{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3650", "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": 3650, "subject": "Poor Hammerstone", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-12-04T15:21:55+00:00", "last": "2002-12-04T23:26:03+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-12-04T15:21:55+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Poor Hammerstone", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy wrote:\nTo go from Marble's notion of abandonment to the destruction of a child\nrequires a leap in logic that leaves me in the dust. I can only conclude\nthat . . . hell, I don't know what to think. You must not have read the SS\nseries, for one thing. Let me state flat out that no such thing happened to\nthe child. Fact.\n\nFine. Does this change that Hammerstone left her? Your point was that\nHammerstone didn't care who Marble was. Then why did she lie?\n\nRoy wrote:\nAnd if Moly had been at Sun Street from Day One, and nowhere else, then he\nwould have known **exactly** where to find her. He didn't know. That's why\nhe said: \"Maybe I should've gone looking for Moly.\"\n\nCrush responds:\nThere are at LEAST two other more likely interpretations of this statement.\n(1) Hammerstone went to Sun St. and didn't find her. He was told (maybe by\nRose, maybe by Betel) \"She's gone and we don't know where she went.\" Well,\nheck, why didn't she leave notice where she was going? She must not want to\nbe found. So he didn't look **further**.\n\nThis is my preferred interpretation. It infers IMO the motives to\nHammerstone that I can most relate to\n\n(2) Hammerstone woke up after 74 years and saw the changes wrought in Viron\nand was too afraid to look for Moly for fear of what he'd find.\n\nBut if he NEVER went looking for Moly since he boarded the Whorl. Then I\ncan't grasp why he would **even consider** looking for her when he woke up.\n\nThe fact that he considered looking for her at that time implies he knew\nwhere she was before. And if he knew where she was before, then he would\nhave known Marble was lying about being at Sun St. since the beginning. And\nif Marble had to lie about it, she had to believe it mattered to him (and it\ndid). Also, Marble had to know all about Moly - at least to the extent that\nshe wasn't around anymore -- and she had to know who Hammerstone was the\nmoment she clasped eyes on him so she could immediately say \"I'm Moly\".\n\nAm I being clear enough here?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-12-04T19:40:46+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Poor Hammerstone", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush wrote:\nFine. Does this change that Hammerstone left her?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hint: Hammerstone was a soldier; Viron was at war.\n\nMarble was captured and placed aboard the airship, along with Silk. She\nnever saw Hammerstone after that, because she went on the lander to Blue.\nShe didn't communicate with him, either. Mucor's communicative abilities\napparently didn't extend to chems. The one time she needed to communicate\nwith Marble, she had to do it through the medium of a little kid. Mucor's\nwords, uttered in her trance state that you quoted yesterday, had nothing to\ndo with Hammerstone. Her words were: \"Wake up.\" and \"Break it.\" What she was\ntalking about is explained on pp. 365-66. I'm not going to bother to quote\nthe text to you. The gist of it is that Silk had asked Mucor to awaken the\nstrongest \"sleeper\" she could find, then have him break the glass cylinder\nwith his fists before the gas inside killed him, so that he could rouse the\nother sleepers so that they could show those leaving the _Whorl_ the best\nroute to the landers. It's that simple.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-12-04T19:51:03+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Poor Hammerstone", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy said:\nMarble was captured and placed aboard the airship, along with Silk. She\nnever saw Hammerstone after that, because she went on the lander to Blue.\nShe didn't communicate with him, either. Mucor's communicative abilities\napparently didn't extend to chems. The one time she needed to communicate\nwith Marble, she had to do it through the medium of a little kid. Mucor's\nwords, uttered in her trance state that you quoted yesterday, had nothing to\ndo with Hammerstone. Her words were: \"Wake up.\" and \"Break it.\" What she was\ntalking about is explained on pp. 365-66. I'm not going to bother to quote\nthe text to you. The gist of it is that Silk had asked Mucor to awaken the\nstrongest \"sleeper\" she could find, then have him break the glass cylinder\nwith his fists before the gas inside killed him, so that he could rouse the\nother sleepers so that they could show those leaving the _Whorl_ the best\nroute to the landers. It's that simple.\n\nCrush responds:\nI'll look it up when I get home, but I must say you are a lovely dancer,\nRoy. Please explain **finally** why Marble lied about being Moly when you\nclearly believe you have textually established that she didn't need to.\n\n--Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-12-04T23:26:03+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Poor Hammerstone", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush responds:\nI'll look it up when I get home, but I must say you are a lovely dancer,\nRoy. Please explain **finally** why Marble lied about being Moly when you\nclearly believe you have textually established that she didn't need to." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You keep trying to put words in my mouth that I never said, or even implied.\nWhat I actually said, a week ago, was:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Moly is your problem, not mine. She doesn't appear in the books. I wouldn't\nsay that Marble was impersonating Moly; she was just lying. Marble's\nmeeting\nwith Hammerstone is not related in the books. I don't know what she told\nhim, but her name was *never* Molybdenum; it was Magnesia before she became\na sibyl, just as she told Mint. (LS4, 359)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And, two days ago, I wrote:\nExcept for paint, to show rank or which city to whom they belonged, the\nsoldiers all looked exactly alike--they were mass-produced by the millions.\nThere is no reason to believe that it was any different for the servant\nchems. Molybdenum looked just like Magnesia who looked just like every\nother\nfemchem. That's what made it so easy for Marble to lie to Hammerstone about\nbeing Moly--he couldn't tell the difference. She didn't have a faceplate\nanymore, anyway. How was he to know one femchem from another, especially\nsince he was so eager to find _any_ femchem available for reproduction.\nMarble could have been a slut from another city for all he cared. She was\nfemale and would have him; that's all that really mattered to him. He\nwasn't\ngoing to look a gift-horse in the mouth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In both posts I said that Marble lied. I said she lied because she did lie,\nas she admitted to Mint. Silk knew she was lying; he said as much to Horn in\nthe famous airship conversation. (LS4, 337-38) That said, I don't see how\nyou can claim that I \"clearly believe\" I \"have textually established that\nshe didn't need to\" lie. I have made some _speculations_, but speculations,\nby their very nature, are difficult to establish from the text; otherwise\nthey wouldn't be speculations, they would be textual facts.\n\nI can _speculate_ on why Marble lied, if you like, and I will.\n\nWhen Rose's personality was incorporated into Marble's, along with it came\nRose's maternal instincts, such as they were. That is why Marble was so\nquick to adopt Blood's adopted daughter, Mucor, as her \"granddaughter\".\nThat, plus whatever non-biological urge to procreate obtained among chems,\nalong with her sense of youthful rejuvenation occasioned by her \"new\" parts,\nand the knowledge that, after three centuries, during which time she had\nbeen forced to accept the probability that she would never have children of\nher own, then the realization that she could, all came together at about the\nsame time that love-sick Hammerstone came along. She saw her chance and took\nit, hardly the first female to do so. (Remember the movie _Garp_?) The whorl\nwas going to hell in a hurry; she might not get a better chance.\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }