{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3476", "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": 3476, "subject": "Emigrating chems", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-10-07T19:14:57+00:00", "last": "2002-10-08T14:38:37+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-10-07T19:14:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Emigrating chems", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy noted:\nMarble ending up on Blue was a fluke; as Mucor's guardian she was just in\nthe right place at the right time, and being the calde's friend didn't\nhurt. Cijfer was married to Wijzer, who was a bio, so I don't think she\nwas a chem. Silkhorn traveled to several other cities and was even the\nruler of one. There is no textual evidence to indicate that any chem other\nthan Marble ever went to Blue or Green that I am aware of. Chems would\nhave been impervious to inhumi attack and near invincible as a weapon\nagainst them, which is probably why Wolfe left them on the _Whorl_.\n\nCrush interjects:\nI was intrigued at the lack of interest any chems had in escaping the Whorl.\nI hypothesize that the reason is that as totally artificial people, they\nbelong in a totally artificial world. Marble contained within her Betel and\nRose, which is why she chose to leave the Whorl. By the same token, even\nthough Chenille is also an \"artificial\" person (in the sense that she's been\ngenetically engineered), she also contains divinely-created humanity.\n\nThe more I delve into this, the more I believe this story is underscored\nwith a disdain for human cloning and the genetic engineering of embryos. On\nhow Wolfe personally feels on these issues I am not qualified to speculate.\nBut while I'm not Catholic, I do recall the Pope sermonizing against \"making\nMan a product of his own technology.\"\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-07T21:53:22+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Emigrating chems", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "By the same token, even\nthough Chenille is also an \"artificial\" person (in the sense that she's\nbeen\ngenetically engineered), she also contains divinely-created humanity." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I meant to say something about that parenthetical bit above the last time\nyou brought it up. Where is the evidence that Chenille is \"genetically\nengineered\"? The list of characters in EXODUS says of her: \"Tussah's\nnatural daughter.\"\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-10-08T14:28:43+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Emigrating chems", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy asked:\nI meant to say something about that parenthetical bit above the last time\nyou brought it up. Where is the evidence that Chenille is \"genetically\nengineered\"? The list of characters in EXODUS says of her: \"Tussah's\nnatural daughter.\"\n\nCrush responds:\nYes, so it does. Now the question is, who wrote the list of characters and\nplaces? Was it Wolfe? He's never added any such list to his books in the\npast. The answer is, \"the list of characters and places was written by the\nauthor of the Book of the Long Sun\": Horn and Nettle.\n\nSo the list of characters and places should not be viewed as decisive. What\nof textual evidence? I can't at this point name the page, but at one point\nSilk's remembers seeing a picture (or image?) of Calde Tussah and he's\nwearing makeup. We know men don't wear makeup in Viron because Quetzal had\nto justify his use of it due to a \"skin condition\". What reason would Tussah\nhave for wearing makeup if he were not an inhume? If he's an inhume, then he\ncan't have a natural human daughter.\n\nAlso, Chenille exhibits stunning visual acuity and manual dexterity when\n(while talking to Remora in LS2) she was able pull a knife from the wall,\nthrow it from across the room and stick it exactly in the slot she from\nwhich she pulled it. I realize that she was possessed by Kypris at the time.\nBut there is no reason to believe possession grants the possessee with any\npowers he would not have while unpossessed - any more than Mario Andretti\ncould win the Indy 500 in an '85 Toyota Sentra. Anyway, proficiency with\nknives is a province of Kypris. That trick required physical powers normal\nhumans could not perform after any amount of practice.\n\nRemora himself knew this to be true. He told Gulo that she was the\nbiologically engineered heir of Tussah (\"son not my son\" this is another\nhint of why Chenille's name is sexually ambivalent although I have not\nunraveled the puzzle yet). Remora was a \"whorlly-wise\" political operative;\nknowledgeable about, and usually involved with all occult (in the old sense)\nactivity in Viron. His deductions should not be casually dispensed with.\n\nAnyway, as a reader, I can step outside the narrative and realize that\nRemora (the eel, the underwater serpent) is thematically the underworld\nOphidian Python of Apollo - the creature Apollo conquered to gain authority\nover prophecy. It is Remora who predicts to Silk in LS2 that the mantaeon\n*would* be saved - as I recall, that the sale \"would not come to pass\" or if\nit did, \"the old structures would be replaced with new ones.\" Both these\npredictions were proven true, since Blood and Musk were killed and the\npeople of the mantaeon were moved to Blue. Remora is also the one who\ndeclared to the Chapter that Silk was the new Calde.\n\nTo sum up: (1) Tussah is an inhume, (2) Chenille has physical abilities\nbeyond those of a normal human, (3) Remora, after a SINGLE conversation with\nChenille, was convinced that she was genetically engineered AND was the\nTussah's heir.\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-10-08T14:38:37+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Emigrating chems", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush wrote:\nYes, so it does. Now the question is, who wrote the list of characters and\nplaces? Was it Wolfe? He's never added any such list to his books in the\npast.\n\nCrush responds to his response:\nIt just occurred to me that Wolfe *did* have such a list in the Soldier\nbooks. Yet for the reasons I gave in my post, I believe these lists of names\nand places were written by Horn and Nettle." } ] } ] }