{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5658", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 5658, "subject": "Wolfe's Puzzles", "messages": 12, "voices": 8, "first": "2010-07-10T05:51:23+00:00", "last": "2010-07-27T14:40:53+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-07-10T05:51:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A number of years ago my brother asked me for something new to read\nand I gave him BotNS. After he read it he told me he had \"figured out\nthe secret\". I was a little intrigued (though not too hopeful) with\nwhat he'd come up with. He told me he had figured out that Dorcas was\nreally Severian's grandmother.\n \nNow I am no literary genius but, like some others, I thought that was \npretty clear and not a puzzle. But since my brother is at least reasonably \nintelligent I must conclude that Dorcas'family status should be considered\none of the puzzles of BotNS though prehaps a relatively easy one. \nI felt the same about the \"puzzle\" which suggests incest between Agia and\nAgilus though, again, I guess that wasn't obvious to everyone on first \nreading.\n \nI think a somewhat harder one (pre-UotNS) is that Severian was the \nConciliator. I did get that one...I think maybe on my second reading. \nBut once I started searching online for answers I found there were many\nmysteries I was unable to solve that others had. \n \nNotable among these is the Maid playing Holy Katharine identified as \nSeverian's mother. I could never have gotten that on my own. \nThere is nothing tangible in the text to \"prove\" this as fact but there\nis an appealing literary leap of faith to it which allows most of us \n(I think) to accept it as a reasonable working possibility.\n \nI like the puzzles where there are competing theories. Wolfe openly \ninvites us to solve the mystery of Hethor's mirrors. Borski reasonably \nargues that any mirrors big enough to summon a giant slug would be too\nbig to carry around on a long journey, hence Hethor must be a shape-\nshifter. Andre-Driussi counter-argues for the more parsimonious and\ntext-supported theory that the mirrors consisted of sail-scraps from the \nship, so even large ones could be conveniently folded up and carried.\n \nBoth Borski and Andre-Driussi are smarter and more knowledgeable about\nWolfe and literature in general than me. Yet it took them some 20 years\nof pondering before they came up with those theories. I keep that in \nmind as I occassionally purvey my own feeble theories and mystery \nsolutions.\n \nLast year I participated in an online Wolfe book-of-the-month club; \nspecifically each of the 12 Sun series books was read over the course of\na year. I was very pleased that Mantis (Andre-Driussi) participated and \nI took as full advantage as I could to pick his brain during the course of\nit. A shame he (and Borski) don't participate here anymore (that I know \nof). I saw Son O' Witz there but no others from here that I recognized. \nIs Roy C. Lackey now our eldest statesman? Maybe Tony Ellis or Dan'l?\n \nAnyway, the group came to one puzzle that none of us could make heads nor\ntails of, including Mantis, (at least I inferred that from his silence). It\nregarded a series of numbers, arranged in a pattern which was found on the\nSeal of Pas.\n \n5553 8783 4223 9700 34\n \n2221 0401 1101 7276 56\n \nSEALED FOR THE MONARCH\n \nI am no cryptographer type but I gamely gave the puzzle a few days of \nintense thought and effort. I mostly tried combinations of adding the\nnumbers together, since Silk makes the sign of addition over them \n(and various other things) I tried working in base 9 since that \nmight be in use in Viron math. No luck. I could not come up with an answer. \n \nThe best I could come up with is that it might be a cool solution if the\n9 groups of 4 numbers could be be manipulated into letters to spell out\nGENE WOLFE (since he often puts wolf[e]s into his stories. But I couldn't\nfind a way to do that. Perhaps someone else can or come up with some other\ngood solution.\n \nI guess another 9 letter solution could be Typhon-Set, the evil, bisexual\nEgyptian god of desert wind and drought, after whom the Greek multi-\nheaded monster Typhon was patterned. His Persian cognate is the god/demon\nPazuzu, which could be the source of the (nick)name \"Pas\".\n \n(I reject the explanation of derivation from \"Pan\"and \"pastoral\" as a false,\ntoo easily given clue. How is Typhon like a frolicking pipe-playing goat god?) \n \nAnyway, I also searched this Archive for solutions to the Seal of Pas but\ndidn't find anything. Did I miss something? Is there a known solution out\nthere? I truly hope Wolfe has enough respect for his readers to not have made\nthis an unsolvable snipe hunt to make idiots like me play pointlessly with \nnumbers and letters for hours upon hours.\n \nWith that assumption, my point (aside from random story telling) is that \nthere are some easy puzzles in these stories but some really, really \ndifficult ones also that take smart people many years to figure out (or \nare never figured out at all). But the mere presence of these complex \npuzzles and the occasional appearance of an interesting solution keeps\nme inspired.\n \n(FWIW, I think my own best, unique contribution is probably not this Father\nInire stuff, which I am still trying to refine, with help from y'all. \nI like best my ideas about time travel structures in BotN, which I've \nposted about at least a few times in the past.) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C380EB0.1000303@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-07-10T06:09:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The best I could come up with is that it might be a cool solution if the\n9 groups of 4 numbers could be be manipulated into letters to spell out\nGENE WOLFE (since he often puts wolf[e]s into his stories. But I couldn't\nfind a way to do that. Perhaps someone else can or come up with some other\ngood solution." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ouen is the Scottish form of Eugene. I just did a search and found out \nsomeone pointed this out 12 years ago." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(I reject the explanation of derivation from \"Pan\"and \"pastoral\" as a false,\ntoo easily given clue. How is Typhon like a frolicking pipe-playing goat god?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Pan is the only god to die within historical time (see Plutarch's \nLives), like Pas.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<41da683abcd099a10bc44b9abc3224c7.squirrel@brunians.org>", "from": { "name": "brunians at brunians.org", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2010-07-10T07:04:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway, the group came to one puzzle that none of us could make heads nor\ntails of, including Mantis, (at least I inferred that from his silence).\nIt regarded a series of numbers, arranged in a pattern which was found\non the Seal of Pas." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "5553 8783 4223 9700 34" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2221 0401 1101 7276 56" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "SEALED FOR THE MONARCH" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am no cryptographer type but I gamely gave the puzzle a few days of\nintense thought and effort. I mostly tried combinations of adding the\nnumbers together, since Silk makes the sign of addition over them\n(and various other things) I tried working in base 9 since that\nmight be in use in Viron math. No luck. I could not come up with an\nanswer." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "These are not random numbers.\n\nI would be shocked if they did not solve to something.\n\nWhat that is solution is, I have no idea.\n\nSeveral of the numbers are qabalistically interesting: if I were to try\nsolving this puzzle I might start there.\n\n." } ] }, { "message_id": "<293F652B433B432391104C81DE3F2490@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-07-10T08:24:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Lee Berman\" \nA number of years ago my brother asked me for something new to read\nand I gave him BotNS. After he read it he told me he had \"figured out\nthe secret\". I was a little intrigued (though not too hopeful) with\nwhat he'd come up with. He told me he had figured out that Dorcas was\nreally Severian's grandmother." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can't honestly remember whether I figured that out, or picked it up from \ninternet discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Now I am no literary genius but, like some others, I thought that was\npretty clear and not a puzzle. But since my brother is at least reasonably\nintelligent I must conclude that Dorcas'family status should be considered\none of the puzzles of BotNS though prehaps a relatively easy one.\nI felt the same about the \"puzzle\" which suggests incest between Agia and\nAgilus though, again, I guess that wasn't obvious to everyone on first\nreading." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Surely Severian caught them in flagrante in Agilus's death cell? That makes \nit about as much of a puzzle as whether Baldanders likes catamites." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think a somewhat harder one (pre-UotNS) is that Severian was the\nConciliator. I did get that one...I think maybe on my second reading.\nBut once I started searching online for answers I found there were many\nmysteries I was unable to solve that others had." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This one came immediately to me, I think." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Notable among these is the Maid playing Holy Katharine identified as\nSeverian's mother. I could never have gotten that on my own.\nThere is nothing tangible in the text to \"prove\" this as fact but there\nis an appealing literary leap of faith to it which allows most of us\n(I think) to accept it as a reasonable working possibility." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have never seen any real reason to believe this." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I like the puzzles where there are competing theories. Wolfe openly\ninvites us to solve the mystery of Hethor's mirrors. Borski reasonably\nargues that any mirrors big enough to summon a giant slug would be too\nbig to carry around on a long journey, hence Hethor must be a shape-\nshifter. Andre-Driussi counter-argues for the more parsimonious and\ntext-supported theory that the mirrors consisted of sail-scraps from the\nship, so even large ones could be conveniently folded up and carried." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "See also 'The Sister's Account' from 'Procreation', in which \"a crumpled \nlittle mirror\" is opened up until it is \"as large and smooth as a pier \nglass\". The narrator uses it to travel between universes. This story is \ncopyright 1983-4, so approximately contemporaneous with _BotNS_." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway, the group came to one puzzle that none of us could make heads nor\ntails of, including Mantis, (at least I inferred that from his silence). \nIt\nregarded a series of numbers, arranged in a pattern which was found on the\nSeal of Pas.