{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2456",
    "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": 2456,
    "subject": "Marsch & VRT Redux",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-11-10T14:37:54+00:00",
    "last": "2000-11-10T14:37:54+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0111@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-11-10T14:37:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Marsch & VRT Redux",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I wrote..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "<Also, is there any reason to believe that there was ever a real\nJohn V. Marsch?  I mean, by that name -- there clearly was a\nhomeworld anthropologist. I ask because \"John Marsch\" sounds\n_exactly_ like the name of an abo as described in the beginning\nof part 2: \"John\" is the name of all men born to the people,\nand \"Marsch\" would be a logical name for a child born in the\nmeadomeres. Toss this together with the Earth passport having\nbeen \"tampered with,\" and I wonder if \"VRT\" simply took his\nabo name and applied it to his new identity...?>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And Robert replied..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "John Marsch's field journal belies his. His sections appear to \nbe quite legible--at least the junior officer assigned to review\nhis case does not remark otherwise. Whereas once VRT has killed \nthe Terran doctor, he must somehow account for the sudden turn \nin bad handwriting (abos, like the inhumi, have difficulty with \nmanual tasks) which he blames on a cat bite. The first entry to \nthis effect takes place in the section immediately predating April \n23. \"You must excuse my writing in this entry, and I suppose\nsome of the subsequent entires as well.\" On April 24, he also \nwrites: \"Hand still bad, as you see from the writing.\" It therefore \nseems likely the original Earth-born Marsch has died previous to \nApril 23."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think you misunderstood the question -- I was not suggesting that \nthere is no Earth-born anthropologist; I was wondering if this was \nyet another case of names slipping.  (There are many such, beginning\nbut far-from-ending with \"Number 5\" and \"Mister Million.\" \"Veil,\" \nfor heaven's sake! And the ever popular \"Etc.\") \n\nIn other words: There _is_ an Earthborn anthropologist; that is \nbeyond any reasonable doubt.  What I am suggesting is that his \n_name_ is not John V. Marsch. VRT kills him, and takes \"John V. \nMarsch\" as his name when he \"returns\" to civilization. \n\nAs evidence, I've mentioned the abosity of the name and the detail \nof the passport; I'll mention also that the \"V\" in \"John V. Marsch\" \nstrikes me as likely equal to the \"V\" in VRT.\n\nFurther: Why is Part 2 titled \n\t\"A Story\" by John V. Marsch?\nNobody, I think, would title a story \"A Story.\" I suggest that this\nis another slippage -- the quotation marks really belong around the\nauthor's name.\n\nIt this point this is nothing more than an intuition. I see a lot\nof little details and suspect a pattern. What it means, if anything,\nis quite beyond me.\n\n--Dan'l"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}