Subject: (urth) Copperhead debated by two bugs

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 06:49:19 +0000

<fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger>CHARACTERS

New President: 

Marsha: wife of Boone

Boone: was member of administration, killed himself over Jane Doe.

General: had the dingus before the president did.

Jane Doe: the alien, aka Copperhead.

Karen: the handler of Jane Doe, who seems to have bungled it and
doesn't know it, she will be rewarded with an ambassadorship to get her
out of the country.

Roy's timeline:

</bigger></bigger></fontfamily>>>>>

<excerpt>A) The NP's campaign lasted most or all of the year 2000,
culminating in his

successful election in November. ("I had been working hard. Not only
after

my inauguration, but for more than a year before it.")

B) He was inaugurated January, 2001.

C) He and his wife went to their country retreat in the Spring of 2001
for

R&R, but returned to Washington after "eighteen hours".

D) August, 2001, a UFO crashed.

E) Autumn, 2001, ("Fall came. Football season.") the NP receives the
Changer

and the naked woman appears.

F) A murder and suicide follow.

G) It is Spring, 2002. ("She rose again and went to the window, staring
out

into the spring night.")

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

<fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger>Blattid wrote

</bigger></bigger></fontfamily>>>>>

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger>One
explanation that _seems_ to me to fit all the facts: he was the

vice-president and was elected when his predecessor's term ran out.

(Weird variant: his predecessor was re-elected for a second term but

died between the election and the inauguration.)

</bigger></bigger></fontfamily></excerpt><<<<<<<<

Now I've read "Copperhead" a second time and it seems clear that this
is a very good case, perhaps the best case: NP was previously the vice
president. The elected president died and this has perhaps thrown the
country into something of a crisis or trauma reaction. It would help
greatly if he was the victim of the murder that seems related to Jane
Doe, but since NP brought Jane into this world, it cannot be that.

But maybe the NP was not vp.  My sense of NP being something of a
faker, like the guy in the Wolfe story who has a second life as a James
Bond-type, is due to the constellation: "new," notes on how people can
hear a smile, other veneer maintaining details.  Except for the first,
the newness, the others can be attributed to the pressure of the
current and immediate crisis: NP is under a lot of pressure and has
been under a strain for the past year or so. 

The suicide is clearly related to Jane Doe.  The murder, which already
has Washington in uproar, must also be related somehow to the
Presidency.

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger>> There is
talk about a fire in Idaho that cut short the

> presidential vacation.  (The old president and others could

> have been killed in a fertilizer/fuel bombing--are you getting

> the contemporary details here?)

I got a whole different set of contemporary details -- when I 

read "fire in Idaho," I think of a mutated combination of Waco 

and Ruby Ridge. But then I'm just plain paranoid about Janet 

Reno...

</bigger></bigger></fontfamily></excerpt><<<<<<<<

Actually the fire was in Spokane (in that "other" Washington). The ufo
crash was in Idaho.  (Unrelated?)

"Some people in Spokane started burning things again."

Nevertheless, my associations were like yours--Waco/Ruby Ridge. I
should have said that instead of jumping to the next step of Oklahoma
City bombing as a reaction to Waco/Ruby Ridge.

My feeling of the crisis: a human-started fire that is bad enough that
the president has to cut short his vacation, sounds pretty bad. What is
being burned?  Crosses?  Abortion clinics?  Federal buildings in
general rioting?  Trans-dimensional demons?  Also note use of word
"again": there is a history implied here, a problem is not just
starting, it is repeating itself.

The "again" part gave rise to the "civil war" sense I had.

Granted, on a  second read the full-blown civil war flavor of the
crisis spectrum seems less likely (which makes problems with the
president's "newness," as well as the election timing, as Roy pointed
out--if everything is "business as usual," these problems arise). 
Still, there does seem to be something violent going on in Spokane.  At
the very least the public crisis has to do with the sudden death of the
president and his replacement with the vp (even though that happened
over a year ago)--or maybe the ufo crash (which was six months ago)? 
Then the murder (recent). Things will be further scrambled as the
suicide news circulates:

"First the murder, then this [suicide of administration figure].
Washington [D.C.] will be a zoo"

Yes, the bigger hidden crisis is the ufo, the dingus, and Jane Doe. 
The NP has to cover-up these things: destroy the suicide note, keep
Secret Service and FBI out of the loop, all that stuff.  Finally he
decides to beam Jane Doe back to where she came from, or at least
somewhere else--she alone is destabilizing things with her Siren ways!

The suicide note: at least it must mention Jane Doe, special bonus if
it also says Boone killed that other guy over Jane Doe.  And who was
murdered, anyway?

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger>> Funny thing
about the title: I immediately thought of the snake.  

Yeah, me too. 

> But the way that the new president is fixated on that maple tree,

Not quite ... 

     "There was something in there, something under the

     leaves, and I guess my hand tightened on the Changer. 

     It must have, because there you were." 

Someone (sorry, I can't recall who) suggested a day or two ago that 

she'd been swapped in for a snake under the tree, and this makes 

sense to me.

</bigger></bigger></fontfamily></excerpt><<<<<<<<

Well yes, but for a few things: I didn't think of it myself, probably
because I associate copperheads with deserts, but maple trees with more
temporate climes, and a tree that has shed most of its leaves, I think
of the weather getting cold so that the snakes are hibernating.  Once
it has been said, then yes, she may have been a snake on Earth; and it
does make sense that way . . . more sense than if I'd thought she was a
golden ground squirrel or something, but I didn't (I thought she was a
dryad, and she acts like a dryad).  But the larger point is, like the
Tempter in Eden, it is =after= the action that she is turned into a
legless wriggler, etc.

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger><bigger>But why, I
wonder, doesn't the "glorious" naked man speak with

a similar accent...

</bigger></bigger></fontfamily></excerpt><<<<<<<<

Because they are speaking the same language now: it is no longer the
case of a recent immigrant talking to a native speaker, it is two
native speakers.  Or so it seems to me.

=mantis=

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