Subject: (urth) Wolfe the closet Gnostic. (or, "Gene I hardly gnew ye.")

From: Kieran Mullen <kieran at ou.edu>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:33:12 +0000

Begin forwarded message:

> If Wolfe were determined to avoid the chance of people thinking he was 
> endorsing the
> Gnosticsm then he should have avoided making Silk so appealing or 
> naming his hero
> in The New Sun after a Gnostic sect.
>
> ~ Crush
>

    It is this sort of postmodern meta-analysis that I find most 
annoying.

    First, Gnostic is such a syncretic and malleable tradition that it 
is possible to read it into almost anything in which a powerful ruling 
figure is overthrown by appealing to a more benign, more powerful 
figure.

     Second, Severian's name was chosen 13 years before Silk was 
created.   Do you think that when Wolfe set out to create a character 
that people whose wardrobe fans would emulate at sci-fi cons, he 
intended to write a pro-Gnostic work over a decade later?

     Third, do you think Wolfe, the author of such works as "The 
Detective of Dreams" and "Westwind," would write a pro-Gnostic set of 
novels?

     Fourth, why should having an appealing hero make him necessarily 
pro-Gnostic?   Isn't Silk closer to Moses than to Christ?

     Fifth, name play gets a bit silly.   Silk was common in New 
Testament times, and was called "damask", since it was manufactured in 
Damascus.  No doubt by choosing the name "Silk", Wolfe was making an 
allusion to the role Syria plays in international terrorism.

     Sixth...  Oh well.  You get the point.

       Kieran Mullen

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:56:11 +0000

I was about to playfully suggest as a universal rule that one should not 
postulate clones beyond necessity. (And it still seems like something of a 
good idea, I must admit).

But then it occurred to me that maybe a proliferation of clones actually 
*reduces* the number of entities (by making some people the same as others), 
so maybe Occam would approve. On that note I devised the following theory: 
everyone on Urth is genetically Severian, including Typhon.

We know that Severian, as Conciliator, weaves back and forth through time 
and leads a number of lives (Apu Punchau, etc), sometimes going quite a ways 
back in history. This being the case, all things being equal his genes would 
so dominate the gene pool that it would lead to hopelessly inbred children 
and the degeneration of the human race. To prevent this the Hierogrammates 
implemented a plan which replaced natural reproduction with technology 
similar to that used to resurrect Severian, but with a twist: it creates an 
*embryonic Severian* already in place in the womb. The embryo (and 
subsequent human) is then manipulated through hormones to generate a variety 
of appearances as necessary, including development of male or female 
reproductive organs as needed. And this, by the way, is the capping point 
that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this theory is correct: people 
on Urth *have* to be clones because they are *incapable* of reproducing 
naturally - despite appearances they are all genetically male!

This also explains how there's always a new Severian-body around for the 
Conciliator to pop into when he dies, no matter what place and time it 
happens to be.

This explains trivially why there are so many clones on the Whorl. All of 
the original passengers were clones of Severian. It's not that we have 
identified too many clones, it is that we have noticed too few.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:10:39 +0000

Chris --

The very best part of this theory is that it resolves the Problem
of the Spanish Barber.

"In a certain village in Spain, there is a barber, who shaves
everybody in the village who does not shave himself. Who
shaves the barber?"

Well, since everybody in the village is himself, he doesn't
shave anyone. QED.

On 6/24/05, Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
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> 

-- 
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

---

From: Maru Dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:11:29 +0000

> identified too many clones, it is that we have noticed too few.

But of course!  That ties in with Platonism brilliantly! Since you
have the Ideal New Sun, and everybody is an inferior reflection of
that pure essence, striving to return to the Realm of the Ideal/God. 
The Hs are merely a little closer to that perfection, but not at or
past (else why would they need the New Sun to usher in Ushas, hmm?).
This also explains easily how 'minds' could be shared in the New Sun
(or Long Sun), an otherwise utterly ludicrous proposition- if
everybody starts from the same basic Severian-mind, sharing a mind is
like moving a program from one Linux computer to another Linux
computer; nothing needs to be changed or ported (unlike say going from
Linux to Mac or Windows). Ditto for scanning- instead of discovering a
custom-mental-model for each and every distinct person who needs to be
scanned, you can simply build that mental model once, and only scan
what's new.

~Maru
Somewhere, Popper is rolling over in his grave.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:19:45 +0000

Maru,

> that pure essence, striving to return to the Realm of the Ideal/God.

Which leads us ineluctibly to the all-important question:

"Does a chem have Severian-nature?"

Mu,

--Dan'l

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:19:16 +0000

Chris said:
>I devised the following theory: 

Ha ha! Dan'l already devised that retort the day I first declared
that the explanation for Wolfe's answer was that Tussah was
a clone of Typhon (although he may not remember it).

>I don't think it's unworkable, I just think it's significantly awkward. 

Yes, but you find it awkward because (I find this stunning) you
found nothing particularly suspicious about Tussah's declaration
that Silk was somehow his "son". I found the statement absurd.
There was certainly no requirement that Tussah be succeeded by a
blood heir. Silk's bio-mom was not Tussah's wife. Tussah certainly
had other women. Furthermore, the circumstances of Silk's 
implantation were never revealed and could never be proven and
would probably work against Silk's popularity if it were.
Why assert that his "son" would follow after him?

And why go out of your way to have an embryo succeed you?
And how did he know that Silk would become Calde'? After all,
with his leadership skills, he might have ascended to the
Ayuntamiento or succeded Quetzal?
And since Silk's embryo came from the Whorl, how did his 
second set of parents get in the Mainframe?

As I said, I didn't go trying to figure out how to get clones on Whorl.
As I saw it, Wolfe left no other explanation.

>And when you start trying to divine his intention here, you can go a number of 
>ways. Just as one example, does he mean the "Calde" (in its non-obvious 
>sense) is Silk's father, or does he mean the Calde (Tussah) is his "father" 
>(in a figurative sense - even given the question was about Silk's 
>"ancestry", even this can be taken figuratively). I'm sure other 
>interpretations are possible, and I'm skeptical of all of them - I don't 
>think this quotation does much to back up any theory.

I don't think Tussah, under the self-evident circumstances in the text, can
be called Silk's "father" even figuratively. If I go with your interpretation,
I'm left with the explanation that Wolfe totally misunderstood the question
(and responded with unnecessarily abrupt dismissiveness) or
ultimately lied. But why lie if the answer to Silk's ancestry is merely that
Silk's parentage is that they are not characters in the story?
For these reasons, Wolfe's answer -- unlooked for -- hit me like a ton
of bricks.

>>[Typhon] *did* clone himself. When the Whorl came in to
>>orbit around their destination, TUSSAH was in
>>charge.

>Tussah was in charge of one city, among how many? Hundreds? I don't
>think this provides any special reason to believe that Tussah is a clone of 
>Typhon. 

I did not say this as proof that Tussah was a clone of Typhon. I was
responding to your assertion that Pas would prefer a clone of himself
to lead the colonists rather than a clone of his son. I was agreeing with
you. 

We don't know what went on at other cities. This is a story about one
particular city.

>And I don't see how it would be especially advantageous to have a 
>clone of Typhon "in charge" when the time came - sure, such a clone might be 
>genetically predisposed to successful leadership, but then *anyone who 
>gained and held that post* would likely be predisposed to successful 
>leadership. 

But the embryos *were* sent on the Whorl with the very intent that they would
use their predispositions for leadership to make the colonies successful. That
is stated explicitly. We know that. I didn't decide that a clone of Typhon had to
be among them. Well before I fingered Tussah as a clone, there were
discussions on this list about the similarities between Silk and Typhon. 
Many people were comfortably certain that the Silk-embryo was a clone of
Typhon. I still think there are enough clues to make that theory inviting.
I believe it was James Jordon who first asserted that Silk was a clone of
the son of Typhon and proto-Kypris. I didn't like the idea at first...actually
not until I was convinced that Tussah was a clone.

>And children don't always turn out the way you'd like them to, 
>even if they have the "right genes" - unless of course Pas was going to 
>possess Tussah when the time came, but you've already argued against that.

I think that is one of the themes of the story.

>Here I'd like to make a general comment that applies to things brought up in 
>several different posts (and not specifically here) - we have to be careful 
>not to give Typhon too much credit for omniscience. 

I think the failure of Typhon's plan to go off unhitched is pretty much a
backstory of LS/SS.  By the time, the colonists actually disembark, the
Whorl is falling apart, the Mainframe's modules are at war, the chems
have practically lost their ability to procreate since the females wore
out, people have been using their shuttle cards for money and breaking
them up into "bits".

The plan as it ends up is not Typhon's but Pas's. And of course the Pas that
is resurrected is not the Pas that left Urth.

