{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1488", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1488, "subject": "Easter stuff", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-04-06T12:22:36+00:00", "last": "1999-04-06T20:06:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-04-06T12:22:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Easter stuff", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lots of interesting posts while I was away from my pc for Easter. A few\nthoughts:\n\nAllan Lloyd wrote (of Kevin Malone)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This story is to me one of Gene’s more obvious Christian parables. The\nclues in the text\nare almost too many to mention..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Welcome, Allan. I suppose it's too much to hope that your e-mail was a\nvictim of international datelines, and that the actual date it was sent\nwas a day earlier than the date shown? Only Fooling. Sorry." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy wrote:\n3) Who was the beautiful, weeping woman Sev saw in the loggia of the\nSecret House, being led away by six Praetorians? Ch. XLI, _Urth_ This was\nright after resurrecting the dead assassin and right before emerging behind\nthe throne. He can't recall who she is." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "She's the Contessa in Dr Talos's play, who relates seeing a mysterious\nfigure as she was led away by guards. (I must admit, I thought this was\nwhat you had in mind when you suggested that the play was changing the\nfuture rather than reporting it.)\n\n\nMitchell A. Bailey wrote: (Of the Nature of the Aborigines of St. Anne)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The strangest inhabitant of a certain green world was one which I,\ntaking a cue from Mr. Borski, will call the pleiomorph..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As you say, the various explanations for what has happened on St Anne\nare so finely balanced it may be that we are supposed to choose our own.\nHere's why I haven't chosen yours:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It may well have come not to possess what we would call a natural form\nof its own, so completely did it live in disguise. The Shadow\nChildren remember them as wormlike creatures which lived in holes\nbeneath the roots of trees." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What the Old Wise One actually says is \"'We had no names before men came\nout of the sky... We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the\nroots of trees.'\" My point being, the Shadow Children remember\n-themselves- as being this indigenous, primitive lifeform.\n\nThe Old Wise One is, of course, an unreliable narrator. Earlier he\nspeaks of the Shadow Children as the space travellers, and Sandwalker's\npeople as the indigenous shape-changers, which ties into your\n\"Atlantean\" interpretation. -But-, he later takes this back. The Wise\nOld One is a telepathic construct, and he is influenced by the minds\nthat make him. When he is being generated only by the last Shadow Child\nand by Sandwalker, he says \"Now I am half a man, and know that we were\nalways here...\"\n\nIt depends on how much credence you want to give to that remark, but for\na long, long time now it's been my theory that the Shadow Children were\non St Anne first. They may have been indigenous or, as the Wise Old One\nalso says \"it may be that all are one stock\" and that they are the\nremnant of a truly unimaginably ancient human migration. Either way,\nthey were telepathic, and had a very tenuous sense of self. When the\n\"Atlanteans\" arrived from Earth, they so impressed these creatures that\nthey began to emulate them, to the extent that eventually they came to\nthink they -were- the humans. At the same time, the real \"Atlantean\"\ncolonists became so seduced by the dreaming life of St Anne that they\nlost first their technology and then even the ability to use tools. They\nbecame Sandwalker's people." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Quite probably no Terran of the latter wave of colonization, French or\nEnglish-speaking, ever encountered or spoke to a Shadow Child personally\nafter that first landing" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No? What about \"animals shaped like people\" Mary Blount remembers\nplaying with as a little girl? \"...the children, the little ones, you\nknow.\" What about Robert Culot's grandfather, who knew that there were\n\"many races\" of Annese, and saw something \"sometimes like a man,\nsometimes like old wood.\"?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey", "address": "mab at lindau.net" }, "date": "1999-04-06T14:41:09+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Easter stuff", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\nThe Shadow\nChildren remember them as wormlike creatures which lived in holes\nbeneath the roots of trees." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What the Old Wise One actually says is \"'We had no names before men me\nout of the sky... We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the\nroots of trees.'\" My point being, the Shadow Children remember\n-themselves- as being this indigenous, primitive lifeform.\n\nThe Old Wise One is, of course, an unreliable narrator. Earlier he\nspeaks of the Shadow Children as the space travellers, and Sandwalker's\npeople as the indigenous shape-changers, which ties into your\n\"Atlantean\" interpretation. -But-, he later takes this back. The Wise\nOld One is a telepathic construct, and he is influenced by the minds\nthat make him. When he is being generated only by the last Shadow Child\nand by Sandwalker, he says \"Now I am half a man, and know that we were\nalways here...\"\n\nIt depends on how much credence you want to give to that remark..