Subject: Re: (urth) contra Summa contra Marcus

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 18:24:51 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy at siebel.com>
> system, then, some mechanism must be provided for the motion
> away from the Solar system to somehow bring the WHORL back
> to the Solar system.

It flew in a circle, as Pas/Typhon intended.

> II. The genetic objection.
>
> The life forms of Blue/Green are sufficiently different
> from those of Urth that some mechanism must be proposed,
> and evidence given, for the production of one from the
> other.

The life forms of Blue are edible to those of Urth, and vica-versa.   On a
galactic scale this is 99.99 percent smilarity.

.
>
> III. The chronological objection.

I pass.

> IV. The objection from gravitation
>
> This has been discussed to death ... but ... it's very hard
> to produce a plausible argument for Green as a satellite of
> Blue (even an escaped satellite) without producing tidal
> effects of a scale that dwarf those described by Horn.

It is not possible that the Blue/Green system could be gravitationally
stable.   Ergo, it is recent.

> Similarly, the failure of Horn to describe any real
> difference in weight, trajectory of thrown objects, walking
> gait, etc., between the surfaces of Blue, Green, and the

1) The large animals of Green
2) The vast trees of Green

Both argue  for a low gravity.

    hartshorn

--

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:16:29 +0000

> It flew in a circle, as Pas/Typhon intended.

Well, this is at least plausible. But is there any _textual
evidence_ in its favor?

> The life forms of Blue are edible to those of Urth, and
> vica-versa.   On a galactic scale this is 99.99 percent
> smilarity.

While this is clever, it entirely evades the questions
actually asked about the genetic issues.

> It is not possible that the Blue/Green system could
> be gravitationally stable.   Ergo, it is recent.

It is not possible _if_ the distances given are accurate. 
However, there is no evidence that it is recent, and the
ability of the inhumi to make the crossing argues that 
the two worlds have been having reasonably near passages
for -- well, for long enough for such an expensive 
adaptation to have been worthwhile. There are two ways
out of this: 
(1) the Neighbors, after reaching Green, deliberately 
    engineered the inhumi to make the crossing -- which 
    seems kind of unlikely
(2) the ability to make the crossing is a side-effect 
    of some aspect of the inhumi physiology (about which 
    we -- probably -- do not know), originally evolved 
    to meet some other need. This is what biologists call 
    "pre-adaptationism," and is generally looked upon with
    some scorn, but I'll grant that GW is a bit of an
    evolutionary heretic so that's probably not an
    argument against this.

However, again, this is putting the cart before the horse:
all this is throwing hypotheticals at objections to an
original hypothetical which has yet to be significantly
supported from the text.

> 1) The large animals of Green

A brief glance at the geological history of Terra suggests that
some extremely large animals are capable of existing under 1G
conditions ... unless you care to suggest that the gravity of
Earth has significantly increased since the age of dinosaurs?

> 2) The vast trees of Green

I live a few hours' drive from the giant redwoods of California.
The trees of Green do not strike me as a significant argument 
for low gravity.

--

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 21:25:30 +0000

----- Original Message -----
> Well, this is at least plausible. But is there any _textual

the analogy of Noah's Ark seems compelling to me

> actually asked about the genetic issues.

A fairer reply would be that the life forms are very similar indeed except
for the limb doubling.

The life forms of Blue are nearly all near - analogs of Urth forms, with the
possible exception of the sea creatures.    This is not true of Green, where
the animals are far more alien, but even on Green the animals can eat and be
eaten both by Blue and Urth fauna.

> It is not possible _if_ the distances given are accurate.

Yes it is, anything can happen in a four-body system like
Sun-Urth-Lune-White fountain.

> adaptation to have been worthwhile. There are two ways

3)  It is possible that Inhumi are native to Lune and lived there when it
circled round Urth.

