{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3217",
    "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": 3217,
    "subject": "Nitpick re: Vance and prehistoric star travel",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2002-05-06T00:38:25+00:00",
    "last": "2002-05-06T03:51:34+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0205-868@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Yves Meynard",
        "address": "ymeynard at globetrotter.qc.ca"
      },
      "date": "2002-05-06T00:38:25+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Nitpick re: Vance and prehistoric star travel",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It was recently mentioned on this list that Jack Vance has prehistoric\nhumans traveling to the stars in three of his novels. While this is\ncorrect, I'd like to point out that only in \"Space Opera\" is there a claim\nof an ancient starfaring civilization on Earth (from Wales, iirc). In both\n_Star King_ and the _Tschai_ novels, prehistoric humans were taken from\nEarth by an alien starfaring civilization and dropped off on another\nplanet, which neatly sidesteps the entire \"then where are the remains of\ntheir industrial infrastructure?\" issue.\n\nI doubt this hypothesis would work with 5HC, though who knows?\n\nYves Meynard"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0205-870@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-05-06T03:51:34+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Nitpick re: Vance and prehistoric star travel",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0205-868@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Yves Meynard wrote:\nIt was recently mentioned on this list that Jack Vance has prehistoric\nhumans traveling to the stars in three of his novels. While this is\ncorrect, I'd like to point out that only in \"Space Opera\" is there a claim\nof an ancient starfaring civilization on Earth (from Wales, iirc). In both\n_Star King_ and the _Tschai_ novels, prehistoric humans were taken from\nEarth by an alien starfaring civilization and dropped off on another\nplanet, which neatly sidesteps the entire \"then where are the remains of\ntheir industrial infrastructure?\" issue."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I wrote something along those lines for \"Vance Space\" (my chapbook on\nVancean sf) and David Langford took me to task on some of my sloppy details\nregarding SPACE OPERA.\n\nFirst, the ancient humans from Earth developed ftl and went to planet Yan\nsomething like 27,500 years ago.  We don't really know where they were on\nEarth, as I understand it.  (I had written of them as being \"proto-Welsh.\")\n\nWhen their dissident descendants came back to Earth, they crash-landed on\nthe Isle of Man, then they fled to Wales to escape persecution.  (There is\nthe Wales connection.)  This happened about 200 years prior to the main\naction in SPACE OPERA.\n\nI hereby admit my errors and apologize.\n\nOn to STAR KING: in addition to what Yves wrote, the aliens picked up\nNeanderthals, and 50,000 years later dropped off on Earth their altered (by\nalien influence, if not direct genetic tinkering) descendants, which we\ncall Cro-Magnon (thus explaining the Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon transition\npuzzle).  This plays well with the 5HC situation, or so it seems to me--the\nsameness/alien-ness of humanoids on this planet, like (but not limited to)\nNeanderthal and Cro-Magnon.\n\nFurther Vance/Wolfe mania:\n\nThe situation on planet Blue, where invading aliens come periodically from\na mysterious star/planet in the sky, and both(? several) sides are trying\nto use modified versions of aliens/humans for/against each other, and a\nthird group of mysterious aboriginal humanoids are invisible yet\nomnipresent, seemingly primitive yet possessing magical technology . . .\nthis bears some resemblence to the award-winning THE DRAGON MASTERS by Jack\nVance.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nPEACE: a timeline WITH dates! Come see!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}