{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1751",
    "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": 1751,
    "subject": "Feeding Nessus",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-08-16T16:26:04+00:00",
    "last": "1999-08-16T16:26:04+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0061@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-08-16T16:26:04+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re:Feeding Nessus",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "John Bishop wrote:\n1. Gyoll is a big river, which implies a big valley upstream,\n   and allows river transport of bulk cargo like grain.  So\n   a large urban population could be fed, even if local productivity\n   is low.  There's no mention of significant food shortages\n   that I can recall.<"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "[snip]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "3. How big is Nessus anyway?  Much of it is ruined and largely\n   abandoned, and the actual population might be quite small."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "   I envisioned it as being a large, circular ruin, with small\n   populations living along the river and nearby.  And that\n   population doesn't extend the full length of the urban shoreline,\n   as we are told that the abandoned downstream portion of the\n   city is huge.  Indeed, we are told the population is declining,\n   and has been so for some time.<\n\nIn the fiacre, traveling to the House Azure (I, VIII, p-72) Sev comments:\n\n    \"These windows are all dark. I don't think there's anyone in this part\nof the Citadel at all.\" Roche answers:\n    \"Everything's getting smaller. Not much anybody can do about that. Less\nfood means fewer people until the New Sun comes.\"\n\nSo, due to the encroaching ice and shorter growing season, the population of\nNessus is not as large as it once was, but even the inhabited portion of the\ncity is still vast. The Citadel, which was once north of the city, is now on\nthe southern fringe of the inhabited portions of Nessus, in an area now\ndecaying. The living heart of the city is well north of the Citadel, as\nnoted by Cyriaca (III, VI, p-41). And, though Nessus is not as densely\npopulated as it once was, the population is huge. The lochage Sev met on the\nbridge the night he left the Citadel asked (I, XIV, p-116):\n\n\"How many people do you think there are in Nessus?\"\n    \"I have no idea.\"\n    \"No more do I, Torturer. No more does anyone. Every attempt to count\nthem has failed, as has every attempt to tax them systematically. The city\ngrows and changes every night, like writing chalked on a wall. Houses are\nbuilt in the streets by clever people who take up the cobbles in the dark\nand claim the ground--did you know that? The exultant Talarican, whose\nmadness manifested itself as a consuming interest in the lowest aspects of\nhuman existence, claimed that the persons who live by devouring the garbage\nof others number two gross thousands. That there are ten thousand begging\nacrobats, of whom nearly half are women. That if a pauper were to leap from\nthe parapet of this bridge each time we draw breath, we should live forever,\nbecause the city breeds and breaks men faster than we respire. Among such a\nthrong, there is no alternative to peace. Disturbances cannot be tolerated,\nbecause disturbances cannot be extinguished. Do you follow me?\"\n\nAlso, on the night Sev and Dorcas saw the tent cathedral of the Pelerines go\nup in the sky, she asked (I, XXXII, p-245):\n\n    \"Do you think,\" she asked, \"that anyone saw it but us?\"\n    I had not considered that, but I said that although the suspension of\nthe building had endured for only a moment, yet it had taken place above the\ngreatest of cities; and that if millions and tens of millions had failed to\nsee it, yet hundreds must still have seen.\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}