Subject: (urth) Rajan and Food

From: Brian Lovely <brian at studiobl.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:58:32 +0000

He's a tree, he's a tree! Neighbors are trees, Inhumi are parasitic vines.
.or something.  Not sure what the Neighbor-version of Inhumi are-maybe the
vine with a face that is cut for Incanto's staff.  Except that seems so
quiescent.  You'd think the Neighbor-Inhumi would be a bit more active.  The
Inhumi are somehow about sacrifice and one race raising up another.  The
Neighbors infected humans with Inhumi to see what human-Inhumi would be
like.not sure where I'm going with this, but there's something here about
being willing to suffer for the betterment of the Inhumi.  So, a) the
crossbreed would be a "higher" being than the pure Inhumi, and b) you'd rid
yourself of them by being so passive.they'd take on your Christ-like
willingness to sacrifice yourself.

"James Wynn" crushtv at gmail.com wrote:

Granted, but when it is combined with the onset of ravenous hunger in the
Spring, we know more is going on here (incidentally, this is more of that
Tree-Neighbor connection that I still don't understand). I do not recall an
instance of LS Silk pretending to eat food set before him. He fasts, but
when there is not a lot of food available anyway, it is easy to be holy in
that way. Not the same thing as what happens in SS, I think.

--Brian Lovely

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:04:11 +0000

>He's a tree, he's a tree! Neighbors are trees,
>Inhumi are parasitic vines.  .or something.
>Not sure what the Neighbor-version of Inhumi
>are-maybe the vine with a face that is cut for Incanto's staff.

Brian, let's posit that the Neighbors are dryads--that their steady physical 
form is one of the "sleepy trees" in the forests of Blue. How do the inhumi 
make the jump to become vines? Or how do they transform back to 
winged/clawed vampiric reptiles? That is the fundamental problem with any 
"tree/vine theory" regarding the Neighbors and inhumi.

J.

---

From: Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:00:10 +0000

I've wondered if the strange creature (not the leatherskin) that jumps on
the ship with Horn when he first sets out, which is described much like a
neighbor but faaaar scarier isn't maybe a nieghbor/inhumi remnant.  That is
what occurred to me.

I can't get behind the neighbors as trees/inhumi as vines theory at all.  It
seems like such a stretch.  There is no denying a connection of some sort
between trees and neighbors.  I'm not certain it is a literal connection.
In New Sun, there are instances of Wolfe anthropomorphising trees and such.
With human qualities.  Why wouldn't the same be true on another planet, but
echoing the essense of the 'original' inhabitants, the neighbors.

And I think, in terms of the Neighbors infecting the inhumi on the Whorl, it
was primarily to get a sense of what the souls of the humans were like.
When they saw the result, they made their deciscion that they could give the
world to Humans, as they had confidence that the humans would have a chance,
that the neighbors did not, to end the cycle of inhumi/host extinction, due
to the possible quailities of the human soul.  I think, in Horn/Silk in
particular (keeping in mind that when the neighbors gave Blue to humans
through Horn, he was still Horn and not Silk at all), they saw something in
humanity (in my opinion, not his being a neighbor doppleganger) that
convinced them that they might be able, at some point, to make a peace with
the inhumi.  They wouldn't have known that if they had not first infected
the Whorl with inhumi.

What is much more controversial to me is that the neighbors say they also
spent time on the whorl, and befriended some there.  What are the
implications of this?  Who did they befriend?  We have an inhumi character
in Long Sun.  Is there a as yet unidentified Neighbor?

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:04 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> Brian, let's posit that the Neighbors are dryads--that their steady
> physical form is one of the "sleepy trees" in the forests of Blue. How do
> the inhumi make the jump to become vines? Or how do they transform back to
> _______________________________________________
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From: Jordon Flato <jordonflato at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:03:19 +0000

Also, it seems like the Neighbors choose to enslave the inhumi, much like
humans were doing to each other.  They were wiped out because of it.  I see
no evidence of the neighbors having" rid yourself of them by being so
passive they’d take on your Christ-like willingness to sacrifice yourself."
They failed in that regard spectacularly, apparently.  However, Silk/Horn
taking one as a son, and maybe being the first being to actually LOVE
another inhumi, is the christlike action, that 'changes the rules' as hide
says at the end of the Whorl.