>>>Nor is there any
>>>indication of who, if anyone, would give such an embryo to them to
>>>raise, or why.
>
>>This is a very good point. In my opinion, the person was Quetzal and his
>>purpose was as a backup plan in case neither Silk nor Awk succeeded in
>>bringing about the Plan of Pas. That's my guess.
>>
>I don't understand this, for reasons somewhat connecting with what was said 
>above - it implies instrumental roles for specific individuals in "the Plan 
>of Pas", sight unseen.Quetzal would then have to have known their roles 
>something like 12 years in advance to get Horn in place. And since Pas had 
>been out of commission for some time before that, Pas would have had to have 
>planned out the course of events before many of the key players were even 
>born.

Okay. For the record, we've moved off of Tussah and on to Horn.

First of all, it was only a guess. Secondly, Horn was about 15. That makes
his birth a good deal less than 10 years after Tussah's murder. Tussah, I
presume, knew who was his "son not of his body". Everyone guessed he
was already out there somewhere. It did't require special knowledge of
their future at all. It only requires knowledge that the embryos were granted
special propensities in leadership. That ability was the greatest threat to the
Ayuntamiento since they were for no one's good but their own. We're never
told how Horn found out about the leadership abilities by the way. Who told him?  

I fingered Quetzal because he is the only non-simulated character in the story
with a vested interest in seeing the Plan of Pas come off.

>Aside from that it seems impossible that Horn could possibly have filled in 
>for Silk, even if he had supergenes. If the plan was for him to be a backup, 
>it would seem safer to seed him in place much earlier.

THe text says that embryos had to be procured from the black market. They
weren't easy to get. Why would you assume the person who did it could time 
it? I'm not certain any living person knew that Silk was the "son" or whether
the son had died of measles at 10.

>The alternative here seems to be either to say that cloneHorn was dropped 
>into place by some supreme agency capable of micro-managing individual lives 

The point was that he would have powers that could be used. According to [I
don't remember who] Blood had Mucor emplanted just to see what powers she
would have.

>>As the text states, there were very few people who knew Silk first hand...
>>certainly not for very long. Most of those who did, were still on the 
>>Whorl.
>>Without the two side-by-side, whose to compare them?

>Lots of people in New Viron knew Horn first hand. And they get to see Silk's 
>body when Silkhorn returns to New Viron. I do not think Silk was so old that 
>a family resemblance would have been that impossible to discern. Especially 
>in a family that striking.

Come on! You're telling me that anyone would recognize you as your father's son
without the two of you compare side by side, even if one of your was paunchy
and balding and the other was rail-thin, had long white hair, and a missing eye? 

~ Crush

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:15:32 +0000

Not a retort, this post was meant to lighten up where I felt I was getting 
too serious. And you have to admit, the many-Severians theory has the virtue 
of absolving Severian of the sin of having intercourse with his own 
grandmother. Of course, whatever it is that he was doing instead would 
probably be quite a sin in its own right, though I'm not sure anyone has 
devised a name for it yet.

Not to mention the ability to bring in anecdotes about Spanish barbers or 
the set of all clones who aren't clones of themselves.

I don't think you deserve a glib or dismissive answer to your actual 
argument, which is why I posted this separately. I'll continue separately 
and on a more serious note tomorrow.

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 11:44:56 +0000

Chris said:
>too serious....I don't think you deserve a glib or dismissive answer to your
>actual argument, which is why I posted this separately. I'll continue separately 

Thank you, Chris. An infinite number of Severians would certainly explain why
one they would need to wear masks. And you are right, if Severian is a clone
then his "grandmother" relation is formal rather than genetic, and there is
still the fact that his crypt is Typhon's family mausoleum.

But I should say that while you did not consider the post as a retort or intend
it as dismissive, I consider "multiplying clones to absurdity" to be the most
difficult response to deal with, because....

It is not self-evident that Tussah is a clone of Typhon,
and many (possibly most) readers find nothing askance in Tussah's "son not
of my body" declaration. 

So, naturally, the most reasonable assumption for those is that a rather
incestuous "clone theory" (there's Severian and his grandmother again)
is a cop-out...that I devised a curly-whorly yarn out of Himalayan thin air
rather than carefully examine the text of the books for Wolfe's true
intent. The opposite is true, but if one sees nothing wrong with Tussah's
"son" declaration, then he is never going to abandon the "spiritual son of
Tussah" reading regardless of how cozily I can show that an alternate
reading fits the story and that the "obvious" reading does not. 

I hope I took it like a man and laughed about it in the sense that I assumed
it was intended. (If you don't like people taking pot-shots at the moon, don't
drop your pants.) But of all jokes, that one stings the most.

~ Crush

---

From: Stanisław Bocian <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 12:34:08 +0000

Saturday, June 25, 2005, 8:44:53 PM, James Wynn wrote:

JW> It is not self-evident that Tussah is a clone of Typhon,
JW> and many (possibly most) readers find nothing askance in Tussah's "son not
JW> of my body" declaration. 

JW> So, naturally, the most reasonable assumption for those is that a rather
JW> incestuous "clone theory" (there's Severian and his grandmother again)
JW> is a cop-out...that I devised a curly-whorly yarn out of Himalayan thin air
JW> rather than carefully examine the text of the books for Wolfe's true
JW> intent. The opposite is true, but if one sees nothing wrong with Tussah's
JW> "son" declaration, then he is never going to abandon the "spiritual son of
JW> Tussah" reading regardless of how cozily I can show that an alternate
JW> reading fits the story and that the "obvious" reading does not. 

I must note that implanting an embryo which is genetically not related
neither to mother not to father is perhaps rare, but it is a really
happening infertility treatment. If you maintain that implanted
genetically uncognate embryo cannot be someone's son, and if this is
the whole argument, it seems to me rather weak.

-- 
    Stanis³aw Bocian

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---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 14:15:26 +0000

>the whole argument, it seems to me rather weak.

Well, that is certainly not the whole arguement. 

In cases of embryo implantation now, fatherhood rights are tenuous.
They are recognized if the man positively asserts that right
through a relationship with the child. But, yes, Tussah could still
assert that right if he wanted to since he did pay for the
implantation. 

But the question remains "why did he want to assert that right?"
There's no reason to believe he was sterile, assuming Chenile
was his naturally conceived daughter. On the otherhand,
there is no textual proof Tussah even had sexual relations with
Silk's mother. Silk even never met Tussah in life.

But if only mundane family-law questions were the only
mysteries regarding Silk and Tussah. As I said before....

There was certainly no requirement that Tussah be succeeded by a
blood heir. Silk's birth-mom was not Tussah's wife, so Silk was no
legal heir.  Tussah certainly had other women. Furthermore, the
circumstances of Silk's implantation ("the son not of my body") did
not in fact boslter his right to the Caldeship, because the
circumstances were never revealed on the Whorl and could never
be proven and would probably work against Silk's popularity if
it were. Why assert that his "son", not just any son but one "not of
his body" would follow after him? Why not name a trusted grown-up
who could protect himself?

And why go to such extremes to have an expensive black market
embryo succeed you as your son? Especially if you could produce
an heir naturally yourself, and especially if you knew no more
about what it would be when it developed than Blood did
regarding Mucor? And how did he know that Silk would become
Calde'? After all, with his leadership skills, and without Tussah's
direct guidance, he might have ascended to the Ayuntamiento
or succeded Quetzal. (Horn asked Silk this directly without getting
an answer.) And since Silk's embryo came from Urth, how did his 
second set of parents get in the Mainframe?

So how's that? Have I stirred up any doubts in anyone regarding
the straightforwardness of the "son not of my body" issue? I doubt it.

~ Crush

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:48:25 +0000

I do recognize that this plays on the biggest weakness of an attempted clone 
theory, but then in a broader sense almost any constructive theory of this 
kind from Wolfe's work has problems with "economy". Wolfe does not make it 
easy to draw clean, economical interpretations of his stories (which is not 
to say we shouldn't still *try* to be economical in our interpretations). 
That said I would just take it as implicit that a theory like this faces an 
uphill battle, and needs fairly strong arguments to be convincing, and leave 
it at that.

>that Silk was somehow his "son". I found the statement absurd.

This strays from my original point as far as the Wolfe quotation goes: if we 
take it as granted that Wolfe was speaking figuratively, then the quotation 
doesn't really provide usable evidence for any theory, yours or otherwise. 
Yes, I can see how you could read it the way you do, but I can also see how 
it can be read in other ways *even if your theory were correct*.

But you are correct in that I don't find it unreasonable for Tussah to 
consider his chosen heir, who he has taken extraordinary effort to set up 
and protect, as his "son" in a sense. It's just that this isn't my reason 
for finding your reading awkward. I find it awkward because referring to 
Typhon as "Calde" in a context where the term is sure to be taken as 
referring to someone else flouts basic conversational rules - which is 
obvious, and we agreed on from the beginning. And no, I don't take the 
awkwardness to be decisive in ruling out your reading, because it's not 
beyond Wolfe. I just don't see any possibility of a decisive interpretation 
of that statement either way.