> > 2) The vast trees of Green

The trees are specifically mentioned as being **much larger than those on
Blue**.   Ergo, Green has lower gravity than Blue.

    hartshorn

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 00:57:12 +0000

> the analogy of Noah's Ark seems compelling to me

An analogy to an outside source, with no citation of the text at
hand to invite compare with that outside source, hardly constitutes 
"textual evidence." If there's a controlling Biblical analogy, it's
Moses.

In favor of an analogy to the Ark, I suppose one could adduce Typhon's 
attempt to make himself God; against it, however, one might begin with
the highly-minimalist nature of the Ark as vs. the inclusion of many 
cultures aboard the WHORL. Then, too, one can't help but wonder who in 
this analogy would play a role even vaguely analogous to Noah's ...
Remora?

> A fairer reply would be that the life forms are very similar
> indeed except for the limb doubling.

Well, yes. So either we have a totally unexplained shift in huge
portions of the animal kingdom, to a polyploidy that seems to
have no significant ill effect but produces doubled limbs; or
else, equally difficult to explain, beasts ranging from elephants
to crocodiles undergoing mutations that cause their limbs to 
double. Either way, it requires a fair amount of explaining.
Perhaps you'd like to hypothesize some weird retrovirus that
does this?

> The life forms of Blue are nearly all near - analogs of Urth
> forms, with the possible exception of the sea creatures. This
> is not true of Green, where the animals are far more alien, but
> even on Green the animals can eat and be eaten both by Blue and
> Urth fauna.

We might note that this is true of the fauna of a number of alien
worlds in Wolfe texts, from the blue/green pair of FIFTH HEAD to
the homeworld(s) of Hehehethor's monsters and the alzabo. I suspect
Wolfe has some point in mind here, though just what it is has, so 
far, eluded me.

> Yes it is, anything can happen in a four-body system
> like Sun-Urth-Lune-White fountain.

Well, no: if you assume that Blue is more massive than Green, 
then it _must_ have proportionally greater tidal effects on 
Green than Green does on Blue. Bring Lune close enough to Urth 
to cause the kind of effects we _do_ have described, and Lune 
will be deeply, ah, _disturbed_ by massive seismic activity.
The sewers of the inhumi city won't be clogged by bodies; 
they'll be filled with rubble -- the buildings will fall down
and go boom.

It is _much_ simpler to believe that the distance given is 
wrong.

> 3)  It is possible that Inhumi are native to Lune
> and lived there when it circled round Urth.

There is _nothing_ native to the Moon, but let that
pass. (I find myself wondering about night-gaunts
again, though...)

> The trees are specifically mentioned as being **much
> larger than those on Blue**.   Ergo, Green has lower
> gravity than Blue.

This would be in the same way that Northern California
has lower gravity than Vermont?

--

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 08:26:40 +0000

----- Original Message -----
> "textual evidence." If there's a controlling Biblical analogy, it's

On the scale of Silk's life, yes.    But here are multiple analogies here

> this analogy would play a role even vaguely analogous to Noah's ...

Mainframe Typhon/Pas and his wife and quarreling family

> Perhaps you'd like to hypothesize some weird retrovirus that

OK.  Lets.

> Wolfe has some point in mind here, though just what it is has, so

Hethor's monsters are far more alien to Urth than are any of the entities on
Green or Blue.

> Green than Green does on Blue.

Yes, but this means very little unless Green has world-oceans like Blue.
It doesn't (it has a world-forest instead, that is why it is Green).   Tidal
effects depend on the size of the body of water.

Earthquakes?   No.  The moon is solid from crust to core.

> pass. (I find myself wondering about night-gaunts

Ha ha.  By "native" I should have said "colonised Lune long ago".    But I
agree it is a stretch.

> has lower gravity than Vermont?

It's not proof,. but it tends in the direction.

My own beliefs on the Green/Blue   Lune/Ushas conundrum are complex.   It is
a beautiful idea, but I suspect that if it were true we would be seeing many
more direct signifiers.   There is no *compelling* reason to believe it.

