{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1704",
    "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": 1704,
    "subject": "Hethor's tricks",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-07-04T08:29:37+00:00",
    "last": "1999-07-04T08:29:37+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0027-0125@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-07-04T08:29:37+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Hethor's tricks",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Mitchell A. Bailey,"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "While I haven't fathomed where Hethor came from, nor his real name (and\nif it's Kim Lee Soong, why is he never described as resembling a\nXanthoderm, as Agilus and Agia were?),"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Ha-ha!  Yes, this has been a secret understanding between Ranjit and\nmyself, and I'm glad you've come to see that Agia looks \"Korean\"!\n\nWhile I don't want to argue too strongly that Hethor is actually Asian,\nstill, it is a common perception that people (some more than others) lose a\ndegree of \"ethnicity\" as they go beyond middle age--so some old guy might\nseem \"Chinese\" or \"French\" or whatever, depending upon the setting, because\nhis features are so blured by the ravages of Time.\n\nAs for a bit of sailcloth, hmm.  That's interesting!  I was just thinking\nthat maybe it was the pocketbook edition of THE BOOK OF MIRRORS . . .\nsailcloth certainly fits for issues of size and opportunity of theft, but\nas you suggest it would seem to be unweildy and offers some other technical\nproblems . . .\n\nGetting back to THE BOOK OF MIRRORS, here is a case where the elaborate\n\"six or eight sided booth\" is not required, nor the \"laser-like light\"\nthingie--in fact, the charge grows stronger the longer that the book is\nclosed (which has possible applications to the folded-bit-of-sailcloth\ntheory, as well).\n\nRemember, in the Presence Chamber we have:\n\n1) Optically perfect mirrors,\n2) Mirrors are arranged in a pattern\n3) There is an unusual light source.\n\nFurthermore, forms take shape in the focal point of the mirrors and\ns-l-o-w-l-y become concrete.\n\nIf we recognize that a manifestation occured when Severian drifted among\nthe sails in URTH (the genesis of the apport which became Zak), we might\nsee that there was an unusual light source involved.  Again, the\nmaterialization process was slow.\n\nTHE BOOK OF MIRRORS, while it has mirrors (of sailcloth, virtually or\nactually), and the mirrors are \"looking at each other,\" still it has no\nlight source associated with it, nor does anything happen slowly--rather,\nit is presented all at once.\n\n(Quite like discovering a pressed butterfly within a specimen book, come to\nthink of it!)\n\nSo we may have two technologies rather than one: the one a birthing of\nmonsters, the other a window of simultaneous reality (similar to the window\nused to transport Severian and Gunnie from the interior of worldship Yesod\nto the local area of starship \"Tzadkiel\").\n\n(Then again, when Hethor seems to be searching for Severian from the sky,\nhe may be using another aspect of the \"window\" technique . . . )\n\nDamn good question on how Hethor manages to control the critters once he\nhas pulled them to Urth!\n\n\"Find the one called Severian and I shall give you . . . a tasty Scoobie\nSnack!\"\n\n\"Hmmm . . . grrr . . . urf . . . \"\n\n\"Oh, all right--=two= Scoobie Snacks.\"\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}