{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3592",
    "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": 3592,
    "subject": "TBOTLS: the long parking orbit of the Whorl",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-11-19T16:41:09+00:00",
    "last": "2002-11-19T16:41:09+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0211-2181@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-11-19T16:41:09+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) TBOTLS: the long parking orbit of the Whorl",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Roy C. Lackey quoted Charles Reed and wrote:\nAt the time Silk was enlightened, the whorl had been in orbit around the\n\"short sun\" for about thirty years, and therefore could not have been\ngoing faster than light at any time during Silk's life which, at the\nbeginning of NIGHTSIDE, was 23 years long."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Good point. I, too, recall that the ship had been in orbit for several\ndecades, but can't remember where in the text that information is found. In\nany event, we are given that Quetzal had been Prolocutor for 33 years. This\nraises two questions I don't recall having been addressed."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Maybe it will help things to expand the timeframe a bit.  As Roy has\nmentioned not too long ago, the end of Pas's planned time came 100 years\nprior to events in TBOTLS (hc II, 235).  FWIW this is also the period when\nhydromancy was discontinued (II, 172).  Scylla last appeared in a sacred\nwindow 50 years ago (I don't have the citation for this one, alas).\n\nThis 50 year period (from 100 to 50 years ago) would seem to be the point\nwhere the Whorl arrives and the rebellion in Mainframe begins.  Yet it\nseems unlikely that the Plan would run out before the colonists had been\nsent out -- indeed, with this in mind, \"100 years ago\" (or mission year\n232) might be the latest point for the Whorl to arrive."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Roy wrote:\n1) How could an inhumi have attained that position? From comments Quetzal\nmade to Gulo, it seems that high positions in the Chapter were more a matter\nof politics than merit. It's hard to imagine an inhumi rising through the\nranks as an ordinary augur. Six years in the schola for augurs would present\ntoo many opportunities for discovery (athletics, showers, dormitories). It's\neasier to imagine an inhumu assuming the human guise of an older man,\nperhaps even the identity of the heir apparent to the position, on the eve\nof his replacement. The convenient death of the sitting Prolocutor would\npresent no difficulty for an inhumi. After that, the inhumu could use the\npower of his office to limit access by the public, minimizing chances of\nexposure. The second question follows close on the first."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Issues related to time are greatly eased if the Whorl arrived in system at\nleast 100 years prior to TBOTLS.  Beyond that, in addition to the\n\"doppleganger\" ideas that Roy listed above, it becomes the game of beating\nthe big, bloated, bureaucratic system: forgery (\"I got an A in P.E.\"),\ntransfers from distant regions, etc."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "2) Who was Quetzal's mama? That is, where and how did an inhuma get the\nhuman blood needed to pass human intelligence to her offspring? From\ninformation in the SS books, it seems that the mother would have to have\nspawned her offspring on Green. Did she get the blood from a human on Green\nor a human on the _Whorl_? If the former, who was he and what was he doing\nthere? If the latter, how did she get aboard, then go back to Green, then\nget her child back to the ship? An inhumi can't just fly through the hull of\nthe ship like the atmosphere of Blue."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "IIRC this was covered somewhere in TBOTSS, but I couldn't say where (could\nit be in that \"explaining Quetzel\" part?): there were exploratory landers\nsent, with colonists.  Long ago.  How the information may or may not have\ninfluenced the rebellion remains completely unknown, and since the\nrebellion happened on Urth, too, it seems likely that it springs from the\nsame family-dynamic source (rather than being a product of external\ninfluence).\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/\n\neBay Auctions\nhttp://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=mr.sirius"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}