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The explaination I would offer is basec on the fact that, as you say,\nthe Old Wise One at the time this remark was made was being generated by\none lone Shadow Child, Sandwalker, and a tenuous contribution from every\nother Shadow Child band on St. Anne. Sandwalker's alien contribution in\nparticular probably confused the Old Wise One. Contrast this with the\nOld Wise One's manner when the Shadow Child band was intact earlier, at\nwhich time he was more knowledgable and confident of his viewpoint and\nbeliefs.\n\nI myself when I first read 5HC pondered the possibility that the Shadow\nChildren were the evolved offspring of pleiomorphs and the abos were\ndescendants of human colonists. I belive that the evidence, apart from\nwhat the Shadow Children say about themselves, more convincingly\nsuggests the converse. Consider:\n\nThe Shadow Children are portrayed as stunted and rather weak and\nunhealthy scavengers with a poor grasp of reality. They are clearly\nnocturnal and very shy. I cannot find anything in the text to suggest\nthat they were shape-changers to even a minimal extent, or even thought\nto be, though they allegedly had other odd telepathic and psychokinetic\npowers. This seems to me more consistent with degenerated, drugged\nhumans.\n\nThe abos of Sandwalker's kind, including the Free People of the\nmountains, the marshmen, and their alleged descendants the Trenchards,\nare diurnal, strong, healthy, and possess a talent for chameleon-like\nself-camouflage or alteration of appearance. In my view that makes them\nmuch better candidates for descendants of the native Annese\nshape-changers, who took on the human form for so long and so thoroughly\nthat their pleiomorphism degenerated to a vestige which (per Dollo's\nLaw) they can never reverse." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Quite probably no Terran of the latter wave of colonization, French or\nEnglish-speaking, ever encountered or spoke to a Shadow Child personally\nafter that first landing" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No? What about \"animals shaped like people\" Mary Blount remembers\nplaying with as a little girl? \"...the children, the little ones, you\nknow.\" What about Robert Culot's grandfather, who knew that there were\n\"many races\" of Annese, and saw something \"sometimes like a man,\nsometimes like old wood.\"?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My impression of the contact accounts Dr. Marsch recorded in his journal\nin \"V.R.T.\" were more likely with pleio-abos than Shadow Children. It is\nstrongly implied they only occured in daylight, and the last one\nremembered by Culot's grandfather in particular was alone and\ncamouflaging itself. Mary Blount's \"children\" could conceivably have\nbeen SCs, but I don't think little Mary would have allowed out in the\nlate evening (if the SCs didn't eat her, there was always the\nghoul-bear!), or that true SCs would have come out during daylight. \n\nBTW I notice that Shadow Children are mentioned as such only by Victor,\neither as recorded by the real Dr. Marsch, or in the accounts, including\n\"A Story\", written by Victor impersonating Marsch. Note that\nfirst-person references to hanging up food for \"those who hunger\" occur\nonly after the transition in the journal marking Marsch's demise. John\nMarsch evidently was unfamiliar with the idea of Shadow Children,\nthinking that Victor referred to a constellation. Although Dr. Marsch's\nsources, such as Culot's grandfather and even Dr. Hagsmith, recognized\nthat there were several distinct \"ethnic\" groups of Annese, it was\nprobably only Victor and his parents who knew much of the 'genuine' abo\nlore concerning the SC." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey", "address": "mab at lindau.net" }, "date": "1999-04-06T20:06:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Easter stuff", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mitchell A. Bailey wrote:\n... What the Old Wise One actually says is \"'We had no names before men\nme" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "out of the sky... We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the\nroots of trees.'\" My point being, the Shadow Children remember\n-themselves- as being this indigenous, primitive lifeform.\n\nThe Old Wise One is, of course, an unreliable narrator. Earlier he\nspeaks of the Shadow Children as the space travellers, and Sandwalker's\npeople as the indigenous shape-changers, which ties into your\n\"Atlantean\" interpretation. -But-, he later takes this back. ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The explaination I would offer is basec on the fact that, as you say,\nthe Old Wise One at the time this remark was made was being generated by\none lone Shadow Child, Sandwalker, and a tenuous contribution from every\nother Shadow Child band on St. Anne. Sandwalker's alien contribution in\nparticular probably confused the Old Wise One. Contrast this with the\nOld Wise One's manner when the Shadow Child band was intact earlier, at\nwhich time he was more knowledgable and confident of his viewpoint and\nbeliefs.\n\n..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Guess I better own up to a goof: when the OWO makes that statement there\nare still three Shadow Children of that band remaining with Sandwalker.\n\nI don't think that cripples my point, tho. \n\nLet me hasten to point out that the band had suffered defeat and\ncapture, probably pretty traumatic considering their inflated and\nfragile egos. Then by this point, it had just lost two of its number to\nviolence, this violence and this loss being felt all the more acutely\nbecause every Shadow Child was part of a telepathic mental continuum and\nprobably the pain of one was shared by all. \n\nAnd Sandwalker still made up 1/4 of that telepathic community\n(neglecting the attenuated contact with other Shadow Children bands). \n\nSo I still think the OWO was in a somewhat stressed and disoriented\nstate compared with the earlier scene where Sandwalker was initiated a\nShadowfriend." } ] } ] }