU members until after Brexit is concluded though that does at least slightly postpone any trade deal with Donald Trump, inevitably opening up more parts of the NHS and other public services to American corporations.

No – any transitional post Brexit period will be “limited in scope [and] no substitute for union membership” and custom controls and barriers on trade will be imposed at the end of three years.

And no – Britain cannot shrug off the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice until Brexit is absolutely finished. In short, Britain is legally an EU member until Brexit is completed – no matter how much Theresa May tells MPs the opposite.

Tasty. This wee list of time-consuming, negotiation-complicating, freedom-postponing demands by the EU Parliament will be voted on next Wednesday in Strasbourg. And if the motion is approved it will knock much of Theresa May’s projected Brexit timeline into a cocked hat. Settling debt and getting a trade deal signed off by the 27 other EU member states (and potentially some of their truly powerful devolved parliaments too) will probably take longer than two years. So the question is – will that kibosh some of Nicola Sturgeon’s preferred #ScotRef timings as well?

Mebbes aye, mebbes naw.

It looks as if British negotiators will have to twiddle their thumbs until September 2017 when French and German national elections are over and both pivotal, founding members of the EU know the shape of their political leadership for Brexit and beyond. Meanwhile, the Westminster Government – whose resources, competence and capacity to manage Brexit are openly doubted – will do nothing else for years but chunter through the long tedious business of reviewing almost 21,000 laws and regulations impacting on every industrial, agricultural, service and public sector. Scots need to ensure that the Great Repeal Bill – certain to be enacted with the Tories usual lack of democratic scrutiny – doesn’t pull a few fast ones and quietly repatriate Holyrood powers while the Scottish Government is overwhelmed with Brexit legislation, new powers for the Scottish Parliament and “business as usual”.

Some MSPs are talking about the need to establish a new Brexit Scrutiny Committee. Some are suggesting that SNP MPs and MSPs could obstruct key bits of Brexit-related legislation while others urge caution about appearing to sabotage Theresa May’s efforts.

There isn’t consensus on the kind of Brexit that best helps the case for Scottish independence. Some think a “dirty Brexit” – where Britain leaves without any trading deal – would concentrate Scottish minds wonderfully.

But others worry Scots may become terminally risk-averse if the whole process looks messy and argue that a good Brexit for the UK will also be better for independence prospects too.

Perhaps this lack of certainty explains the modest and rather ambivalent celebrations outside the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday as the Independence Bill was being passed. Yessers have no idea if this is the start of a six-month, 18-month, two-year, three-year or even five-year lead up to a second referendum. Nicola Sturgeon says she’ll bring her plan of action back to the Scottish Parliament after Easter and no one has any definite idea of what that will contain.

It could seem like the First Minister’s attempt to pin the #ScotRef tail on the Brexit donkey has just got fiendishly complicated thanks to very different ideas about timings, urgency and due process in Europe.

Maybe – but if the Scottish Government can convert shifting calendar dates into a definite stage within the Brexit process, I’d guess most Scottish voters will be happy enough.

My guess is that the folk who worry about not knowing the full detail of Brexit before spring 2019 won’t worry if #ScotRef is launched at a reasonable Brexit stage – namely after MPs have voted on the whole shebang as Theresa May announced she will let them do yesterday. It does leave independence supporters at sixes and sevens right now. But let’s not panic. This is part of a longer, more strategic campaign than before. It’s a less upbeat campaign right now because the economic backdrop is truly grim. The media is nit-picking over the risks of independence as it did in 2014 while gaily skipping over the catalogue of risks associated with Brexit by esteemed economists, think tanks, business leaders and democracy protesers. Some political commentators writing for London titles have bravely stuck their heads over the parapet to say they would campaign for independence if they were in Scotland today, even though that outcome will diminish the chances of a non-Tory-led government for those living in the rest of the UK.

At some point soon these voices will be heard and the wider arguments in support of Scottish independence will be put.

There isn’t a lot of time – and the first priority for many SNP and Green activists right now are the local elections in May. But there is enough time to develop two dimensions that are not limited by time or space – vision and values.

We can’t easily describe the future when the present is turmoil, wrangle and political quicksand. But we can describe the values we want to see.

Despite this present maelstrom – indeed because of it – Scotland has the chance to become an active social democracy and a responsible, outward-looking part of Europe, just as other small Northern states are urging the EU to reform itself and to provide progressive world leadership as America wrestles with the disaster of Donald Trump.

It’s both a terrible time and a perfect time for the birth of a new state. So let’s not regard these months as a long, weary wait – let’s get ready to transform the independence argument as grim reality finally dawns on the other side.