{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/204",
    "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": 204,
    "subject": "Artifacts of the Dogs?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-09-15T19:12:00+00:00",
    "last": "1997-09-15T19:12:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0299@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-09-15T19:12:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Artifacts of the Dogs?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Reply:  Item #9051512 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#\n\nGene Wolfe may have put inventive thought into these uninvented stone\nage tools, but due to the narrative structure of the story we have\nprecious few clues to go on to determine their \"real science\"\norigins.  The same sort of \"retrovention\" is at work in TBOTNS, and\nsince Severian has a basic training in Science, we can (for example)\nrecognize the factual basis for the natrium slug gun used at Lake Diuturna\nand we sense that the ubiquitous pyrotechnic polearms are supertech\nrefinements of \"Greek fire\" chemical weaponry developed in the middle\nages.  (Laser pistols being such a sfnal off-the-shelf item, we don't\neven worry about the hows and whys of the power source, etc.)  The fallen\nstate of Science is a similar element to both TS and TBOTNS.\n\nWand of the Mink.  Alga and I came up with two possibilities: poison\nor electricity.  If poison, this is hardly an innovation for stone\nage technology, since stone age peoples routinely use poisons.\nUnless the wand somehow generates the poison itself, i.e., it doesn't\nrequire recoating--shades of the living tools in Harry Harrison's\nWEST OF EDEN novel, we can imagine the poison glands of a fugu\ngrafted onto a stick.  Just be sure to feed it so it doesn't die off!\n\nElectricity is tricky.  Amber, well known to stone age folk, can generate\na bit of electricity, but hardly enough for cattleprod effects.\nLodestones as natural magnets, hmmm.  Capacitators (to hold a big\ncharge built by trickle feeding and release it all at once); lead and acid\nbased batteries (to hold a charge and release it slowly); electro-magnetic\ngenerators (to turn magnetism into electricity and electricity into\nmagnetism); etc., all in a compact baton.  Since elaborate designs\nhave evolved showing how the ark of the covenant is/was a surface to orbit\nradio set, then we can suppose that Wolfe has done a similar von Danekin\nengineering stunt.  (Two lodestones, some amber, two copper\nwires--now =that= sounds like a real whirlygig!)\n\nBut yeah, that's about all one can say on the subject, isn't it?\nThere just isn't enough text and speculation quickly runs rampant.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}