# men of iron *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 26 Apr 1999* > 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. --- ### Tony Ellis *26 Apr 1999, 15:04* > Roy C. Lackey wrote: > In URTH Sidero tells Sev how his (Sidero's) kind came to be. They > started out as glorified spacesuits for the sailors, becoming, as more > gadgetry and circuits were added, self-aware entities capable of independent > action. They are hollow because they were originally designed to house human > sailors. Because they are hollow they are lightweight. Sev calls them > androids and realizes that that is what Jonas had once been (chapter VIII). > When he carried Jonas from the Antechamber he was surprised at how > lightweight he was and speculated that it was due to his metal parts being > made of some lightweight alloy. Wrong. He was lightweight because the metal > parts were hollow, and the metal parts were made of iron, if not literally > at least metaphorically. > And Matthew Malthouse wrote: > If one accepts that the simplest solution suffices then Jonas and Sidero > can be taken to be entities of the same kind - ex-space armour. But the > contrast between Sidero's strenght and Jonas' weakness is marked. That > weaknes I'd ascribe to the failing of the human parts Jonas used to > repair himself which leads me to wonder how such a repair could have > been effected on a hollow body. Yes. Sidero is a completely different kind of android to Jonas. The mere fact that Severian can climb inside him tells us that he is far more bulky than a human being. There is also moment in UOTNS when Severian actually sees two androids of Jonas's make. ---