{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3596", "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": 3596, "subject": "Marble", "messages": 8, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-11-21T09:22:35+00:00", "last": "2002-11-26T06:09:28+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-21T09:22:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Marble", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chris wrote:\nThe easiest and most coherent explanation of what happens with Marble and\nRose is exactly as you describe, that some of the attributes/personality of\nRose came over with her parts when Marble scavenged them. This is what I\nintuited, at any event, even before Silk realizes what's going on. *But*\nthen I got thrown a loop which I find disturbing. There's a passage where\nRose/Marble is speaking as Rose, which basically implies that she was\npresent in Marble *before* the parts came over. I this is the same passage\nwhere she uses the phrase \"reclaim\" (in reference to the prosthetics) which\nhas led some people here to theorize that it was Marble speaking, and that\nRose had originally taken those parts from Marble long ago. However, the\nsense of it was that Rose was explaining why she had to take back the parts\nfrom her old body, and it makes no sense for her to go through this thought\nprocess (even as a rationalization) unless she was present in Marble just\nbeforehand.\n\nOf course, Rose/Marble could just be very confused by what she's gone\nthrough. I am uncomfortable dismissing it so easily, though." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't understand the confusion. The only passage I can find where\nMarble/Rose speaks of \"reclaimed\" parts is in CALDE, chapter 10, where she\nis speaking to Blood. Each \"me\", \"I\" and \"my\" in the passage refers to\nMarble. Though the Rose personality dominates her private conversation with\nBlood, the last two sentences of the quoted text clearly come from Marble.\nThe worn parts Marble exchanged were placed in Rose's coffin and burned.\n\n---------------------------------\n\"It's hard to change hands yourself, Bloody, because you have to do it\none-handed. It was particularly hard for me, because by then I already had a\ngreat many new parts. Or rather, I had reclaimed a great many old ones. They\nworked better, that was why I wanted them, but I wasn't used to the new\nassembly yet, which made changing hands harder. It would have been wasteful\nto burn them, though. They were in much better condition than my old ones.\"\n--------------------------------\n\nMarble began her salvage operation by opening Rose's chest, then removing\nand testing each part she took, before switching out those that were in\nbetter condition. The \"new parts\" and \"old ones\" are the same parts. The\nsentence \"Or rather, I had reclaimed a great many old ones.\", is a\nrefinement of the sentence before. The \"new parts\" are new to Marble, but\nthey are in fact \"old ones\", having previously been used by Rose. The\nmixture of Rose's \"new parts\" with the worn parts retained by Marble made\nher a bit clumsy, compounding the difficulties of changing hands with only\none hand to work with at a time. The passage makes clear that the hands were\nchanged only *after* many other parts had been changed, those parts having\ncome from Rose's torso.\n\nThe choice of the verb \"reclaimed\" is, I presume, what leads to the\nconfusion. But if you take the second and third sentences, together, as\nreferring to the difficulties Marble had with changing hands because she\nhadn't yet learned to integrate the functionality of her old and new\nhardware, and look at the larger context of the quoted text (Blood had asked\nif that was the same hand he had first seen when he was a boy), then it\nbecomes clear that the personality speaking is Marble. \"Reclaimed\" in this\npassage means something like \"brought back into a state of productivity\". It\ndoes not refer to a prior claim of ownership, either by Marble or Rose.\nMarble had her own parts; some of them just didn't work well anymore, so she\nwas hardly reclaiming parts she had surrendered to Rose in the past. Rose\nhad had her own prosthetic parts for less than fifty years; as a bio she was\nhardly reclaiming them when she first got them.\n\nFurther, the passage refers to the act of changing hands. Marble could do\nthat, because she was a chem. Rose couldn't, because she was a bio. She\ncertainly didn't amputate a hand herself, then stick a prosthetic one on.\nBesides, Blood mentions that she had gotten a whole new arm, not just a\nhand. Given all her prosthetics, Rose would have to have had major-league\nmedical services in her day.\n\nAnd, just to head off Crush, those hands Marble took from Rose *never*\nbelonged to any hypothetical martyred chem maid. Chem maids were made to\nlook like young female bios. The prosthetic hands Marble took from Rose are\nspecifically described as looking like \"the bony blue-veined hands of an\nelderly bio\".\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-11-21T15:39:04+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Marble", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And, just to head off Crush, those hands Marble took from Rose *never*\nbelonged to any hypothetical martyred chem maid. Chem maids were made to\nlook like young female bios. The prosthetic hands Marble took from Rose are\nspecifically described as looking like \"the bony blue-veined hands of an\nelderly bio\".