{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3547", "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": 3547, "subject": "ship-building timeline for the Whorl", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-11-07T21:56:12+00:00", "last": "2002-11-11T20:04:54+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-11-07T21:56:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) ship-building timeline for the Whorl", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy wrote:\nIf Sev's prophecy was true, then Typhon had to have\nalready been scanned into Mainframe and the ship launched; that or those\nthings happened fairly soon after Sev made the prophecy.\n\nEither way, it's hard to reconcile the NS and LS texts. We know that Marble\nand the other servant chems were older than the _Whorl_ itself, and\nHammerstone told Silk that the soldier chems were being stockpiled for\ntwenty years before coming aboard the ship. A painted canvas cloth at\nOrchid's place was \"a crude mockery of Campion's celebrated Pas enthroned.\"\nThe original showed two-headed Pas, along with a couple of mighty taluses\n\"still at work upon the whorl\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is a strangely literal take on a metaphorical painting! Unless you\nreally think Typhon was out there driving a bulldozer at the end? \nIconically, the painting shows \"Pas made the Whorl.\" There would be no\npoint in showing a one-headed Typhon making the Whorl -- even though it is\ntrue, it would contradict the truth that the Cargo has been indoctrinated\nwith: and the painting was presumably painted by Cargo =after= launch,\nwasn't it?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now, the hollowing out of an asteroid and all the work needed to turn it\ninto a giant spaceship, stocking it with flora and fauna, soil, water, etc.,\nwould have been the work of years. At what point in the construction of the\n_Whorl_ did Typhon get his second head? Clearly he had it before the ship\nwas launched, but did he have it before construction started? That doesn't\nseem possible, because Typhon surely didn't have Piaton's body for twenty\nyears or more; that certainly wasn't his plan.\n\nIf Typhon underwent the operation *after* construction started, how did that\naffect his original intent in building it? If the _Whorl_ took a long time\nto build, as it surely did, were his seven children the product of his\noriginal body or Piaton's?\n\nAnd how is it that so massive an undertaking as the building, stockpiling,\nand launch of the _Whorl_ left no lasting echoes on Urth in Sev's day, just\na thousand years later? Sev and the Commonwealth seem completely ignorant of\nit." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't understand the problem. He was building the generation starship in\nimitation of the old Empire, then he got the graft just before the Whorl\nwas ready to launch, then he had himself scanned (or maybe even rescanned),\nand then the Worl was launched. Sometime after the Whorl was launched, the\nrebellion began and there were no ships with which to escape Urth.\n\nWhen the Conciliator visits Urth the rebellion is in full swing, maybe even\nrelatively close to its end.\n\nSince you did not bring up the apparent biological ages of the scanned\nkids, that is not a part of your factoring.\n\nAs for lasting echoes, well gosh, the near total depletion of material\nresources on Urth would seem to cover this rather well!\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nhurt books eBay auction coming soon\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-08T05:24:37+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) ship-building timeline for the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nI don't understand the problem. He was building the generation starship in\nimitation of the old Empire, then he got the graft just before the Whorl\nwas ready to launch, then he had himself scanned (or maybe even rescanned),\nand then the Worl was launched. Sometime after the Whorl was launched, the\nrebellion began and there were no ships with which to escape Urth.\n\nWhen the Conciliator visits Urth the rebellion is in full swing, maybe even\nrelatively close to its end.\n\nSince you did not bring up the apparent biological ages of the scanned\nkids, that is not a part of your factoring.\n\nAs for lasting echoes, well gosh, the near total depletion of material\nresources on Urth would seem to cover this rather well!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "IIRC, past ages of Urth were marked by the depletion of some natural\nresource, e.g., copper, uranium, etc., or am I confusing some other book\nwith the NS? IIRC, then much of Urth's material resources were long gone\nbefore Typhon came on the scene. Besides, the insides of that asteroid\nprobably provided a lot of material.\n\nLet me restate the problem. The _Whorl_ took a long time to build. The\nstockpiling of chems shows that, minimally, twenty years passed between the\nplanning stage and its launch. Also, Typhon so associated his face with his\nauthority that he declined other means of extending his biological life;\nthat is why he had his own head grafted to Piaton's body. He didn't\nanticipate that Piaton's strength might extend to \"holding to the action of\nthe heart\". In other words, Typhon's two-headed state was never intended to\nbe anything more than a temporary means to an end. Anyone as vain as Typhon\ndidn't want his visage marred by a second head.\n\nSo, when Typhon decided to build the _Whorl_ (for whatever reason), he *did\nnot* plan to have himself scanned as a two-headed god. At some point before\nthe launch, events overtook him. He was forced to change his original plans\nand have himself scanned *after* he had been grafted to Piaton. (Why he\ndidn't have himself poured into a custom-made, look-alike chem body, like\nLoris, and Potto, and the others, I don't know.) But, so far as I know,\nTyphon never set foot in the _Whorl_. There was *no reason* for his scanned,\ndigitized personality to have been depicted as two-headed. Given Typhon's\nvanity, it doesn't make sense for it to have been done that way.\n\nThe entire pantheon of Pas and his family and friends is all the more a\ntravesty, some sort of sick joke, apparently. Yet the manteions in the\npre-fabricated cities were built before the human cargo was put aboard. The\nSacred Windows, the gods in Mainframe, all of that seems to have been\nplanned from the beginning. Did Typhon's original plan call for him to be\nscanned as his one-headed self (with a new body)? Did he have time to have\nthe Writings composed to reflect his two-headed godhead, create the whole\nmythology that permeates the _Whorl_? Why bother? If he wanted to play god,\nhe didn't need to be two-headed to do it, and from his egocentric viewpoint,\nit wouldn't have been desirable." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush wrote:\nIMO this is\nbecause the provider of all Typhon's super-technology which was the secret\nbehind his rise to power, had left on the Whorl --- Quetzal. The head was\nthe last thing Q provided him with before he left. Hmmm \"Q\"? \"The name's\nTyphon. Pas Typhon.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Uh, Quetzal was an inhumi. The inhumi have no technology. None at all. They\nare not good with their hands--probably because they don't have any in their\nnatural state. Not to mention that it was well over 300 years from the\ntime the _Whorl_ was launched until Q was shot in the tunnels. I don't think\nthey live that long.\n\nCrush asks:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "BTW: Is 1000 years from Typhon to Severian a firmly established time span?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The author of LEXICON URTHUS puts it at about 1,100 years. Close enough.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-11-11T14:24:45+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) ship-building timeline for the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy wrote:\nUh, Quetzal was an inhumi. The inhumi have no technology. None at all. They\nare not good with their hands--probably because they don't have any in their\nnatural state. Not to mention that it was well over 300 years from the\ntime the _Whorl_ was launched until Q was shot in the tunnels. I don't think\nthey live that long.\n\n\nCrush answers\nSince I haven't finished the SS yet, I'm sticking my neck out a bit... but\nclearly technology is not incomprehensible to inhumi regardless of whether\nthey *use* it on Green. Quetzal is an engineer, since he \"designed himself\"\nthe intricate door latch to his Prolocutor quarters. Just as he also had no\ntrouble figuring out human political systems sufficiently to manipulate\nthem, I presume technology of other cultures would be transparent to Q.\n\nI presumed that Q got on the Whorl by way of Urth (which would require -at\nleast - exposure to technology and that he be very old) based on his\ndiscussion with Remora in LS3:1:\nQ ponders the \"cyclic nature\" of myth - that is, what was applicable before\nis now applicable today. In the story of \"A-man\" and \"Wo-man\" a \"cobra\"\nentices them to eat his fruit. Why (according to Q)? Because \"he wanted\nthem to climb his tree.\" But the story isn't finished yet according to Q:\n\"they still have not yet climbed down\". Perhaps I'm cursed with too much\nimagination but this sounds to me like the Plan of Pas. They \"climbed the\ntree\" means they took to the stars. \"They haven't climbed down\" means they\nhave disembarked to Green - which apparently was also part of the plan. The\ncobra is clearly Q (note his \"hooded\" glances).\n\nWell if Q enticed A-man and Wo-man to climb his tree, must have been to Urth\nto entice them to do it.\n\nDid I cover everything?\n\nPerhaps I need to be more clear. I never presumed Quetzal showed up at\nTyphon's door with a bag of trinkets like a serpentine Santa Claus. I only\nintended to posit that Typhon's super-technology, and, of course, the Whorl\nitself was of Typhon's design.\n\n--Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-11-11T20:04:54+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) ship-building timeline for the Whorl", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oops! I meant \"was of Quetzal's design\".\n\nPerhaps I need to be more clear. I never presumed Quetzal showed up at\nTyphon's door with a bag of trinkets like a serpentine Santa Claus. I only\nintended to posit that Typhon's super-technology, and, of course, the Whorl\nitself was of Typhon's design.\n\n--Crush" } ] } ] }