\n\n5553 8783 4223 9700 34\n\n2221 0401 1101 7276 56\n\nSEALED FOR THE MONARCH\n\nAnyway, I also searched this Archive for solutions to the Seal of Pas but\ndidn't find anything. Did I miss something? Is there a known solution out\nthere? I truly hope Wolfe has enough respect for his readers to not have \nmade\nthis an unsolvable snipe hunt to make idiots like me play pointlessly with\nnumbers and letters for hours upon hours." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I take the view that it is essentially random. It is a fundamental point of \nalgorithmic information theory that almost all numbers are. Why should this \nnumber, essentially a barcode for one not especially important storeroom, be \nspecial?\n\nI don't see it as a 'trick' to make them random, because logically they \nshould be random. Of course I cannot tell whether they are in fact random. \n[There is also an important theorem that strings - or numbers - above a \ncertain length cannot be *proven* to be random!]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "With that assumption, my point (aside from random story telling) is that\nthere are some easy puzzles in these stories but some really, really\ndifficult ones also that take smart people many years to figure out (or\nare never figured out at all). But the mere presence of these complex\npuzzles and the occasional appearance of an interesting solution keeps\nme inspired." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed.\n\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Thomas Bitterman", "address": "tom at bitterman.net" }, "date": "2010-07-10T12:52:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 1:51 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\n\nAnyway, the group came to one puzzle that none of us could make heads nor\ntails of, including Mantis, (at least I inferred that from his silence). It\nregarded a series of numbers, arranged in a pattern which was found on the\nSeal of Pas.\n\n5553 8783 4223 9700 34\n\n2221 0401 1101 7276 56\n\nSEALED FOR THE MONARCH" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Some facts:\nThey are not SSCC-18 barcodes - the check digit is incorrect.\nThey are not credit card numbers - they fail the Luhn test.\nThe sum of the digits of all the 4 digit numbers and the sum of the digits\nof all the 2 digit numbers is the same: 9.\n\nOdd observations:\nAll 4-digit numbers have two digits that are the same. That seems unlikely.\nNone of the digits in the two-digit numbers are doubled in the same row.\nEach 4-digit number is larger than the one below it.\nSubtracting the bottom 4-digit number from its corresponding top yields\nanother set of 4-digit numbers, all of which have doubled digits.\n\nMy guess is that the 4-digit groups are the \"product\" code, and the 2-digit\ngroups are checksums. This is similar to how lots of different encoding\nschemes work and makes sense in this context. It only gives one-bit error\ndetection, so there may be another layer of checking I've missed. Maybe\nsomething having to do with the doubled digits.\n\nAs far as the product code itself goes, that might take a little more work.\nWolfe was an engineer and did some robotics work, so maybe Gray or Huffman\ncoding is being used.\n\nI am no cryptographer type but I gamely gave the puzzle a few days of" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "intense thought and effort. I mostly tried combinations of adding the\nnumbers together, since Silk makes the sign of addition over them\n(and various other things) I tried working in base 9 since that\nmight be in use in Viron math. No luck. I could not come up with an answer." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It shouldn't be base 9. There is a 9 in the code, and base n doesn't use a\nsymbol for n." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C3BBE72.4020906@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-07-13T01:16:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "<4C380EB0.1000303@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is there a link to \"pastor\"? Typhon-Pas does lead his flock off Urth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The best I could come up with is that it might be a cool solution if the\n9 groups of 4 numbers could be be manipulated into letters to spell out\nGENE WOLFE (since he often puts wolf[e]s into his stories. But I \ncouldn't\nfind a way to do that. Perhaps someone else can or come up with some \nother\ngood solution." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ouen is the Scottish form of Eugene. I just did a search and found out \nsomeone pointed this out 12 years ago." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "(I reject the explanation of derivation from \"Pan\"and \"pastoral\" as a \nfalse,\ntoo easily given clue. How is Typhon like a frolicking pipe-playing \ngoat god?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Pan is the only god to die within historical time (see Plutarch's \nLives), like Pas.\n\nu+16b9\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C3DDB75.9050802@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-07-14T15:44:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "<4C3BBE72.4020906@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "(I reject the explanation of derivation from \"Pan\"and \"pastoral\" as \na false,\ntoo easily given clue. How is Typhon like a frolicking pipe-playing \ngoat god?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Pan is the only god to die within historical time (see Plutarch's \nLives), like Pas." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is there a link to \"pastor\"? Typhon-Pas does lead his flock off Urth. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, \"Typhon *drives* his flock off of Urth\" is more accurate I think. \nHe also drives them off the Whorl.\n\nIt is Silk (indirectly) and Patera Quetzal (directly) who *leads* the \nflock off the Whorl.\n\nu+169b" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jack Smith", "address": "jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-07-14T20:56:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "<4C3DDB75.9050802@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Pan means \"all\", as in pandemic. Scylla says that her daddy was \"to be the\ngod of everything--that's what his name meant.\" (LotLS, ch. 11)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 11:44 AM, James Wynn wrote:\n\n (I reject the explanation of derivation from \"Pan\"and \"pastoral\" as a\nfalse,\ntoo easily given clue. How is Typhon like a frolicking pipe-playing goat\ngod?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Pan is the only god to die within historical time (see Plutarch's Lives),\nlike Pas." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is there a link to \"pastor\"? Typhon-Pas does lead his flock off Urth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, \"Typhon *drives* his flock off of Urth\" is more accurate I think. He\nalso drives them off the Whorl.\n\nIt is Silk (indirectly) and Patera Quetzal (directly) who *leads* the flock\noff the Whorl.\n\nu+169b\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-07-15T00:27:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Is there a link to \"pastor\"? Typhon-Pas does lead his flock off Urth. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, \"Typhon *drives* his flock off of Urth\" is more accurate I think. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He also drives them off the Whorl.\n \nHe drives them off the Whorl using heat and drought. This was a big part\nof my suggestion that the name Pas is derived from the Babylonian god/demon\nPazuzu as he and his Egyptian cognate, Typhon-Set, were gods of hot, dry \ndesert storms, drought, crop failure etc. Pazuzu had a bird head and the\nbird theme is quite prevalent in Long Sun.\n \nBut now that the connection between Inire and Pan/Pas has come to light I\nam forced to reconsider the truth of the Typhon/Pan connection more strongly.\n \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C3E670A.6060400@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-07-15T01:40:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "<4C3DDB75.9050802@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Fair enough. Shepherds do both." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "(I reject the explanation of derivation from \"Pan\"and \"pastoral\" as \na false,\ntoo easily given clue. How is Typhon like a frolicking pipe-playing \ngoat god?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Pan is the only god to die within historical time (see Plutarch's \nLives), like Pas." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is there a link to \"pastor\"? Typhon-Pas does lead his flock off Urth. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, \"Typhon *drives* his flock off of Urth\" is more accurate I \nthink. He also drives them off the Whorl.\n\nIt is Silk (indirectly) and Patera Quetzal (directly) who *leads* the \nflock off the Whorl.\n\nu+169b\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C4EE77E.1070307@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-07-27T14:04:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "<293F652B433B432391104C81DE3F2490@jill>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is another old post come unstuck in the works:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 7/10/2010 3:24 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n5553 8783 4223 9700 34\n\n2221 0401 1101 7276 56\n\nSEALED FOR THE MONARCH" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I take the view that it is essentially random. It is a fundamental point\nof algorithmic information theory that almost all numbers are. Why\nshould this number, essentially a barcode for one not especially\nimportant storeroom, be special?\n\nI don't see it as a 'trick' to make them random, because logically they\nshould be random. Of course I cannot tell whether they are in fact\nrandom. [There is also an important theorem that strings - or numbers -\nabove a certain length cannot be *proven* to be random!]" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, no, there are huge amounts of correspondence here - you see how \noften the same digit appears in series, or in the same group? There are \nmany parallels between the upper and lower lines, considerable amounts \nof consecutive digits and those separated by a single digit.\n\nOverall, English has an entropy of just a little more than one bit per \ncharacter; totally random digits have ln10/ln2 or about 3.2 bits per of \nentropy per character. This number stream (based on the difference \nbetween consecutive digits) has about 2 - almost certainly some kind of \nselection going on here.\n\nOr at least, this is what I gather from having taken Intro to \nInformation Theory; I'll see if I can ask my prof about it." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2010-07-27T14:40:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Puzzles", "in_reply_to": "<4C4EE77E.1070307@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Jeff Wilson\"