Subject: (urth) Seven American Nights Forgery?

From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2008 05:32:35 +0000

The story ends with "Do you think this is his handwriting?...Perhaps. 
Perhaps."

And perhaps not. This adds K+1 to the abstraction. Nadan's account is 
already unreliable because of drugs he may have taken, his excisions, 
and other omissions. What if some of the story is forged?  We know the 
museum man has a machine that can forge handwriting, and another that 
can compose stories. It's not implausible that it could do so in Farsi.

Suppose the U.S. government decided that Nadan needed to disappear. They 
might have planted the notebook to lay a false trail for the 
investigator. I don't think the whole thing is forged -- that would be 
too simple of a "closed loop." The notebook is not of American 
manufacture; it wouldn't be so easy to replace the whole thing. But if 
the forging machine can wield a pen it would be easy to add a misleading 
ending.

Where does the forgery begin? The story of the glass of alcohol is 
fishy. Ardis would know that most Muslims don't drink, and could have 
learned from Bobby that Nadan himself doesn't. Knowing this, Nadan 
wouldn't have used that particular ruse. (By the way, the story seems 
like a twisted version of Cupid and Psyche). If my theory is true, the 
government also killed Ardis with his gun. She probably does have a 
deformity but the real Nadan never saw it.

The Easter parade account also looks wrong. A Muslim wouldn't refer to 
Jesus as "the dead leader lifted up," since Jesus is respected as a 
prophet in Islam. This could have been forged in case the paraders 
remembered seeing them. This might have been the last time both were 
seen alive. The costumes for the party were both fairly concealing 
(armor and Egyptian robes), allowing an impersonation there.

Further back than this, the story looks genuine. I believe at least the 
account of the room being searched is real. That's when the government 
agents took a copy of the journal as input for the forging machine. They 
may also have chemically analyzed the remaining eggs and taken the 
hallucinogenic one. They would want Nadan sober for his interrogation.

What was the motive for the abduction? The museum man could well be a 
high-level government agent. The man with no lower jaw may have let slip 
a major rumor when he said "Someday we are great again." Given the way 
he talks, there's no phonetic difference between that and "Sunday we are 
great again." Perhaps a big forgery was planned for Easter Sunday that 
could change the fortunes of fallen America.

If so, the appearance of the museum man at the play was no coincidence. 
He followed Nadan there and pumped him to see what he knew. A few days 
later, someone decided that Nadan knew too much...

Does the forgery account for a missing day? I doubt it. Computers can at 
least count. I count seven full days if the first day of sightseeing 
went north but not all the way to the ruined capital buildings. There 
are a few hints that this is the case:

1) Writing with closed shutters and a candle (p. 340, Orb edition of 
IODDAOSAOS). Something outside beating on the shutters (A wild animal? 
Moths?) seems to indicate late at night. On the day he visits the ruins, 
he opens the shutters and the sun is just setting.

2) He's fearful and homesick that first day. The second day he's brave 
enough to go out to a restaurant and to the theater at night.

3) His attitude about going to the park changes. On p. 339 he wants to 
postpone it until he has seen other things. On p. 344 he is ashamed he 
didn't go that day. This seems more likely if they are two different days.

4) He says he spent the whole day at the ruins on p. 347. The other day 
mentions sleeping late, listening to musicians, and people-watching. His 
first writing for that day is at about 4:30pm (midnight Iran time with 
local daylight savings time p. 338) back in his room, which doesn't 
allow that much time for ruin explorations.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 16:44:32 +0000

And in a subsequent post:
>The reader of the forged account is supposed to believe that Nadan,
>despondent over having loved a werewolf and possibly crazed by the
>drugged egg, has set out alone for the interior of America. I believe he
>was captured and killed by the F.E.D. instead.

If the F.E.D., for reasons unexplained, wanted Nadan dead, and in fact
killed him, they would have to have gone to extraordinary lengths in forging
an account no one else had reason to believe even existed, and in so doing
do something pointless and stupid. If Nadan had been killed by the U.S.
government, the government would have no reason to suppose that a private
investigator would eventually be hired by his family to investigate his
disappearance, so there would be no need to "plant" a false account. Nadan
would simply have disappeared without a trace, or been the victim of a
random "crime" or "accident" in a rough and violent land.

-Roy