It is the Love for the inhumi that gives the possibility of their redemption
and the ending of the cycle.  At least it seems so to me.
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From: Brian Lovely <brian at studiobl.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:11:49 +0000

Well, whatever the Neighbors are to trees, the Inhumi are to vines.  Maybe
their base form is the slug-like thing that drops out of a tree on green,
kind of an amphibian that lays its eggs in water.  But if there base form is
just a vine, then feeding on something higher pulls them up from vine to
amphibian.  It's all up.  The uncrossed Inhumi are still vines, those who
have managed to move up a level are slugs, those who have fed on humans are
bat-winged devils.

Crossbreeding.  The corn that Horn seeks on the Whorl.  The underwater
greenhouses, the strange doubling of limbs that many creatures on Blue
exhibit.  I read somewhere in the list a theory about polyploidy something
or other--some biology that I don't know anything about--but the upshot was
that you can cross corn in such a way that the genetic pattern is
doubled...something like that.  More to the point, like beasts with eight
legs.  Who was crossbreeding who, and why?  Did the Neighbors have to change
themselves in order to survive?  Were the 8-legged animals experiments, to
perfect the technique?  

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:04:11 -0500
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Rajan and Food
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
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J. 

------------------------------

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Subject: Re: (urth) Rajan and Food
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Subject: Re: (urth) Rajan and Food
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End of Urth Digest, Vol 56, Issue 58
************************************

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:37:32 +0000

I have no idea where it was, but I recall a fairly clear hint dropped that the inhumi evolved from parasitic vines. There is certainly no evidence that they are reptilian---merely reptile-like.

And I agree that the Neighbors are somehow tree-related. Wolfe never wastes a clue, so there must be something to that.

I don't see any problem with transformations from one form to another, although I wouldn't propose that the inhumi can change into vines and back any more than humans can change into monkeys and back. But they do have the capacity to winter underground just like plants.

The inhumi plainly are highly changeable, and do not need to conform to 20th-century notions of what a species is---especially since those notions are wrong. They change when they feed on sentient life; they change with the availability of food.

Message: 2

J. 

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From: Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:51:55 +0000

It is equally possible that the inhumi on Green are vine-like, not
because they evolved from vines, but because they feed on the trees on
Green, thus becoming more like them.

---

From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:07:07 +0000

--- On Tue, 4/28/09, Brian Lovely <brian at studiobl.com> wrote:
...

> doubled...something like that.  More to the point, like
> beasts with eight legs.
...

I hope you read my response, pointing out that polyploid
animals don't have double the usual number of limbs.

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0203/382.txt.shtml

Jerry Friedman

---

From: Matthew Groves <matthewalangroves at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:40:21 +0000

Yeah, for me, the take-away from the argument about corn polyploidy
(or whatever it's called) is not that the Neighbors have double the
normal chromosomes and therefore double the number of arms and legs.
That's silly.  The point (IMO), or the suggestion, is that the corn
hybridization business is, among other things, a *cue* that the
Neighbors are (in some sense I don't quite understand) a hybridized or
somehow immanently corrupted species.  Or maybe they're just fading
away like successive generations of corn crops, and like the enigmatic
ghosts of Mars in Bradbury's Martian Chronicles (not John Carpenter).
And the colonists represent a necessary pure strain for the rebirth of
civilization.  At any rate, I think the case is very strong that Wolfe
is constructing an analogy between the Neighbors and the diminishing
corn crop, and the colonists and the new seeds.  In TBotNS, the
primary decay/rebirth image was seasonal; in TBotSS it's this corn
generation thing.  I believe it's Marc who deserves credit for this
insight.

---

From: O'Donnell, Tim BOSI <tim.o'donnell at bankofscotland.ie>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:43:13 +0000

J. 
_________________________________
James, I wonder if the transformation Inhumi undergo when interred for long periods of time points to what happens to them?
Perhaps given a long enough period without prey they simply shrivel down to the form of a vine?
_________________________________

What is much more controversial to me is that the neighbors say they also
spent time on the whorl, and befriended some there.  What are the
implications of this?  Who did they befriend?  We have an inhumi character
in Long Sun.  Is there a as yet unidentified Neighbor?
_________________________________
For my money Mucor is the most likely candidate for someone to have befriended a Neighbour.
She takes it in her stride when she meets Horn/Silk in the one body and seems to be pretty comfortable
(though she doesn't like them much) with inhumi on the Whorl.  I am sure a Neighbour would have made a good
companion for her in her room pre-Silk's arrival.  They could have chatted in whatever way their mysterious
soul-travel powers worked.  In fact, it may have been possible for Mucor to have communicated from the Whorl
with the Neighbour (essences?) on the planets below.
_________________________________

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:39:50 +0000

>>Brian, let's posit that the Neighbors are dryads--
>>that their steady physical form is one of the
>>"sleepy trees" in the forests of Blue. How do the inhumi
>>make the jump to become vines? Or how do they
>>transform back to winged/clawed vampiric reptiles?
>>That is the fundamental problem with any
>James, I wonder if the transformation Inhumi undergo when
>interred for long periods of time points to what happens to them?