What really runs behind it is the Blue World/Green World thematic duality
that seems to be a near constant of Wolfe's planetary fiction.    And it is
possible that Wolfe has no clear idea himself, or is leaving his options
open.

    hartshorn

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From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 10:52:18 +0000

>It flew in a circle, as Pas/Typhon intended.

A question.

The Whorl of the Long Sun produces a facsimilie of gravity through spin.
Otherwise when we see it there is no other acceleration.  Is there (and I
ask because I can't remember) any mention of how the Whorl behaved when
traveling?  I'm thinking here of AC Clarke's Rama and it's circular sea
with one shore higher than the other to prevent the water flooding over
the land when Rama is under acceleration.

A linear path is simple enough but a circular one would require
accelerations in directions other than parallel with the access of the
Whorl - either constant or periodic.  The first suggests some motive force
applied at an angle to the direction of travel, the latter might be
effected by an attitudinal adjustment.

In either case how large a force could be applied without it being
perceptible to the inhabitants?  And is there a mid-trajectory roll-over?

>stable.   Ergo, it is recent.

Yet the Neighbours have a long history of interaction with the Inhumi.
Ergo the orbital arrangement of Blue and Green must have been stable for
minimally several thousands of years of that history and potentially for
periods sufficient to have impact on the evolutionary development of the
species.

So we have a contradiction between celestial mechanics and narrative. It's
fiction, not history, so narrative is our only evidence and it would
appear that celestial mechanics can go hang.  ;-)

Matthew

--

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From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 11:08:36 +0000

>Sun-Urth-Lune-White fountain.

Oh no.  The WF aproaches the sun, we see the effects.  But once there
we're back to a 3 body system.

Matthew

--

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 17:00:19 +0000

--- matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk wrote:
...
 
> perceptible to the inhabitants?  And is there a mid-trajectory

The acceleration, either for a straight-line path (speeding up and
slowing down) or for a curved path, would have to be negligible
compared to g (or g on the _Whorl_ if that's different).

> appear that celestial mechanics can go hang.  ;-)

I totally agree.  The celestial mechanics doesn't work at all,
independent of whether Blue is Ushas or not, and it works only slightly
better if Gagliardo's numbers are wrong.

-- 
Jerry Friedman

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Movies - coverage of the 74th Academy Awards®
http://movies.yahoo.com/

--

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 17:16:40 +0000

--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com> wrote:
...
> The trees of Green do not strike me as a significant argument 

Doesn't the narrator tell Incanto and his dependents that creatures
bigger than a man live in the *bark* of trees on Green?  Unless he's
exaggerating for effect, I think they're a lot bigger than redwoods,
and a good argument for lower gravity (but not low enough that you
need to relearn how to walk).

Jerry Friedman

--

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 17:33:56 +0000

Hartshorn wrote (very cut):

> Hethor's monsters are far more alien to Urth than are any
> of the entities on Green or Blue.

True; but my point was simply that the alien creatures in tBotNS
seem to be Urth-compatible enough to live and feed there. Indeed,
the degree of compatibility of the alzabo with Urthly life is so
complete and complex as to suggest a strong tendency, in the 
Lupiverse, for all life (or "all life evolved on worlds with free
oxygen and temprature-pressure ranges that permit lots of liquid
water and reasonably Urthlike gravity") to be biochemically 
similar.

Which is, after all, pretty much another convention of SF (or
at least pulp-descended SF).

> Yes, but this means very little unless Green has world-oceans
> like Blue. It doesn't (it has a world-forest instead, that is
> why it is Green).  Tidal effects depend on the size of the
> body of water.

Ummmm.... three points here.

First, it's hard to believe that Urth-like life will work on a
world without large bodies of open water. You need a certain basic
size of water reserve to keep it all from disappearing into the
atmosphere -- and the hotter the world, the more likely this is to
be true, and lower gravity will make the problem worse as more 
of the stuff escapes into space. (Lower gravity also therefore 
makes the problem of anything as _different_ as the inhumi having
the time to evolve on a terraformed Lune that much tougher.)

