{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4035",
    "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": 4035,
    "subject": "Walls of Nessus",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-06-19T19:02:03+00:00",
    "last": "2003-06-19T19:02:03+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0306-3503@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan4 at cox.net"
      },
      "date": "2003-06-19T19:02:03+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Walls of Nessus",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "         At a symbolic level, we should remember that ancient cities \n(before cannon fire) were always walled. Especially Jerusalem (book of \nNehemiah). We're symbolically in Byzantium, of course, but are we also in a \nfallen Jerusalem? I can't think of any clews along the latter lines, so I \ndon't think so. But the walls of Byzantium would fit thematically.\n         Which brings up another possibility: Perhaps the walls were not \nset up as a blast shield, but to protect Typhon's project from angry armies \nof insurgents -- and we can be sure there were such: Who wants to be \ndrugged and dragged off into space? These are walls that surely COULD \nwithstand cannon fire, and much else. And even apart from Typhon, we know \nthat Urth is divided into warring nations, so a strong wall might have been \nneeded long before Typhon.\n         Ancient cities usually had two walls: outer and inner, the \ninner-city or \"citadel\" on a high place for even better defense. In \nRussian, the citadel is called \"Kreml[in]\" and all older cities have them, \nnot just Moscow. In London, it is the \"Tower of London.\" In time of seige, \nthe people living around the walls could crowd inside the citadel, where \nthe palace and temple were, for protection if the outer walls were \nbreached. Is this the original relationship between the Citadel of the \nAutarch and the outlying city of Nessus?\n         But I can't remember. The Citadel is within the outer walls of \nNessus, isn't it? Even if not, the walls of Old Port could also function as \na place of refuge for Nessusians under attack from Ascians or whomever.\n         So, maybe the wall as blast-shield is not the best answer.\n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}