{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1695",
    "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": 1695,
    "subject": "Station Sign",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1999-06-22T10:15:32+00:00",
    "last": "1999-06-22T15:52:48+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0027-0108@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-06-22T10:15:32+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Station Sign",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Re: that symbol in the presence chamber that makes Jonas say he's on Urth.\nI didn't mention this before, but yes, it =has= always reminded me of the\nspecial individualized symbols at every jaunt platform in Bester's THE\nSTARS OUR DESTINATION--this is a case where everybody (well, nearly\neverybody) can teleport via psionic power, but to keep things orderly they\nusually \"jaunt\" from platform to platform, and to aid the process and avoid\nmisjump, each platform has its own glyph-sign-thingie, to serve as a\nmneumonic.\n\nWhich is interesting because the presence chamber =is= something of a jaunt\nplatform!\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0027-0109@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-06-22T15:52:48+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Station Sign",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0027-0108@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "mantis wrote:\nRe: that symbol in the presence chamber that makes Jonas say he's on\nUrth.<<"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "    Actually, it's less than obvious from the text that the teratoid sign is\nwhat prompted Jonas to say that. He had been walking with Sev like, well,\nthe automaton that he is. The crimson sign was on the outside of the door to\nthe chamber, not in the chamber itself. Jonas may not even have noticed the\nsign. When Sev hears a tread upon the stair he forces the door open. Once\ninside, the door closes and the light brightens. After looking around the\nchamber he examines Jonas's face, which is \"still fixed\", but looks like the\nface \"almost, of a man about to wake...\". Then, after ignoring what Sev has\nbeen saying to him, is when Jonas says: \"I know where we are,\" ... \"and\nraised one arm stiffly to point toward something I had taken to be a folding\nscreen.\" Sev asks where, and Jonas answers \"On Urth\", then walks across the\nroom to the panels.\n\n    To me, it seems that it is the sight of the panels which stirs Jonas out\nof his funk, causes him to cry, and make his pronouncement. Clearly, Jonas\nhas had experience of such panels and knows how to operate them. His tears\nare shed because, at last, he has found the means to get back to wherever he\ncame from.\n\n    He had been confused since he got zapped, obviously, because he'd known\nfor years that he was on Urth. He had earlier had a \"flashback\", so to\nspeak, to a time when there had been a blackout aboard a spacecraft he had\nbeen on. He may be in the throes of another such flashback when he sees the\npanels, causing him to forget that he was already on Urth, but recalling\nanother time he had been on Urth in the presence of such mirrors.This raises\nthe issue: where had Jonas had prior knowledge of these kinds of mirrors?\nAfter all, they are not, evidently, a common means of transportation around\nthe universe.\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}