(OTOH, I have in fairness to point out that there's no particular 
reason to assume that Green is actually hotter than Blue -- Horn 
experiences a relatively small geographical area of Green; it 
could easily all be equatorial.)

Second, if Green is a terraformed Lune, in order for it to be as
moist as we're shown, one of two things must be true: either there
_are_ large bodies of open water, filling the large craters and so
on; or else the people who terraformed it didn't just give it water
and air, but ran an iron over the whole thing so that there are no
low spots where water will gather.

Third, and to my mind most significant, in Wolfe's other major
green/blue system, the green planet most definitely _does_ have
oceans.

So then I read this:

> My own beliefs on the Green/Blue   Lune/Ushas conundrum are complex.   
> It is a beautiful idea, but I suspect that if it were true we would
> be seeing many more direct signifiers.   There is no *compelling* 
> reason to believe it.

Which, really, is my main point. There is no compelling reason -- 
no real textual evidence -- beyond it being a "beautiful idea." 
Marc has been fighting for it, primarly because it _does_ offer
resolution to a number of questions, but there's no significant
textual evidence _for_ it. It's a huge hypothetical, that requires
a number of other totally unsubstantiated hypotheticals (like the
retrovirus I flippantly tossed off and you accepted so blandly) 
to make it work. Given that, I can't accept it short of a 
"smoking gun" bit of textual evidence or a clear statement from
Wolfe.

> What really runs behind it is the Blue World/Green World
> thematic duality that seems to be a near constant of Wolfe's
> planetary fiction.  And it is possible that Wolfe has no 
> clear idea himself, or is leaving his options open.

One thing behind it, of course, is that Wolfe likes to create
systems with two planets that he can set in contrast, and this
is the most plausible pair of "themes" for worlds where humans
can reasonably live.

But I agree that there's also something more going on in the
back of Wolfe's mind, probably where he himself can't see it.
This is a problem for the sort of critic who likes to apply
psychoanalytic methods and other such mumbojumbo; I will leave
it to them.

--

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 17:41:19 +0000

Matthew Malthouse interjects a bit of realism to the discussion:

> ... we have a contradiction between celestial mechanics and
> narrative. It's fiction, not history, so narrative is our 
> only evidence and it would appear that celestial mechanics
> can go hang.  ;-)

Bravo. 

The play's the thing -- or, rather, the novel is. Wolfe may 
be following yet another basic convention of science fiction: 
when physical reality conflicts with a compelling storyline, 
and you can't reconcile the two, wave your hands and make the
physical reality go away. It's all about the story.

--

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 18:08:22 +0000

> Doesn't the narrator tell Incanto and his dependents that
> creatures bigger than a man live in the *bark* of trees on
> Green?  Unless he's exaggerating for effect, I think they're
> a lot bigger than redwoods,

Or, more simply, trees with very thick bark to protect the
heartwood from giant termites (or whatever).

--Dan'l

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 21:18:33 +0000

> heartwood from giant termites (or whatever).

That's *very* thick bark.  How much room does something bigger than a
man need to live (not "sleep" or "den")--ten feet?  The biggest
sequoia is about 26.5 feet thick 
<http://www.americanforests.org/resources/bigtrees/facts.php>.  That
suggests ten feet of bark on each side and 6 feet of sapwood and
heartwood?  Possible, I guess, but I took the comment to mean that
Green's trees are to ours as people are to bark beetles; that is, the
trees on Green do grow high, to thousands of feet.

--- He later wrote:

> For such a 
> jerryrigged theory to be acceptable, it requires some kind of 
> "smoking gun" _textual_ evidence
...

I just want to mention that the word is "jury-rigged".  "Jury-rigged"!
That's an ENORMOUSLY important point.  :-)

(Unfortunately, there is a word "jerry-built".)

Jerry Friedman

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