>And why go out of your way to have an embryo succeed you?

It has been too long since I read the Long Sun series to try to 
psychoanalyze Tussah, and I doubt there's enough in the text to allow that 
anyway, but possibly because he wanted an especially effective leader to 
follow him? Because he cared for the people under his rule? Or possibly as a 
final gesture of his own power beyond death, in choosing and maneuvering the 
person who would carry on after him? (I would have to dig, but I seem to 
recall Machiavelli putting a similar sentiment in the mouth of some 
historical ruler or other). Maybe out of pure spite for his political 
enemies, wanting to be sure his successor would be strong enough to 
defeat/destroy them.

>Ayuntamiento or succeded Quetzal?

This leads to an odd bit of speculation which I don't know whether there's 
any solid evidence to be found, but... I seem to recall there is something 
very odd towards the beginning of the Long Sun series, where someone has put 
up a huge graffiti to the effect of "Silk for Calde!" long before Silk is 
well-known or has done anything to attract public attention to himself. It 
always seemed quite out of place. It seemed to me that someone, before the 
story even begins, is preparing to maneuver Silk into taking over, and it is 
a mystery as to who's behind it. Possibly agents secretly loyal to Tussah 
who were left to watch Silk and push him into leadership when the time came?

>As I saw it, Wolfe left no other explanation.

All of the original Whorl colonists, including the ones in stasis, 
originally came from Urth. Perhaps a couple of them were Silk's parents? It 
wouldn't require that much of a stretch.

As an aside, Mainframe is a concept that always struck me as odd, and I just 
don't see how it can possibly work as presented (or why its designer would 
want to set it up that way). Which possibly points to some further secret 
about the nature of Mainframe, but if so I haven't been able to place it.

>to lead the colonists rather than a clone of his son. I was agreeing with

Well, backing up from the question of Typhon's preferences for a second: in 
the broadest terms, either Tussah's being a clone of Typhon was an intended 
part of the plan for evacuating the ship, or it was not. If it was part of 
the plan, then this suggests that the same thing would be true in the other 
cities as well, implying lots of clones brought into play (though I am not 
sure how that would work in a matriarchal city, for example). If it was not 
part of the plan, then Tussah's being a clone of Typhon ends up being 
incidental, and we are left with a big question of how/why this came about 
that has no good answer.

>is stated explicitly. We know that.

Right. And this to me falls into a category of planning that is something 
like: "give them good starting materials, and hope for the best." And that 
does seem to be the way Typhon operated. What I don't see happening, though, 
is a sort of micro-manipulation where Pas, from the beginning of the voyage, 
says: "At time X I want a person with THIS set of genes in THIS particular 
position."

But this is just another way of working on the angle that either having a 
clone (Tussah) in place at that time is intentional, or it is not. If it's 
intentional, it really stretches the bounds of what we can reasonably expect 
Pas to have planned, even if he made the plan on the spot just before 
decanting the clone. And this also does not seem to be a sensible or 
workable way to plan things.

>their future at all.

Well, OK, here I should ask: if Horn was also a decanted embryo, do you 
think his being present at the same manteion where Silk would eventually end 
up was intended, or mere coincidence? If coincidence, what would be the 
purpose of taking an exhorbitantly expensively embryo and dropping him into 
a poor family, in a location where he is unlikely to get a great education 
and where statistically he stands a greater chance of being killed in some 
random accident or crime before reaching a reasonable age? If he's meant to 
play some role, or be a backup, why not decant him earlier so that he could 
be a more reasonable age when the time came?

On the other hand if he was meant to be there under the tutelage of Silk, 
whoever put him there would have to have an unrealistically exact sense of 
what was going to happen and when.

>the son had died of measles at 10.

I agree, and this goes right along with what I was trying to get at. It 
makes Horn's presence at that place and time even more inexplicable.

>and balding and the other was rail-thin, had long white hair, and a missing 

For the average person, perhaps not (but realistically, maybe). But we're 
supposedly talking about someone for whom facial features are extremely 
important, this is what I was getting at. If the "face of command" is 
genetically passed on, then someone who actually has it will have certain 
distinctive features, won't they? And if Horn didn't get the features, then 
he wouldn't have had the face and uncanny leadership skills you assume him 
to have. Though for the record I do not think Horn had any particularly 
uncanny leadership skills other than having learned from a good teacher - 
but then again, I don't think Horn is a clone either.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 17:15:39 +0000

On 6/25/05, Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
> well-known or has done anything to attract public attention to himself.

This is in volume 2, if I recall correctly - or late in V1. But I think it's
V2.

Doctor Crane turns out to be behind it, though we have to infer this 
from his letter home.

--Dan'l

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:12:00 +0000

>uphill battle, and needs fairly strong arguments to be convincing, and leave 

Yes, I know. And, I admit, that for someone to find this theory appealing
*at all* you have to unsatisfied with the "obvious"  explanation. It has 
strong arguments behind if that is true, or even if one has serious'
misgivings about that "weak railing" of Silk's second set of parents 
in the Mainframe. 

Otherwise, its arguments are not strong at all, and seem to fly out
of nowhere.

>>Crush said:
>>You find it awkward because (I find this stunning) you

Chris said
>If we take it as granted that Wolfe was speaking figuratively [when
>he said of Silk's "ancestry" that he was the son of the Calde and his
>mistress], then the quotation doesn't really provide usable evidence for any
>theory, yours or otherwise. 
>I find it awkward because referring to 

Well, "figuratively" not the word. He was answering "puckishly". I think Calde'
is the correct term for Typhon in Wolfe's mind. Perhaps "Calde'" the the very
title Typhon held in whatever fabled backstory Wolfe designed for 
"The New Sun". He answer precisely and in a manner intended to mislead. 
If on a witness stand, he could be charged with purjury for an answer like
that, but otherwise, it is technically an "honest" answer.

It is a matter of easy deduction: If he answered "figuratively" for "son" then
he must be speaking figuratively regarding "ancestry". But there is no
figurative sense for ancestry. If he was answering candidly, then we must
explain how Tussah is in the ancestry of Silk.

As I read it, his answer did not *answer* any questions. But it did rule 
out several strong alternatives. That's how I came to say "Tussah=Typhon".
It was  exasperating because I realized that while it answered every problem
I had regarding Silk's parentage, it could NEVER be determined, to the
exclusion of other possiblities, simply from the text.

>Yes, I can see how you could read it the way you do, but I can also see
>how it can be read in other ways *even if your theory were correct*.

I would be really REALLY interested in those other ways since, as I said
I found all other doors shut to me. Of course, Tussah=Typhon, cozily
answers every open question I had regarding Silk's parentage, but if
you've got some other options I would love (honestly, I mean it) to hear them.

>Crush asks:

[Chris some decent psychoanalytical answers.]

>Crush asks:

Chris:
>[Chris notes the "Silk for Calde" signs around Viron]
>Possibly agents secretly loyal to Tussah 

As Dan'l pointed out, Crane was behind those and Blood's
driver (who was a Trivigaunte agent) confessed to writing 
them. But that was one the methods that brought Silk to
the front even though he really did nothing to place
himself in that position. It doesn't explain how Tussah knew
it would happen. I think I know how he knew. See below.

>Chris:

Alright, see IMO that *is* a major stretch. Wolfe remarked about 
"literary rules" that if "gun is on the table in Act 1, someone has to fire
it."  To have unnamed undescribed colonists from Urth who are otherwise
unnoted in the story appear in the Mainframe as Silk's parents and then go
away is a serious storytelling violation. Fifteen to Life if you can show the 
writer is not a hack. I just do not believe it would have gotten into the book
without Wolfe or his editor noting that.

>about the nature of Mainframe, but if so I haven't been able to place it.

I've decided that  Wolfe wanted a complete religious cosmos for the Whorl.
He has a clockwork world, he has clockwork gods, he needs a clockwork
Heaven. I agree that explaining how it works is problematic. How do chems
get there? That's easy. How do people get there? That's a toughie. But it is
not beyond the realm of possibility and I think that was enough for Wolfe's
purposes. Just as Damon Knight's story "Life Edit" does not explain how
lives were actually gone back in time and edited.

>incidental, and we are left with a big question of how/why this came about 

Well, IMO, Tussah being a clone of Typhon explains the questions of Silk's
parentage. Not much more, except that it opens the door on the question
"Are there any more like him?"  There are still odd reference, themes, and
parallels that connect Silk to Pas *and* Tussah well before Silk *becomes*
Pas. Tussah being a clone does not solve that. 

As for "other clones", I presume there are other clones in the 
other cities. Why would we assume only Viron had a refrigerator full of
embryos under it? As you already know, I think there are multiple Typhons
walking around, I think Silk is a clone. If the embryos are clones then we
know that there are female embryos as well (Mucor). The obvious
assumption is that Typhon cloned his family and favorites for the trip, and
Wolfe may have been quite aware who they were when/if they appeared in
the story. We know more about Silk, and Tussah as his "father" is
important to the story, so pinning a name on them is more likely to resolve
significant questions than with other hypothetical embryos.

But it does open up questions on Mucor.

>workable way to plan things.

You make a good point. Pas MIGHT NOT have initially wanted his clone to
lead Viron. He might have not cared beyond that embryos be there to lead it. 
I thought it remarkable (only after deciding that Tussah=Typhon) that just
before planned disembarkation, Tussah was Calde over Viron. But that could
just be a coincidence, or a planned literary parrallel on Wolfe's part (Pas
murdered, Tussah murdered).

>up was intended, or mere coincidence? 

It only means that Horn was implanted in Viron in a poor family.  For Tussah to
drop his heirs among poor families seems to be is M.O., presumably to better
hide them. We have some
information regarding Horn's family but I'm not yet prepared to debate why
or under what circumstances Horn came to be there. It seems likely to me
that positioning Silk over that manteon (he didn't want to go there) might
have been to get the surreptitiously placed embryos together so they could
support one another. 

But I think it is a mistake to ascribe Silk's ascendency to mere coincidence or
even his leadership skills. The gods are in the background possessing and
quitely influencing decisions in Viron as with everywhere else. I think that is
the only explanation for Silk's rapid rise. And I think Quetzals desire to limit
the gods' direct influence in Viron was his specific reason for taking steps to
limit any sacrificial appearance by the gods. 

>If coincidence, what would be the 

I don't have my books and Amazon "Search Inside" does not provide the
"People and Places" section of the books, however, IIRC Horn is named
there as "the leader of the boys in the palaestra". So he was still excelling
in that regard.

"My lack of education hasn't hurt much,
I can still read the writing on the wall." -- Paul Simon

Furthermore, as I hinted above, I'm not convinced that Horn and Tussah
were the only clones of Typhon or anyone else walking around in the
story. (Here we get back to "everyone is a clone of Severian" joke,
which is so funny and so biting because it rings so true.)    

>>Crush said
>>Come on! You're telling me that anyone would recognize you as your father's 
>>son without the two of you compare side by side, even if one of your was 
>>paunchy and balding and the other was rail-thin, had long white hair, and
>>a missing eye?

>distinctive features, won't they?

I'm not sure where the term "face of command" comes from although I've
seen it used a lot on the list. I don't think Typhon's powers of leadership
come from something special about his face. Neither so for Silk or Horn. 

If we assume,
and I do, that Chenille's face was the image of Tussah's, then we will have
to assume based on Horn's statement that Silk's face was not really that
much like Tussah's. That's why I ruled out Silk being a clone of Tussah
(which would have explained how the second set of parents got in the
Mainframe after all, among other things).

Is it possible for a son to share the same hair color with his
father (and even have a reddish beard, which, incidentally, is a sign of
being a "Typhonian"), yet not look much like him otherwise? Sure it is.

~ Crush

---

From: Mark Millman <millman at heimdallr.dyndns.org>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 13:32:17 +0000

Dear Mr. Wynn,

In the earlier of your two (so far) messages today,
you refer twice to "the Mainframe", presumably mean-
ing the computer construct on the Whorl that takes
the place of Heaven.  Silk's seeing two sets of par-
ents there is important to your theory of cloning
and ancestry.

It seems to me, however, that the "Mainframe" in
which he sees his two sets of parents is not the
computer construct--it's the real Heaven of the Out-
sider.  Silk describes it as Mainframe because he
has no other terms for it; to him, Mainframe is
Heaven.  While there, Silk sees both his spiritual
parents (his birth mother and Tussah) and his phys-
cial parents (whoever they may be).

You may decide that this doesn't affect your theory;
I confess that I've lost track of the details and
so can't judge the likelihood of this for myself.
To me, it makes explicit some of the unexpressed as-
sumptions in this conversation, and helps resolve
some of the contradictions that seem to have led to
the current form of your hypothesis.

Mark Millman

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:11:10 +0000

>sider.
>[...]

Well, having Silk's reunion with his parents NOT occur in the Mainframe would
certainly eliminate the question of how his second set got there, you've
definitely got your finger on a major issue in this case. Here's my problem
with that:

1) We have another instance of people meeting dead parents -- it occurs
at the end of the story when everyone sails to the beginning of the Sun
and it undeniably occurs in the Mainframe. 

2) The 2nd set of parents in the Mainframe (or Heaven) is a big one to me
but it is not the only one. I think I laid out my questions to the best of my
ability here:
http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2005-June/001214.html

Here, at last, the joke about Occam's Razor and infinite clones simplifying
matters for once works in my favor. Most readers have presumed
that  Tussah was speaking figuratively when he called Silk "the son not of my 
body" since "what other explanation was there?". Chris has proposed a vast
array of psychoanalysis on Tussah to explain his need for an embryo to
succeed him. And now you have offered an alternate understanding of the
Mainframe...supposing that that the place where Silk met his parents the
first time is different from the place where he and Remora and Hyancinth
and everyone else met their parents at the *end* of the story.

At this point, by comparison, Tussah as a clone of Typhon is demonstrably
not awkward at all:

Tussah was a clone of Typhon. The embryos with the special abilities
were clones...clones of Typhon and his family and possibly his
courtiers. He had to get them from somewhere, why not pick (as he saw
it) the best of the best and duplicating them over and over rather cull
multiple unique ones? Tussah implanted an embryo in Silk's mother
knowing that genetically that clone was his son. That's why he called him
"the son not of my body." He was not speaking figuratively. He was
merely stating a fact. (There nothing more Wolfean that offering 
a lie or a figure of speech and suddenly discovering it was true.)
And, finally, the four people Silk met when he briefly died were
Tussah, his birth-mother, Typhon, and Kypris. 

(and if you consider the implications that the Rajan consistently
called the inhumu Juganu his sister, that during soul-travel she
had red hair, and when she wandered into a dark bar drunk the
Rajan at first thought she was Chenille, you might consider that
a)we do have reason suspect who Juganu's mother fed on before
she was born and b) it is possible that fewer people are using
familial terms figuratively that we supposed at first reading.)

~ James Wynn

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:59:40 +0000

>Otherwise, its arguments are not strong at all, and seem to fly out

Yes, it is pretty much exactly as you say. And I'd even put this together 
with something you mentioned earlier - it's not just about the Wolfe quote 
from the interview, or even primarily about it. The quote is extra-textual, 
and by some schools of thought that precludes it from entering into the 
interpretation process at all. But for all the attention we've given it your 
theory doesn't (or at least as far as I can tell shouldn't) rest on it. The 
meat of the issue lies elsewhere; I've just unfortunately let myself devote 
to much time to arguing that the quote is ultimately unhelpful. Because:

>Well, "figuratively" not the word. He was answering "puckishly".

Whether you call it "figurative", "puckish", "mendacious" or merely 
"non-literal", it doesn't make for good evidence for much of anything. Nor 
is it even *capable* of ruling out much of anything, either.

>you've got some other options I would love (honestly, I mean it) to hear 

It seems like what needs to be answered, at least in part, is why Tussah 
feels that Silk is his "son". Because regardless of questions of DNA and 
physical fatherhood, you have additionally raised this as a question. I gave 
some possible impressions there, if only partial.

Now, on your picture Tussah is a clone of the person whose son Silk is a 
clone of. (Pardon the awful grammatical construction). This is a position to 
take toward the DNA aspect; do you count it as the answer to the 
psychological question as well? Because if that's what you are implying then 
you're putting forward an even stronger assertion than I thought, since it 
implies that Tussah somehow knows all this.

I do have some thoughts about Silk's parentage but they are just hazy enough 
that I will have to put them on hold until I can go back and re-read the 
series to get the context of the passages I'm thinking of - I have made 
mistakes on that before. So I am not much help there.

>it would happen. I think I know how he knew. See below.

Well, Quetzal also provides a fairly practical vector for Tussah to count 
on. Just how much he'd count on Quetzal I don't know, but he's not an 
insignificant factor by any means.

>without Wolfe or his editor noting that.

Do they have to be unnamed? Has anyone ever suggested Mamelta? She actually 
might be another instance of a "gun on the table", come to think of it. The 
only thing I can find from Wolfe on the subject of Mamelta is that the 
etymology is probably "Not Careless".

This of course seems a stretch. But right now we're only talking about guns 
on tables needing to be fired, and it's as good an answer as any.

>Heaven. I agree that explaining how it works is problematic.

Or perhaps it's unproblematic, it's just that what Mainframe *does* is not 
what they think it does. Or perhaps, per the "heaven" suggestion, it's not 
Mainframe we should be thinking about at all. I agree with you about the 
role of Mainframe in the story as far as Wolfe is concerned, though.

>significant questions than with other hypothetical embryos.

Elsewhere you suggest that the modified embryos put in storage would be 
based on Typhon and his family, but if we're talking about a significant 
number of clones then there is a practical reason you *wouldn't* want to do 
it this way: genetic diversity. You may laugh this off as a factor but as 
the number of clones increases it becomes more and more of a concern. And 
not just for reproductive reasons - entering a new and unpredictable 
environment, it would be a bad thing for all of your uberleaders to be 
genetically vulnerable to the same diseases. All things being equal and 
given the resources you're spending on the project, why not make things as 
diverse as possible.

>hide them.

Silk's mother was not quite *that* poor. Horn's family lived, basically, in 
a slum. And arrangements were made, for Silk, as well. He got a very good 
education, and he didn't enter the priesthood by accident.

On the other hand there's no apparent reason at all to put Horn where he 
was, and no special opportunities afforded by that position, UNLESS you 
count exposure to Silk.

>have been to get the surreptitiously placed embryos together so they could

Quetzal certainly had the power to arrange it this way. But it's difficult 
to explain *why* he would - if he really were making these plans 15+ years 
in advance, he could have equally arranged to put them together under other 
circumstances. But this starts to suggest the same sort of long-term 
micro-management that I find dubious.

>I can still read the writing on the wall." -- Paul Simon

I am not at all suggesting that the uneducated can't be good leaders. I am 
however suggesting that if you're going to make an expensive long-term 
gamble, you'd try to give the child in question every advantage possible. 
Even the rich in our own world do not make a point of sending there children 
to poor inner-city schools.

>come from something special about his face. Neither so for Silk or Horn.

In this case you disagree with Typhon, then. And ultimately Typhon is the 
one who arranged the pleasure-cruise; if anybody made arrangements to put 
clones on board, it would have been him.

---

From: Mark Millman <millman at heimdallr.dyndns.org>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:54:55 +0000

Dear Chris and James,

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Chris wrote, quoting
James Wynn:

> > I'm not sure where the term
> > "face of command" comes from
> > although I've seen it used a
> > lot on the list. I don't
> > think Typhon's powers of
> > leadership come from some-
> > thing special about his face.
> > Neither so for Silk or Horn.
>
> In this case you disagree with Typhon,
> then. And ultimately Typhon is the one
> who arranged the pleasure-cruise; if
> anybody made arrangements to put

The term "face of command" comes from Typhon
himself.  In explaining why he chose to have
his head transplanted onto Piaton's body, he
tells Severian two things:  first, that the
operation to transplant the entire head was
simpler than a brain-transplant; and second,
and more importantly, that the head-trans-
plant, unlike a brain-transplant, would pre-
serve the face that his subjects were accus-
tomed to obey.  This is the context in which
"face of command" occurs (though they may
not be Typhon's exact words--I cannot check
at this moment--in any case Typhon certainly
expresses this concept).

I must agree with Mr. Wynn here.  I don't
think that Typhon believes that there is any-
thing inherently special in his face that
aids his ability to rule.  The key point is
that he must be recognized as himself, the
Monarch, even after the operation.   Call to
mind as well Master Malrubius' lesson on the
highest form of government (or is it the
highest form of loyalty?--I can't, at the mo-
ment, remember, and it makes little differ-
ence to this argument), and take into ac-
count that Typhon is in part an analogue of
Lucifer; he will have an inverted or pervert-
ed form of government (or his followers' loy-
alties will be perverse), which mocks the
virtuous or pure model.

Best,

Mark Millman

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:36:49 +0000

>implies that Tussah somehow knows all this.

Yes. I am saying that Tussah KNEW he is a clone of Typhon. It is likely he
even knew that Pas had that name on the Red Sun Whorl (the Rajan was
aware of it). Lemur knows a lot of details about the family of Typhon. 
Those on the "inside" in Viron may know more about the details of the
rulership of Typhon than the sleepers since apparently a lot of their
memories have been wiped and changed.  I strongly suspect that by the
final chapters of "Exodus", Silk knows he is a clone and he knows his
genetic relationship to Typhon. I've hypothesized in my last response to 
Roy that Tussah might not have procured Silk from the black
market although Remora presumed he had. He might well have simply
gone to the refrigerator that Silk and Mamelta found (or one like it).

>I do have some thoughts about Silk's parentage but they are just hazy
>enough that I will have to put them on hold until I can go back and
>re-read the  series to get the context of the passages I'm thinking of...

Okay. Let me know when you start. I might be ready for a re-read by then as
well.

>Chris says:

Actually, I think he's a very powerful factor. But not that powerful I
think. I really think Tussah must have felt able to count on divine
help in that matter.

JW said:
>>Alright, see IMO that *is* a major stretch [that Silk's parents were
>>passengers on the Whorl]. Wolfe remarked about
>>away is a serious storytelling violation.

>etymology is probably "Not Careless".

Funny you should say that. Go back and search the archives for the discussion
on whether Mamelta is Kypris and Silk's mother. Although, I can't remember
whether the arguments *assumed* that Kypris was Silk's mother and that if
Mamelta was one she had to be the other.

However, Kypris *does* say that in life she looked kind of like Hyacinth
(Hy and Mam both had dark hair). And that business I mentioned earlier
about Mamelta's bird "Chico" in the "People" section of "Exodus" (or maybe
"Lake" or "Calde") is a big sign to me that ties her both to Kypris and
"Bird of the Woods" in "The Book of the New Sun".

>on tables needing to be fired, and it's as good an answer as any.

Not much of a stretch to me, but that's just me. That Mamelta is Silk's
bio-mom is exactly what I believe and it might *be* that Silk meets her
in the Mainframe rather than Kypris, but we still have his other father to
account for.

>the number of clones increases it becomes more and more of a concern.And 

Maybe, but once I accepted the possibility that there were multiple embryos
who are clones of Urth's court, REAL familial relationships began to present
themselves as answers to the bizarre thematic relationships I noted on my
first read. There are characters that are treated thematically as the same
person or as related in ways that made no sense. I would literally have
to annotate book to explain these, but when I was able to say "Ah! Hieros!
or "Hah, hah! 'Son' indeed!" suddenly a lot of the wierdness just fell away.

Granted, it *could* be a case where having only a hammer in one's tool-
box, everthing looks like a nail, but I don't think I *did* approach the
story with only a hammer -- I initially tried several other tools, but then
at last saw my problems "driven down"

JW said
>>It only means that Horn was implanted in Viron in a poor family.  For 
>>Tussah to drop his heirs among poor families seems to be is M.O.,
>>presumably to better hide them.

>a slum. And arrangements were made, for Silk, as well. He got a very
>good education, and he didn't enter the priesthood by accident.

Well, Chenille's is supposed to be the *natural* daughter of Tussah
and *she* grew up in the same slum. The money got pretty tight
for Silk's mom after Tussah died. Silk's education was her
responsibility alone and no one helped her with it as far as we are
told. Joining the Charter was Silk's decision and it was against
his mother's desires.

>was, and no special opportunities afforded by that position, UNLESS you 

How about exposure to Chenille? How about exposure to Quetzal who
spent time in Horn's district to feed on the inhabitants. He was born well
after Tussah's death. It would have to be someone else who put him
there, and I agree it had to be someone with money. That's why I
suggested Quetzal.

>micro-management that I find dubious.

It doesn't strike me as micro-management at all. It strikes me as opportunistic.
Silk joined the Charter on his own. That gave Quetzal some real control, butif
he had gone into politics, Q would still have had access to him. The only real
problem would have been if Silk had become a grocier in a small town outside
of Viron. But the gods could have found him an arranged ascension no matter
where he was. Tussah's plan could not have depended solely on Quetzal.
And once again, Tussah calls Silk his son but it does not help him assume
the Caldeship. Thus, I say, he calls Silk his son because it is a fact, not to
help people identify him (what could be more hands-off than that?)

>to poor inner-city schools.

If it were important to hide a child from the eyes of the powerful, then the
best schools might be the worst place for his welfare. The Ayuntamiento
certainly could not know when Tussah had implanted his "heir" or even
if someone were implanting it after he died. You mentioned the question
of whether Silk looked like Tussah. Well, I assert that Horn looked
very much like Tussah indeed. Putting him the in best schools probably
would have been murder.

>>JW said:

>Chris responded:

Based on Mark Millman's hint found the relevant quote on page 139 of
"Sword and Citadel". What Typhon says of his face is that "it is the face that
men are customed to obey". Obviously that is not an issue on the Whorl
unless Typhon intends the colonists to be ruled by physical representations
of monsters.

---

From: Sarah Dorrance-Minch <isobelwren at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:03:58 +0000

> intended to write a pro-Gnostic work over a decade

Just to diverge from this interesting discussion onto
a tangent...

The name Severian (or Severus, or Severin) crops up
from time to time in other works. I have no idea if
Wolfe ever read either of them, but if he is anything
like me (if it's in print, I'm interested, if it has a
reputation, I'm very interested!) he probably has.

The name of one of the villains in _Justine_ (the
libertine who deflowers Justine) is named Severin.

The name of the hero in _Venus in Furs_, if I remember
correctly (it's been a long while) was named Severin.

One of the key supporting musicians of Siouxsie and
the Banshees, and her boyfriend before she broke up
with him and settled down with Budgie, used the stage
name Severin. Not that this would have been a factor
in the writing of Wolfe's novels, but I thought it
amusing.

Oh, and Severus (and its feminine form, Severina) were
not uncommon names in ancient Rome. A child named such
was meant to reflect upon the quality/virtue of
"severity," which today would probably best be thought
of as "seriousness," "dignity," or "having a strong
moral backbone." Severine is, I am given to
understand, still occasionally used as aname for girls
in France, although I've never met anyone with that
name (then again, I didn't socialize much when I was
studying for my M.Phil a few years ago, so maybe I'm
not the best person to say). 

Personally I think Severian might simply have been
given his name because whatever guildmaster who named
him wanted him to embody the quality of sternness. But
then again, maybe not. 

And now back to the regularly scheduled programming.
(Dare I call it the Clone Wars?)

Sarah Dorrance-Minch
(in SCA, THL Isobel Wren, called "Midori")

Mother to Sophie and Liesl and militant lactivist cult member

---

From: Sarah Dorrance-Minch <isobelwren at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:12:54 +0000

does that mean he's his own Grandpa?

Sorry. I had to. :)

Sarah Dorrance-Minch

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:23:11 +0000

>does that mean he's his own Grandpa?

That's been brought up here before. By me, I'm afraid, a long time ago. But
at least it didn't involve clones. <g>

-Roy

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 11:30:12 +0000

>at least it didn't involve clones. <g>

I hope my comments weren't misconstrued. I was expressing chagrin over the
theory, which I later recanted. See here:

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0207/1485.txt.shtml

-Roy

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 12:52:16 +0000

>Just to diverge from this interesting discussion onto

Where would I be without tangents?

>from time to time in other works. 

Weeeeeell, *Severin* is not necessarily *Severian*.

1) There are saints named of Severian, of course. One martyred in North
Africa and one who died in 320 by having his flesh torn off by rakes.
There are a lot of Severus? and Severius? but that’s not quite right
(although it is possible Wolfe had a source that called one or some of
them “Severian”). Everyone in the Commonwealth is named after saints.
In the case of the flayed Severian, *I* could develop an argument that
links Severian to the flayed god of Mesoamerican mythology, but I can’t
imagine many people going along with it.

2) There is Severian, the Bishop of Gabala in Syria, who was active in
Chrysostom exiled.

3) There was a dynasty of Roman emperors starting with Septimus Severus
in the early 3rd century that are called collectively the Severan or Severian
emperors. Their rulership was not particularly singular from roman or
Christian church standards. The most famous is Caracalla.

However, there ARE a couple links from the Severian dynasty to
Wolfe/New Sun: 
a) Septimus, claimed (falsely) to be a son of Marcus Aurelius. There are
of course shadows of Marcus Aurelius in the New Sun. 
b) This second one requires some understanding that Wolfe believes
there is evidence of direct contact over the centuries between Mesoamerica
and ancient Asia/the Mediteranean. There was a Roman type sculpture
found in a pre-Hispanic Columbian temple dated
from the *Severan*
period. It was found in the 1930s and rediscovered in the mid-sixties.
It would not be surprising to me if Wolfe were aware of it.
Here’s a link with a picture: http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/calix.htm

Still #3 seems awfully tenuous to me, and as many will tell you, that's saying
something.

4) Finally, there is the Gnostic 2nd sect, that Irenaeus mentioned in his
book “Against the Heresies”:
http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0206/1204.txt.shtml

#4 seems the strongest to me, but that’s just me. Granted that none of them
blow any dresses up, but that's not the only Gnostic tag in the New Sun story.

~ James Wynn

---

From: Stanis³aw Bocian <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2005 03:20:27 +0000

Friday, July 1, 2005, 9:52:08 PM, James Wynn wrote:

JW> ...that's not the only Gnostic tag in the New Sun story.

I would like to point out that the New Sun is generally neoplatonic.
Such things as emanations, Aeons etc, hierarchies of angels and of
worlds belonged to common religious heritage of all the religions of the
Middle East, which conquered the whole Roman Empire. (Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, Christianity, Neoplatonism, Mitraism, Islam). Eg Kabbalah,
which undoubtly influenced New Sun, has great similarities with
neoplatonism (along with important differences, of course).

Even dualism isn't specific to gnostics. The battle between Ahura
Mazda and Aryman is one of the main points of Zoroastrianism, and
Zoroastrian church persecuted Gnostics even more than Christians (more
than they persecuted Christians and more than Christians persecuted
Gnostics).

The special gnostic idea is different. It  is the revolutionary change
of polarities - the God which all others worship is the Devil, we have
found the true God.

This could be the point of the Long Sun, although
not necessarily. There are many gods there, without one ruling Evil Demiurg,
and Pas isn't exactly devil. The revelation of Silk can be interpreted
as well as Christian attitude towards pagan
gods. Christians commonly claimed the so called pagan gods are really
demons, although there were other opinions. In the New Sun I don't see
anything specifically Gnostic.

-- 
    Stanislaus Bocian

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jak powstaje auto? >>> http://link.interia.pl/f1898

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 19:32:20 +0000

>aware of it). Lemur knows a lot of details about the family of Typhon.

I think this is a bigger assertion than you appear to think it, at least 
based on the cursory treatment of it so far.

Knowing some details about the history of Typhon, knowing that Pas is 
Typhon, these are significant things to be sure - and one can imagine a few 
vectors this knowledge might be acquired. It seems *unlikely*, though, that 
Pas himself would deliberately make it known to anyone because it simply 
doesn't offer him any advantage.

That said, the only way I can possibly think of for Tussah to know *who* he 
was a clone of is to get it directly from one of the gods. Presumably Pas, 
because Tussah's conjectured position in Pas's plan puts him at odds with 
the other gods. [Unless, of course, ALL the cloned embryos on board are 
clones of Typhon, which would immediately tell you who you were a clone of 
given the knowledge that you were grown from one of those embryos. But 
you've denied this possibility, and I don't find it especially likely 
either.] Why would Pas tell him this? Neither Typhon nor Pas seem inclined 
to invite someone into an equal partnership if they could just use them as 
an instrument instead.

Telling him who Silk was supposedly a clone of seems similarly unmotivated, 
if not counterproductive. And I suspect that there would be even fewer 
people who might have that information from the beginning.

The answers to these questions are going to have a distinct impact on just 
what you think was actually going *on* here.

Also, elsewhere you state more explicitly than before:
"I do say that SILK and TUSSAH and were part of the Plan of Pas with
respect to Viron. But it was not necessary for Typhon to plan it from
Urth. Tussah's implantation could be argued to be timed with the Whorl's
arrival to Blue, but Silk's was done by Tussah after Pas's erasure."

But this puts Pas/Typhon in the position of doing *just* the kind of 
planning that seems most problematic, and least likely, given the shape of 
his overall plan from the beginning. And there seems no reason at all to go 
to the trouble of raising Tussah from an embryo and engineering his rise to 
Calde-hood, instead of just working with whoever happens to be in place at 
the time.

>Mamelta was one she had to be the other.

Maybe something's wrong with the archives, or with my brain, but google is 
giving me a set of hits that don't include this discussion. I looked for 
conjunctions of "Mamelta" with both "Kypris" and "mother", separately, and 
no dice.

>in the Mainframe rather than Kypris, but we still have his other father to

Well, assuming we are actively distinguishing between Kypris and the 
biological person that became Kypris, suggesting that Silk meets Mamelta 
rather than Kypris in Mainframe would imply that the same would apply to his 
father; since we know Typhon doesn't make it on the Whorl, it would imply 
that Silk's father is someone other than Typhon. So I don't think that 
interpretation is favorable for your purposes.

>there, and I agree it had to be someone with money. That's why I

Chenille? That is no better an answer than Silk - it implies 
micro-management of her life to put her in that neighborhood, and for *no* 
apparent reason. And it implies a sort of micro-management that is 
mysterious and counter-intuitive, because it lands Chenille in a brothel and 
both Horn and Chenille in a slum so that they can be in proximity to each 
other, for.... what reason?

And exposure to Quetzal doesn't seem any more or less likely in that 
neighborhood, nor are we given any indication that Horn and Quetzal had any 
familiarity with each other. So if Quetzal put him there for that purpose, 
he apparently never followed through with it.

Did Quetzal put him there to feed on, then? If so he could just as easily 
have put his personal veal-calf in a more controlled environment.

It's possible to throw out lots of "reasons" to go to that much trouble to 
put a clone in Horn's position, but none of them seem to be any *good*.

>It doesn't strike me as micro-management at all. It strikes me as 

Placing Horn in that neighborhood 15 years prior to the start of the story 
is not "opportunistic" because at the time he would have been placed there, 
there was no significant opportunity to take advantage of there.

>very much like Tussah indeed. Putting him the in best schools probably

To fly under the radar you have to place him in the worst place you can 
find? A nice middle-income neighborhood would have done just fine for 
concealment.

>unless Typhon intends the colonists to be ruled by physical representations

Incorporating Mark's insight here creates something of a pretzel of logic 
that is difficult to straighten out, but let me try it this way:

The first question is, did Typhon possess special genetic powers of 
leadership, or not?

If no, then Silk/Tussah (who *do* possess such special genetic abilities) 
are not of Typhon's line. So your answer here has to be "yes".

The second question is, if Typhon did possess special genetic powers of 
leadership, then why did he have to worry so much about his face?

One possibility is the one that has been widely assumed: that his genetic 
leadership ability manifested in some way related to his face. In which case 
you *would* expect clones of Typhon and his son - who shared this genetic 
leadership ability - to look alike.

If Typhon's concern for his face was unrelated to this superlative 
leadership ability then it would seem like more mundane factors like 
familiarity provide only minor motivation to go to so much 
trouble/discomfort, balanced as they are by the fact that as familiar as his 
face might be, the whole two-headed monster thing isn't exactly familiar (or 
positive, either). It gets points for intimidation, but a big penalty for 
anybody inclined to view him as a freak of "nature".

[And of course even without connecting the leadership genes to facial 
features, one still expects Typhon's son (if he is to have similar 
abilities) to take after his father quite a bit.]

---

From: James Wynn <thewynns at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 22:08:03 +0000

I said:
>>I am saying that Tussah KNEW he is a clone of Typhon. It is likely
>>he even knew that Pas had that name on the Red Sun Whorl (the
>>Rajan was aware of it). Lemur knows a lot of details about the
>>family of Typhon.

Chris responded:
>I think this is a bigger assertion than you appear
>to think it, at least based on the cursory treatment of it so far.
>vectors this knowledge might be acquired.

>The only way I can possibly think of for Tussah to know *who*
>he was a clone of is to get it directly from one of the gods. Presumably
>Pas...

I'm just supposing here, but if I were writing this story, having
established Silk's remarkable perceptiveness, I would would have had Tussah
*deduce* his nature. That said, I could imagine lots of ways for Tussah to
know up to and including be *told* by his guardians. Nevertheless, it is
*almost* essential that he be aware of it (although subconscious knowledge
cannot be ruled out since this a Wolfe story).

I said:
>>SILK and TUSSAH and were part of the Plan of Pas with respect to
>>Viron. But it was not necessary for Typhon to plan it from Urth. Tussah's
>>implantation could be argued to be timed with the Whorl's arrival to Blue,
>>but Silk's was done by after Pas's erasure."

Chris responded:
>planning that seems most problematic...And there seems no reason at all to
>go to the trouble of raising Tussah from an embryo and engineering his rise
>to Calde-hood, instead of just working with whoever happens to be in place
at
>the time.

Today in Iraq, there are over a hundred thousand US soldier organizing
patrols and public works projects. I presume this is part of the Plan of US
General Abizaid. But it is not necessary for Abizaid to have personally
planned the current any specific activity. He has layer upon layer of
individuals who are working to have his Plan succeed. They derive their
daily duties from that Plan, but their focuses change from day to day as
circumstances require.

Since it is an *inequivocal* fact that the embryos *were* on the ship to
with added abilities to unite and direct the colonists, it seems obvious to
me that they would start dropping those embryos a couple decades before
the colonists' planned departure. Who did that? I would guess the
technicians at either end of the Long Sun. Typhon did not have to *plan*
that being done per se. It probably wasn't even his idea. The colonists on
the Whorl came in three types: the Cargo who maintained varying cultures
(presumably artificially created), the Sleepers (who also had their memories
tinkered with to prevent them overawing the Cargo), and the Embryos,
and  the embryos with their pimped out genes. But the Plan went awry.
Pas was murdered by the other Mainframe modules, Tussah--one of the hyped up
embryos--was murdered, and some of the embryos were stolen
and sold on the black market.

Tussah's implantation was *probably* part of the orderly Plan. But Silk's
implantation and any subsequent similarly purposeful implantations (Mucor's
type does count) only required parties with means to emplant them and a
desire to see the Plan to succeed. It was CERTAINLY not necessary for
Silk's ascension to the Caldeship be planned from Urth.

>Well, Silk meets Mamelta
>rather than Kypris in Mainframe would imply that the same would apply to
>his father; since we know Typhon doesn't make it on the Whorl, it would
>imply that Silk's father is someone other than Typhon. So I don't think
>that interpretation is favorable for your purposes.

Buuuut, the father is NOT identified and Mamelta *is*. However, if
Mamelta = Kypris then Silk's bio dad is Typhon (unless you think Ty was
being cuckholded).

>>If it were important to hide a child from the eyes of the powerful, then
>>the best schools might be the worst place for his welfare.
>>Putting [child who was the image of Tussah] in the best schools
>>probably would have been murder.

>find? A nice middle-income neighborhood would have done just fine for

No it would not. The essence of middle class is social mobility. If you want
to
hide someone from the eyes of the powerful in a limited space (such as a
city), you have to place that person as far from the eyes of the powerful as
possible...such as a neglected neighborhood. What difference would it make?
With the leadership clones' innate skills they could overcome any social
obstacles to rise like a cork from the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Doesn't
Sik's ascension prove that?
What was the plan in placing a clone in Horn's neighborhood?
Have you read "A Confederacy Of Dunces"? There's a pivotal scene where Burma
Jones, in an act of sabotage writes information identifying his employer on
a bag of pornography. Why? How would that be sabotage? "Because it doesn't
belong there," he says. He doesn't have a plan beyond that. By the same
token, I doubt whoever implanted Horn had a specific plan for how he would
be used either, but such a clone would be a powerful tool and it would have
Tussah's face and it was against the Ayuntamientos perceived interests...so
that would be enough. Quetzal looks like a better and better choice since
Silk was MOVED to that neighborhood by the Charter. But, truth is not really
stated.

>>"Sword and Citadel". What Typhon says of his face is that "it is the face
>>that men are customed to obey". Obviously that is not an issue on the
>>Whorl unless Typhon intends the colonists to be ruled by physical
>>representations of monsters.

>that is difficult to straighten out...

Well lets start by quoting the text then:
******************************
"Why should you desire to have such a thing done?"

"That I might have life, of course...My physicians, of whom I naturally had
the best of many worlds, told me it might be possible for me to take a new
body, their first thought being to enclose my brain in the skull previously
occupied by another. You see the flaw in that?...The face--the face! The
face would be lost, and it is the face that men are accustomed to obey!...
I told them it wouldn't do. Then one came who suggested that the entire
head might be substituted. It would even be easier, he said because the
complex neutral connections controlling speech and vision would be left
intact.
I promised him a palatinate if he should succeed."

"It would appear to me--" I began.

Typhon laughed once more. "That it would be better if the original head were
removed first. Yes, I always thought so myself. But the technique of making
neural connections was difficult, and he found that the best way--all this
was with experimental subjects I provided for him--was to transfer only the
voluntary functions by surgery. When that was done, the involuntary one's
transferred themselves, eventually. Then the original head could be removed.
It would leave a scar, of course, but a shirt would cover it."

"But something went wrong?" [...]

Mostly a matter of time." The terrible vigor of his voice, which had been
unrelenting, now seemed, now seemed to wane. "Piaton was one of my
slaves--not the largest, but the strongest of all. We tested them. It never
occurred to me that someone with his strength might be strong, too, in
holding to the action of the heart...It was a period of great confusion as
well."
******************************

>are not of Typhon's line. So your answer here has to be "yes".

I disagree. Are you saying that if you had a grandchild with a genetic
disorder who benefited from gene therapy, that he would not be of your line
anymore?

Or are you saying that a clone who has had his genes tinkered with to some
degree is by definition no longer a clone? Well then what of the multi-armed
twin Number Five found? This is an interesting case for Sci-Fi family court,
but it doesn't matter in this case, because I assert:

1) Tussah considered himself to be a clone of Typhon.
2) Tussah knew Silk's genetic relation to Typhon.
3) Tussah, therefore, called Silk "the son not of my body", NOT in order to
differentiate his unnamed successor from all other claimants (since
knowledge
of that was clearly and ultimately not necessary), BUT because he considered
it a fact. A simple fact.

>leadership, then why did he have to worry so much about his face?

Well, I hope I shown that it is not necessary for Ty to have such special
manufactured powers. And the text shows that that was not the reason
for his concern over his face. The issue is that the people are
ACCUSTOMED to obey his face. Enclose his brain in another body
and to that extent he is starting from scratch. Enemies might even let out
that he is NOT the real Typhon, but a ursurper. The power of dictators
lay in their ability to prove that coming against them is fruitless. If
there
were any question about who was really in there. The whole farce
would collapse.