\n\nI agree with your explanation of the use of the word \"reclaimed\" and I must\nsay it's nice to be thought of.\n\nQuestion: Are you saying that Rose's prosthetics were custom made and did\nnot come from any chem originally? Do you really believe that technology\nexisted? Then why did Marble take such care to retain even the fluids of the\nhand Blood cut off?\n\nOr do you assert that there were chems that were \"old\" in appearance?\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-22T00:18:33+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Marble", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush asks:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Question: Are you saying that Rose's prosthetics were custom made and did\nnot come from any chem originally?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Exactly. She was in her mid-to-late forties when she got that hand and arm.\n(Blood was born when she was forty; she lost touch with the foster mother\nwhen Blood was nine.) She wasn't going to get any younger and she aged\nbadly. (\"I was an old woman before you found out who I was, and I think I\nmust have looked older.\" [LS3: 10]) The hand was custom made to look like\nthat of an old woman, in anticipation of the need; she couldn't afford to\nget new hands for every stage of aging." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Do you really believe that technology\nexisted?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Absolutely. Tarsier made custom chem bodies for the Ayuntamiento, plus, see\nquote below." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Then why did Marble take such care to retain even the fluids of the\nhand Blood cut off?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Replacements were hard to find by that stage of the _Whorl's_ decline. See\nquote below.\n\n--------------------------------\n \"Digital arms and legs? That sort of thing?\" Blood leaned forward,\ninterested. \"There aren't too many of those around any more.\"\n \"She got them some years ago; before I was born, really. There was some\ndisease requiring amputations.\" It occurred to Silk that he should know more\nabout Maytera Rose's history--about the histories of all three sibyls--than\nhe did. \"They were still easily found then, from what she says.\" (LS1: 7)\n--------------------------------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Or do you assert that there were chems that were \"old\" in appearance?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. There's no evidence of that in the text, nor would there have been any\nreal need to have artificially aged chem servants for aesthetic reasons.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-11-22T18:09:33+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Marble", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy asserts:\nThe hand was custom made to look like\nthat of an old woman, in anticipation of the need; she couldn't afford to\nget new hands for every stage of aging:\n\nCrush responds:\nI'm amazed that a mantaeon that could barely afford to feed its staff could\nafford prosthetics for its sibs at all. Furthermore, you run with a very\nself-confident and spiritually-minded crowd if most the women you know would\nprefer to have \"old hands\" even when they're ninety.\n\n\nIn response to Crush's query, \"Do you really believe that technology\nexisted?,\" Roy answers:\nAbsolutely. Tarsier made custom chem bodies for the Ayuntamiento, plus, see\nquote below.\n\"Digital arms and legs? That sort of thing?\" Blood leaned forward,\ninterested. \"There aren't too many of those around any more.\"\n \"She got them some years ago; before I was born, really. There was some\ndisease requiring amputations.\" It occurred to Silk that he should know more\nabout Maytera Rose's history--about the histories of all three sibyls--than\nhe did. \"They were still easily found then, from what she says.\" (LS1: 7)\n\nCrush responds:\nOh, no. Not at all. Potto says in LS4:1\n\"As we aged, Cousin Tarsier made us new bodies *out of chems*.\"\n\nThis statement horrifies Mint who asks, \"What became of the chems?\" To their\nminds?\" and then, \"You got this body from another person. And-and changed it\nto look like you? You must have. Did he consent to any of that?\"\n\nSo Tarsier *customIZED* chem bodies but he had no ability to build them from\nscratch. If he didn't, I doubt Rose could.\n\nThe quote you offer does not stipulate *where* the digital arms and legs\ncame from, but Xiphias' came from chems and so did the Ayuntamiento's.\nBlood's comment causes Silk to realize how unlikely it was that Rose would\nhave digital prosthetics, and that there must be an interesting tale there.\n\nSo the reason replacement parts for Marble were hard to find was that\n*female chems* were hard to find. And, of course, the chem parts that were\navailable were snatched up by bios.\n\nFor these reasons and others, if find the passage you originally quoted\ntroubling. Do you remember where you read it?\n\nSince you mentioned my own theory, I'd better provide a link to them to so\nthey can be readily dissected:\nhttp://gene-wolfe.tripod.com/molybdenum.htm\n\n-- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-23T04:56:04+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Marble", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Crush quotes and writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy asserts:\nThe hand was custom made to look like\nthat of an old woman, in anticipation of the need; she couldn't afford to\nget new hands for every stage of aging:\n\nCrush responds:\nI'm amazed that a mantaeon that could barely afford to feed its staff could\nafford prosthetics for its sibs at all. Furthermore, you run with a very\nself-confident and spiritually-minded crowd if most the women you know\nwould\nprefer to have \"old hands\" even when they're ninety." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The fact remains that, regardless of who paid for the parts, Rose was\n\"largely prosthetic\" when she died. All things feminine were deliberately\nand actively covered up by the Chapter--literally. Female vanity had\nabsolutely no place in the life of a sibyl. It didn't matter if her hands\nlooked old." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In response to Crush's query, \"Do you really believe that technology\nexisted?,\" Roy answers:\nAbsolutely. Tarsier made custom chem bodies for the Ayuntamiento, plus,\nsee\nquote below.\n\"Digital arms and legs? That sort of thing?\" Blood leaned forward,\ninterested. \"There aren't too many of those around any more.\"\n \"She got them some years ago; before I was born, really. There was some\ndisease requiring amputations.\" It occurred to Silk that he should know\nmore\nabout Maytera Rose's history--about the histories of all three sibyls--than\nhe did. \"They were still easily found then, from what she says.\" (LS1: 7)\n\nCrush responds:\nOh, no. Not at all. Potto says in LS4:1\n\"As we aged, Cousin Tarsier made us new bodies *out of chems*.\"\n\nThis statement horrifies Mint who asks, \"What became of the chems?\" To\ntheir\nminds?\" and then, \"You got this body from another person. And-and changed\nit\nto look like you? You must have. Did he consent to any of that?\"\n\nSo Tarsier *customIZED* chem bodies but he had no ability to build them\nfrom\nscratch. If he didn't, I doubt Rose could." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I didn't say he built them from scratch--no need to reinvent the wheel. But\nhe did extensive customization. Lemur's body could do everything from glow\nin the dark to making the skin of his arm crawl with moving magnetic fields.\nIf Tarsier had the know-how to make chem bodies look like the original bio\nbodies, then obviously the technology existed to make a chem arm look like\nan old woman's, which was the question you asked. I don't think anyone has\never suggested that Rose made her own prosthetics." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The quote you offer does not stipulate *where* the digital arms and legs\ncame from, but Xiphias' came from chems and so did the Ayuntamiento's.\nBlood's comment causes Silk to realize how unlikely it was that Rose would\nhave digital prosthetics, and that there must be an interesting tale there." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The fact remains that the Ayuntamiento had no problem at all getting parts\nfor chems. As Lemur told Crane and Silk: \"We're nursed by devoted chems, and\nthe machines that maintain us in life are maintained by chems. They love us,\nand we love them. We promise them immortality, and we will deliver it: a\nnever-ending supply of replacement parts.\" (LS2: 12) It is only in recent\ndecades that prosthetics became hard to find, just as Rose had told Silk;\neven when Silk was a boy, chem servants were much more common." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So the reason replacement parts for Marble were hard to find was that\n*female chems* were hard to find. And, of course, the chem parts that were\navailable were snatched up by bios." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Blood evidently had no problem finding parts for female chems. He told Silk,\njust before Silk left his house, (LS1: 7): \"You tell Maytera Rose that if\nshe's interested in getting another leg or something, and can raise the\ngelt, I might be able to help her out.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For these reasons and others, if find the passage you originally quoted\ntroubling. Do you remember where you read it?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which passage? I gave textual citations for each passage I quoted in these\n\"Marble\" posts.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2002-11-23T09:28:50+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Marble", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think he was referring to the same passage I am about to, but I \nthank you for citing the passage in _Calde_ I had been thinking of but \ncouldn't quite place.\n\nAll in all, I am convinced by what you've said on the subject. In my defense \n(you asked what the source of the confusion was) all I can say is that I was \nleft with that feeling (so frequent with Wolfe) that something was going on \nthat I hadn't got my finger on yet. To be honest I still have that feeling. \nThere's something about that passage that, taken in the narrative style of \n[Marble/Rose], seems discordant (at least with the easiest way of \nunderstanding [Marble/Rose]).\n\nSeeing the passage I was thinking of in your post helped." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Which passage? I gave textual citations for each passage I quoted in these\n\"Marble\" posts.\n\n-Roy\n\n\n--" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-11-25T16:13:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: Marble", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy asked:\nWhich passage? I gave textual citations for each passage I quoted in these\n\"Marble\" posts.