Well, there are references to the trees and vines being at war with each 
other. So it implies that inhumi-as-vines are not inactive. And if they 
*were* inactive as vines why would they say "Oh look! A human. I'll change 
to a reptilian winged clawed creature. And without humans and Neighbors they 
still have other animals to feed on, just not creatures that would give 
their children souls. I'm not trying to be obtuse here.  I can clearly map 
how an inhumi becomes human:
1) And inhuma feeds on a human.
2) Her child is ensouled with humanity.
3) The ensouled inhumi dream travels with a Neighbor and stays there.

David is wrong about his implication that inhumi are not flatly asserted to 
be animal; Although, the assertion is by the Rajan and he is not 
biologist-expert on the life-forms of Green. Still. They give birth, and I 
seem to recall that they lay eggs. Nevertheless, he and I agree that there 
*is* some intended connection between Neighbor/Inhumi and Trees/Vines (and 
it's not metaphorical). I just don't understand how we get there.
Unless....

Suppose the trees are not the physical form of the Neighbors. Suppose they 
are the form of their souls? Then you have a Neighbor running around as a 
greenbuck or some other form, and an inhumi bites him. The soul of the 
inhumi child would be plant-like. Then a Neighbor dream-travels with the 
ensouled inhumi to Blue and voila! Except, shouldn't the inhumi's soul be a 
tree then?

J.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:46:49 +0000

In diploidy, the number of genes is doubled. Sometimes the result is all-around greater viability, as with corn, and sometimes it is the opposite.

Either way, it doesn't mean doubling the limbs of animals---but then, if all life on Green and Blue is somehow plant-derived ... why not?

And of course diploidy is a metaphor for something here, and that possibility has been discussed.

***By the way, can you point me to the underwater greenhouses in the text? I may have missed them.

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:11:49 -0400
From: "Brian Lovely" <brian at studiobl.com>
Subject: (urth) Rajan and Food
To: <urth at lists.urth.net>
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From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:02:38 +0000

I think part of the answer must include some loosening of our terms, especially soul vs body and plant vs animal. For example, if a soul can be a tree, then it won't be a tree as we know it, but some kind of soul-tree or tree-soul.

And if a creature runs around on legs eating other creatures, it may still have evolved from plants, and thus be an "animal" only from an ecological point of view. It may still be a plant on the genetic and cellular level. (The Rajan can be right and wrong at the same time.)

And if "vine" is merely a morphological term, it doesn't indicate lack of sentience or other qualities---merely that an alien creature grows very tall and skinny, lacks support structures, and feeds on the alien trees (which also provide support). 

And so on ...

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:39:50 -0500
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Rajan and Food
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
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J. 

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:27:57 +0000

> I think part of the answer must include some loosening of our terms,
>especially soul vs body and plant vs animal.
>For example, if a soul can be a tree, then it won't be a tree as we know 
>it,
>but some kind of soul-tree or tree-soul.

To some extent you are right and yet wrong. When Horn's son sees Jahlee 
during dream-travel, the Rajan admits that she is --in this state-- entirely 
human. But he warns him that they are also quite different and that a union 
between them would be wrong.

So if the soul form of the Neighbors is trees, then, yes, they won't be a 
tree as we know it, but the difference would be undetectable by the 
colonists (unless they started moving around which they did for the 
resurrected Horn).

J.

---

From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:56:39 +0000

Not to nitpick... okay, to nitpick.  Diploidy is what we
have (except sperm and egg cells) and I think most organisms
have.  Double the usual number of chromosomes is
tetraploidy.

Jerry

--- On Wed, 4/29/09, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
> In diploidy, the number of genes is doubled. Sometimes the
> result is all-around greater viability, as with corn, and
> sometimes it is the opposite.

---

From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:39:47 +0000

You're right. And hybrid corn is tetraploid.

It's been a long time since college.

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:56:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Rajan and Food
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <558036.88140.qm at web50710.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Jerry

      

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