{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2635", "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": 2635, "subject": "Copperhead debated by two bugs", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2001-05-10T06:49:19+00:00", "last": "2001-05-10T06:49:19+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "2001-05-10T06:49:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Copperhead debated by two bugs", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "GenevaCHARACTERS\n\nNew President: \n\nMarsha: wife of Boone\n\nBoone: was member of administration, killed himself over Jane Doe.\n\nGeneral: had the dingus before the president did.\n\nJane Doe: the alien, aka Copperhead.\n\nKaren: the handler of Jane Doe, who seems to have bungled it and\ndoesn't know it, she will be rewarded with an ambassadorship to get her\nout of the country.\n\n\nRoy's timeline:\n\n>>>>\n\nA) The NP's campaign lasted most or all of the year 2000,\nculminating in his\n\nsuccessful election in November. (\"I had been working hard. Not only\nafter\n\nmy inauguration, but for more than a year before it.\")\n\n\nB) He was inaugurated January, 2001.\n\n\nC) He and his wife went to their country retreat in the Spring of 2001\nfor\n\nR&R, but returned to Washington after \"eighteen hours\".\n\n\nD) August, 2001, a UFO crashed.\n\n\nE) Autumn, 2001, (\"Fall came. Football season.\") the NP receives the\nChanger\n\nand the naked woman appears.\n\n\nF) A murder and suicide follow.\n\n\nG) It is Spring, 2002. (\"She rose again and went to the window, staring\nout\n\ninto the spring night.\")\n\n<<<<<<<<\n\n\n\nGenevaBlattid wrote\n\n>>>>\n\nGenevaOne\nexplanation that _seems_ to me to fit all the facts: he was the\n\nvice-president and was elected when his predecessor's term ran out.\n\n(Weird variant: his predecessor was re-elected for a second term but\n\ndied between the election and the inauguration.)\n\n<<<<<<<<\n\n\nNow I've read \"Copperhead\" a second time and it seems clear that this\nis a very good case, perhaps the best case: NP was previously the vice\npresident. The elected president died and this has perhaps thrown the\ncountry into something of a crisis or trauma reaction. It would help\ngreatly if he was the victim of the murder that seems related to Jane\nDoe, but since NP brought Jane into this world, it cannot be that.\n\n\nBut maybe the NP was not vp. My sense of NP being something of a\nfaker, like the guy in the Wolfe story who has a second life as a James\nBond-type, is due to the constellation: \"new,\" notes on how people can\nhear a smile, other veneer maintaining details. Except for the first,\nthe newness, the others can be attributed to the pressure of the\ncurrent and immediate crisis: NP is under a lot of pressure and has\nbeen under a strain for the past year or so. \n\n\nThe suicide is clearly related to Jane Doe. The murder, which already\nhas Washington in uproar, must also be related somehow to the\nPresidency." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Geneva> There is\ntalk about a fire in Idaho that cut short the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "presidential vacation. (The old president and others could" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "have been killed in a fertilizer/fuel bombing--are you getting" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the contemporary details here?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I got a whole different set of contemporary details -- when I \n\nread \"fire in Idaho,\" I think of a mutated combination of Waco \n\nand Ruby Ridge. But then I'm just plain paranoid about Janet \n\nReno...\n\n<<<<<<<<\n\nActually the fire was in Spokane (in that \"other\" Washington). The ufo\ncrash was in Idaho. (Unrelated?)\n\n\n\"Some people in Spokane started burning things again.\"\n\n\nNevertheless, my associations were like yours--Waco/Ruby Ridge. I\nshould have said that instead of jumping to the next step of Oklahoma\nCity bombing as a reaction to Waco/Ruby Ridge.\n\n\nMy feeling of the crisis: a human-started fire that is bad enough that\nthe president has to cut short his vacation, sounds pretty bad. What is\nbeing burned? Crosses? Abortion clinics? Federal buildings in\ngeneral rioting? Trans-dimensional demons? Also note use of word\n\"again\": there is a history implied here, a problem is not just\nstarting, it is repeating itself.\n\n\nThe \"again\" part gave rise to the \"civil war\" sense I had.\n\n\nGranted, on a second read the full-blown civil war flavor of the\ncrisis spectrum seems less likely (which makes problems with the\npresident's \"newness,\" as well as the election timing, as Roy pointed\nout--if everything is \"business as usual,\" these problems arise). \nStill, there does seem to be something violent going on in Spokane. At\nthe very least the public crisis has to do with the sudden death of the\npresident and his replacement with the vp (even though that happened\nover a year ago)--or maybe the ufo crash (which was six months ago)? \nThen the murder (recent). Things will be further scrambled as the\nsuicide news circulates:\n\n\n\"First the murder, then this [suicide of administration figure].\nWashington [D.C.] will be a zoo\"\n\n\nYes, the bigger hidden crisis is the ufo, the dingus, and Jane Doe. \nThe NP has to cover-up these things: destroy the suicide note, keep\nSecret Service and FBI out of the loop, all that stuff. Finally he\ndecides to beam Jane Doe back to where she came from, or at least\nsomewhere else--she alone is destabilizing things with her Siren ways!\n\n\nThe suicide note: at least it must mention Jane Doe, special bonus if\nit also says Boone killed that other guy over Jane Doe. And who was\nmurdered, anyway?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Geneva> Funny thing\nabout the title: I immediately thought of the snake. \n\n\nYeah, me too. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But the way that the new president is fixated on that maple tree," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not quite ... \n\n \"There was something in there, something under the\n\n leaves, and I guess my hand tightened on the Changer. \n\n It must have, because there you were.\" \n\n\nSomeone (sorry, I can't recall who) suggested a day or two ago that \n\nshe'd been swapped in for a snake under the tree, and this makes \n\nsense to me.\n\n<<<<<<<<\n\nWell yes, but for a few things: I didn't think of it myself, probably\nbecause I associate copperheads with deserts, but maple trees with more\ntemporate climes, and a tree that has shed most of its leaves, I think\nof the weather getting cold so that the snakes are hibernating. Once\nit has been said, then yes, she may have been a snake on Earth; and it\ndoes make sense that way . . . more sense than if I'd thought she was a\ngolden ground squirrel or something, but I didn't (I thought she was a\ndryad, and she acts like a dryad). But the larger point is, like the\nTempter in Eden, it is =after= the action that she is turned into a\nlegless wriggler, etc." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "GenevaBut why, I\nwonder, doesn't the \"glorious\" naked man speak with\n\na similar accent...\n\n<<<<<<<<\n\nBecause they are speaking the same language now: it is no longer the\ncase of a recent immigrant talking to a native speaker, it is two\nnative speakers. Or so it seems to me.\n\n\n\n=mantis=\n\nSirius Fiction\n\nCatalog and errata sheet at http://www.sirius.com/~mantis/" } ] } ] }