\n\nCrush responds:\nPerhaps I'm missing it -- the quote was:\n\"And, just to head off Crush, those hands Marble took from Rose *never*\nbelonged to any hypothetical martyred chem maid. Chem maids were made to\nlook like young female bios. **The prosthetic hands Marble took from Rose\nare specifically described as looking like 'the bony blue-veined hands of an\nelderly bio' ** \".\n\nOf course the chem maid was hardly hypothetical. As I explain my linked\narticle, Hammerstone would *never* have believed Marble's \"impersonation\"\nunless Moly had been a maid at the Sun St. cenoby. Right in front of him she\n(as Moly) claims to have worked at the cenoby since before humans came to\nthe city. Hammerstone would have known if that were not true. So what\nhappened to Moly?\n\nI'm not sure now whether you are saying that Rose's prosthetics came from a\nchem originally and were customized or that they were built from scratch as\nthey were. I think the following passage eliminates the possibility of the\nlatter option. This takes place during a conversation between Silk and Horn.\nNote that Rose with her prosthetics is not 100 yards away while this\nconversation is taking place:\n----------------------------------------------\nLS2:1\n\"This evening I was introduced to an elderly man who has a really\nextraordinary artificial leg, Horn. He had to buy up five broken or worn-out\nlegs to build it, but it's an artificial leg such as the first settlers\nhad----a leg that might have been brought from the Short Sun Whorl. When he\nshowed it to me, I thought how marvelous it would be if we could only make\nthings like that now for **Maytera Rose and Maytera Marble**, and for all\nthe beggars who are blind or crippled. It would be marvelous to fly, too, of\ncourse. I've always wanted to do it myself, and it may be that they are the\nsame secret. If we could build wonderful legs like that for the people who\nneed them, perhaps we could build wonderful wings as well for everyone who\nwanted to have them.\"\n--------------------------------------------\nSo, based on this statement, two things seem (to me) indisputable:\n1. That Rose's prosthetics were not of originally made for bios (as Xiphias'\nwere)\n2. That Silk could no more have considered feasible building new bio\nprosthetics, than he would flying to the Sun\n\nSince Rose's prosthetics must have come a chem originally, it *might* have\ncome from a \"chem maid\" (and probably did) even if you still deny it came\nfrom Moly.\n\nAs to whether Rose's prosthetics were customIZED to look like that of a\ndecrepit old woman, well, Roy also said:\nThe fact remains that, regardless of who paid for the parts, Rose\nwas \"largely prosthetic\" when she died. All things feminine were\ndeliberately\nand actively covered up by the Chapter--literally. Female vanity had\nabsolutely no place in the life of a sibyl. It didn't matter if her hands\nlooked old....If Tarsier had the know-how to make chem bodies look like the\noriginal bio bodies, then obviously the technology existed to make a chem\narm look like an old woman's, which was the question you asked.\n\nCrush responds:\nIf \"it didn't matter if her hand looked old\", why did they go through the\ntrouble (and surely the expense) of *making it look old* so it would match\nwhen she was ninety? Wouldn't it have been more economical to make it look\ngeneric, mannequinish (which is the way I've imagined it)? Regardless, the\nquestion remains as to why they didn't at least make it look like a 50 year\nold woman's hand rather than a ninety year old woman's.\n\nIf the sibyls acquired the parts from a readily available chem maid, it\nexplains why the poorest mantaeon on Viron could \"afford\" prosthetics for a\nsibyl.\n\nRoy goes on:\nThe fact remains that the Ayuntamiento had no problem at all getting parts\nfor chems...It is only in recent decades that prosthetics became hard to\nfind, just as Rose had told Silk; even when Silk was a boy, chem servants\nwere much more common.\n\nCrush responds:\nExactly. And the greater abundance of chems explains why there was a greater\nabundance of chem parts. The same rule for getting used replacement parts\nfor cars. Even now they can be had for a price.\n\nBut to believe that the ability to construct chem parts or human prosthetics\nfrom scratch had been lost in the last 40 years suggests a technological\ncatastrophe that is unsupported by any text I can think of.\n\n--- Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-26T06:09:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) RE: Marble", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush responds:\nPerhaps I'm missing it -- the quote was:\n\"And, just to head off Crush, those hands Marble took from Rose *never*\nbelonged to any hypothetical martyred chem maid. Chem maids were made to\nlook like young female bios. **The prosthetic hands Marble took from Rose\nare specifically described as looking like 'the bony blue-veined hands of\nan\nelderly bio' ** \"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah. It's from when Marble was killing Musk, LS3: 3. \"Her hands, the bony\nblue-veined hands of an elderly bio, glowed crimson in the flames.\"\n\nAs for the rest . . . I'll save it for another day. But do you really think\nthat Hammerstone fell in 'love' with a chem \"girl\" he described as \"pretty\nas a picture\", who had hands that looked like the bony blue-veined hands of\nan elderly bio?\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }