{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1672",
    "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": 1672,
    "subject": "Missle Base Absolute, Re: (urth) Jonas datapoints",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-06-08T18:38:21+00:00",
    "last": "1999-06-08T18:38:21+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0027-0070@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-06-08T18:38:21+00:00",
      "subject": "Missle Base Absolute, Re: (urth) Jonas datapoints",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "[ Was the Antechamber originally] Dentist's office?  ..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "well, there IS that loong wait. Or maybe an airport/ commercial\nspaceport. The original residents of the Antechamber were \"bumped\"\npassengers, waiting to be assigned a new flight? <g>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Or is the House Absolute in fact\nanother spaceport ruin?  The \"wells\" that dot the garden could be 20th\ncentury-style launch silos."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "...\nBravo, mantis! That's the impression I've always had of the House\nAbsolute: it originated as a converted missile base/ command center, a\nruinous overgrown complex of silos and underground bunkers (the chambers\ncalled \"hypogea\") and interconnecting tunnels. Like the Citadel, the\nconversion could have occured during the Age of the Monarchs; probably\nland-based ICBM's and underground bunkers are totally obsolete in the \nage of the star empire which preceded Typhon. (Don't forget the complex\nof tunnels below the Citadel, which Wolfe hints is far older than the\nspaceport itself. Could it have been the remnant of a similar bunker\ncomplex converted and put to use at the time of the founding of Nessus\nand the spaceport?)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Item 11.7: Nicarete says, \"This prison is not supposed to be a prison at\nall.  Long ago--I believe before the reign of Ymar--it was the custom for\nthe Autarch himself to judge anyone accused of a crime committed within the\nprecincts of the House Absolute . . . Important cases were delt with\nquickly, but the offenders in less serious ones were sent here to wait\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "...\nFurther comment: since Ymar is generally agreed to have been the first\nAutarch, the House Absolute, at least as a command center used by the\nmonarch if not his residence (probably Typhon and his predecessors had\nseveral, like Saddam Hussein?), actually predates the Autarchy itself? I\nsuppose Nicarete could be forgiven for being confused on this point;\nhistory, like science, seems to be one of those fields allowed to\ndegenerate in the Commonwealth. The reign of Ymar himself doesn't seem\nto be remembered in much detail by even the armigerial families who\nfrequently appear at the House Absolute.\n\nI don't think it's anywhere stated that Ymar or Father Inire actually\n_built_ the House Absolute from scratch. A little further along in\n_Claw_, after Jonas leaves, Sev enscounters his contact, the old\nAutarch, who tells him \"All these things...[...]make up...the Second\nHouse. They are the work of Father Inire, who was called by the first\nAutarch [presumably Ymar] to create a secret palace within the walls of\nthe House Absolute\". It would appear the House was already there; Inire\nsimply adapted it to conform with his idea of a suitable seat for a new\nsort of head of state, the Autarch."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}