{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1509",
    "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": 1509,
    "subject": "Final Defense: Terrans Haven't Met Shadow Children; Abos are the Natives",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-04-09T20:26:46+00:00",
    "last": "1999-04-09T20:26:46+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0025-0039@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-04-09T20:26:46+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Final Defense: Terrans Haven't Met Shadow Children; Abos are the Natives",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Tony, we might just have to agree to disagree here, but thanks for your\ninterest and thought-provoking debate. I guess my nature is more\nliteral-minded. Like I said, Wolfe probably intends for us to reach our\nown conclusions about these things.\n\nRe the first statement you take issue with:\n\"Quite probably no Terran of the latter wave of colonization... ever\nencountered or spoke to a Shadow Child personally after that first\nlanding ..., but knew them only from the tales of the abos ...\" \n\nI threw that out but frankly don't believe it very strongly, hence the\nqualified manner in which I stated it. \nI base that remark on \n(1) textual evidence, practically all negative and indirect \n(2) a certain \"artistic\" appeal of symmetry. My thinking was along the\nlines of \"As the abos are to the modern settlers, so the Shadow Children\nwere to the abos\" that is, faery, elusive and practically legendary. \n\nYou do make a good case that Mary Blount might indeed have played with\nShadow Children, but I still reserve doubts. SC wouldn't have come in\ndaylight, but abos would unhesitatingly have attempted to rob a\nsmokehouse under cover of darkness.\n\nThe second issue is more substantial. You have concluded that the abos\nare the descendants of colonists (from Earth?) and the SC are evolved\ndescendants of the primal pleiomorphs, while I conclude the converse. \nYou say:\n\" One more thing. When the Old Wise One confesses that he is confused,\nhe goes on to talk of an indigenous people, and a second,\nstar-travelling race, our \"Atlanteans\". The first \"heard the songs of\nthe second and sent them out again\", which is to say, they had a strong\ntelepathic ability right from the start....\"\n\n2 problems: \n\nFirst, could the OWO be mixed up again? He concluded that little\nsoliloquy with \"Once, I was sure I knew who the first were, and the\nsecond; now I am no longer sure.\" That statement could be construed to\nmean the SC can't even be sure whether the natives first heard the\nspacefarers or vice versa, as well as which ones the SC were.\n\nSecond, notice Sandwalker \"hears\" the song of Many Mouths and All Full\nafter the Shadow Children band capture his tick-deer. Now maybe they\nalso sing in the conventional sense, but based on what the OWO, at that\ntime serene and sure, explains to him regarding the nature of their\nsinging, they almost certainly did not. Sandwalker at least must be\ntelepathic also [perhaps that is what makes him special], and many of\nthe other abos are said to be able to detect Shadow Child singing in\ntheir dreams. So the question of \"who was which\" doesn't seem to have\nbeen conclusively answered. \n\nWolfe has thrown out the concept of paranormal mental powers for the SC\nand an ancient visitation by technically sophisticated humans from\noffworld without undertaking to explore or justify those ideas, as they\nare really peripheral to the story. Those matters are left as exercises\nfor the student, so to speak.\n\nBottom line:\nWe agree that OWO is so flakey, at least after the capture by the\nwetlanders, that we can't draw a reliable conclusion based on his\nstatements. \nI based my conclusion on other evidence as well, particularly my\nreasoning that the race which exhibits even residual shape-changing\nability is the better candidate for native pleiomorph. Otherwise, we end\nup making the further stretch that the _\"atlantean\" humans_ somehow\nacquired this shape changing ability or an approximation of it. Not\nutterly impossible, I'll admit, but in my view less likely.\n\nAnd too, don't forget that everything we are told about the SC comes\nfrom Victor Trenchard, filtered through his own degree of ignorance and\nprejudices on the subject. It is with this in mind that, for example, I\nkeep questioning the authenticity of a pre-contact abo belief in\ncolonists from Sol in the Fighting Lizard; he or his parents might have\nadded that detail anachronistically, knowing of course where the present\ncolonists are from.\n\nRegards."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}