>the whole two-headed monster thing isn't exactly
>familiar (or positive, either).
But Pas did not originally intend to have that head very long. His testimony
states that Piaton held on to the involuntary bodily functions longer than
expected and the do to all the "confusion" the an occasion never arose where
it was convenient to figure out how to help it along.
>abilities) to take after his father quite a bit.]
Sons don't always look like their fathers. Sometimes they look like their
mothers instead. It happens. But Silk did inherit his father's blonde hair
and physical supposed physical significance.

---

From: Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 18:16:51 +0000

Combining, as well as I can, points from two separate threads. The 
discussion is getting more and more unwieldy, unfortunately.

Re: Cilinia and the tomb, JW said:
"If we presume Sev investigated every tomb, perhaps his memory is the key.
Why presume that? For that matter, why presume that Cilinia's tomb is
written a script that Severian can read?"

We don't need to presume he "investigated" every tomb in any intensive kind 
of way. The only assumption that need be made is that if there was a 
recognizable external feature of the tomb, Severian would have seen it in 
passing - that feature need not be written in any script at all. It is an 
assumption, but an economical one. And there are no alternatives here which 
don't rely on some sort of assumption that's even less modest than this.

This again leaves out the intriguing possibility that there is an 
organization to the way people are buried here. But ultimately a lack of 
information is going to prevent us from drawing any satisfactory conclusion 
about that.

JW said, concerning his position on the tomb:
"The reason why I hold it...is for the reason I gave: The description of its 
finding
is not as it should be."

and, to me:
"You didn't require this proof to believe the tombs were separate in the 
first
place. It is unself-reflective to say this and not to consider that you find
MSG's reference 'entirely convincing' only because it helps bring the
narrative back to a normative keel for you."

Not quite correct. I do not require proof *in addition to the obviously 
divergent descriptions of the two tombs in the text itself*. Now, I am quite 
aware that there are always presuppositions in play when interpreting a 
text, but my presuppositions here are not spectacular or even comment-worthy 
because they amount to the assumption that what is in the text is what is 
the case and not simply "badly written". Especially in light of your 
statement immediately preceding this that as far as you are concerned the 
description of the tombs is not the way it "should" be - that is, the way it 
would have to be in light of the theory you have settled on, which is 
precisely what was in dispute in the first place.

I am not going to knock you for using abductive reasoning, we are all 
engaged in it (including me), but on this particular item I do not at all 
think you are making a fair point.

[Also some points that I would love to take up on the Rajan's appetite, but 
unfortunately there is a reference I really need that I can't get until 
someone gives me my books back. The gist is that on at least one occasion he 
expresses fear/nervousness at the possible consequences of his having eaten 
too much that seem quite odd at face value.]

>cannot be ruled out since this a Wolfe story).

Fair enough, although I'd point out that for Tussah to make a deduction here 
he still has to have certain raw information at his disposal that would not 
have been available to anyone outside of Mainframe that I can think of. What 
are the premises on which he'd base his deduction, and how and more 
importantly *why* would he have that information?

[Snip summary of our exchange where I express some doubt over statements 
made over the course of a couple of threads that claim the involvement of 
Tussah and Silk in the Plan of Pas "essential", because it implies 
micro-managed planning, which leads to...]

JW responds:
>and  the embryos with their pimped out genes.

This kind of planning doesn't bother me, if all you're saying is "yeah, he 
planned to dump out a bunch of embryos right about this time and hope for 
the best". If this is what you meant then this particular dispute may well 
be a verbal misunderstanding. But I thought you were saying that Tussah or 
Silk - in particular - being in charge of Viron was *essential* to the 
operation of his plan for that city. And this would be a silly way to plan 
anything.

>and sold on the black market.

With what you just suggested above we need not even consider the embryos 
stolen and sold on the black market; perhaps they were made accessible to be 
"stolen" deliberately, by the technicians you mentioned above - it's as good 
a way as any to slip them into the population.

>Mamelta = Kypris then Silk's bio dad is Typhon (unless you think Ty was

Not quite what I meant here, let me rephrase. On your picture the pairings 
are Typhon/Mamelta --> Pas/Kypris. *If* you are going to find it significant 
that he would see Mamelta as opposed to Kypris, then the father-figure you'd 
expect to see here would be mated to Mamelta, not Kypris - regardless, the 
pairing expected would *not* be Pas/Mamelta, because that pairing never 
existed. But on the other hand if Typhon is the father then there will be no 
figure anologous to Mamelta on the Whorl. The situation lacks the... 
symmetry... that you might desire.

Regarding why one would place an expensive embryo (the supposed 
clone-that-is-Horn) deliberately into the worst neighborhood one could find, 
I said:
>No it would not. The essence of middle class is social mobility.

And god forbid he be placed in a position with social mobility, we wouldn't 
want that would we?

But seriously, I supoose it depends on the size of the middle class but what 
are they going to do? Exterminate the middle class? Clearly they did no such 
thing. Watch for exceptionally promising young lads? That sounds like a good 
idea, and they probably did that, but here being in the middle class affords 
you no real disadvantage - if you stand out enough to be noticed, you're 
going to stand out no matter where you are. In a poor neighborhood you're 
also going to be closer to the underworld, which not-so-incidentally is also 
where a lot of the spies hang out.

>Sik's ascension prove that?

And Silk's ascension most certainly was noticed. If it hadn't been so 
downright providentially timed, he probably would have been killed in his 
sleep before rousing any kind of successful revolution. As it was he lived 
quietly and unassumingly and was brought out of his shell into circumstances 
that were more or less immediately ready for him.

But aside from this a comparison of Silk's position in that neighborhood 
with Horn's is not valid. Silk *walked into* that community to a position of 
modest religious and civic leadership. And in his case, if he had been in a 
more wealthy district he would not have been given charge of the manteion 
when Pike died - a more senior augur would have been rewarded with the 
position. Horn's being "leader of the boys" is just not the same thing.

>disorder who benefited from gene therapy, that he would not be of your line

This is something of an unexpected shift. But working with your analogy, the 
difference is that in your example we are tracing lineage through natural 
descent/childbirth. No such relationship exists with our supposed clones. 
Something is or is not a clone of something else based on its genes. So in 
other words, no - if the embryo doesn't have the same genes [see note below 
for concerns on what counts as the "same genes"] as Typhon then:

(1) it's not a "clone of Typhon" in a strict sense, it's just a genetically 
engineered embryo. And further than that, even if *most* of their genes were 
the same, what you'd be saying is that most of the good parts (with the 
uber-leadership skills) are precisely the parts which *don't* come from 
Typhon.

(2) it disrupts this relation of thematic equivalence you're trying to 
establish, which we haven't debated so much (probably because it is a bit 
more personal and more difficult to critique).

I don't know whether this weaker pseudo-relationship suits your purposes or 
not. I didn't think you'd like this as an alternative. If that's what you're 
really suggesting, though, I stand corrected.

JW, with foresight, mentions a variation of the objection:
>twin Number Five found?

I assume that we are both self-conscious of the grammatical nature of the 
argument we could have here. What makes all the difference is what you take 
to be the relevant criteria for identity in the context at hand; otherwise 
you have a sort of sorites problem of "how many grains of sand can you take 
away from the heap for it to still be a 'heap', how many genes can you take 
away from a clone for it to still be a 'clone'". So with that in mind:

A relation of thematic equivalence suggests very strong criteria for 
identity here. And in this case you'd be suggesting that the most *relevant* 
genes we could consider are precisely *not* the ones he got from Typhon.

Put another way, what thematic difference could it possibly make for me to 
suggest that a character, say Remora, got the particular genes for his hair 
color from Typhon?

>This is an interesting case for Sci-Fi family court,

You've asserted all of this before. At the beginning, basically. But this 
doesn't help to show that it actually works as a theory/interpretation. And 
I don't see how it bears at all on what I was saying here, because all that 
question was meant to do was lay out a disjunction of possibilities, p or 
not-p. I didn't think you'd find the "not-p" horn of the dilemma appealing, 
but if you want to take it up that's fine, and see above. The below was 
meant for the "p" horn. [I really ought to rephrase that, but let the 
terrible jokes fly as they may.]

>for his concern over his face.

I as much admitted all this in my original. We are not having a textual 
dispute over that here, although I deliberately did not emphasize it as you 
have because I can see at least one interpretation which can make a case for 
denying that this is all there is to it. The idea was that either way you 
cut it there are problems. *If* you assume that Typhon did have genetic 
leadership powers (which is the horn of the dilemma this portion was 
addressed to), the pluses and minuses concerning his face are dwarfed in 
comparison. But this part of the discussion can be discarded entirely 
because, as you point out, you have embraced the line that Typhon did *not* 
have such genetic abilities.