David Stockhoff's question about why Typhon didn't just upload himself into Piaton's brain put a funny thought into my head.
James Wynn's question:
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Suddenly, it's as though Remora and Xiphias vanished into smoke. Anyone have a theory about what happened here?
added enough fuel to the fire to get me to put the thought into writing. It is such an obvious idea, post-Matrix era. I have to guess someone has thought of it before though I haven't seen it.
Is it possible that it isn't just the gods who are uploaded to Mainframe on the Whorl? Could all the dirt and rock and air and cities and wars of the Whorl be electronic illusions for its electronic inhabitants? It would allow people to disappear easily (like Matrix agents). If the humans in question didn't really have brains made of proteins, fats and electrolytes but were, instead, computer programs it would explain why electronic gods can possess human beings so effortlessly (like Matrix agents). It would explain how humans in The Whorl can suddenly gain new powers and abilities (like Neo in The Matrix).
The story was written well before The Matrix came out so it wouldn't have been a hackneyed idea at the time. We see human personality downloaded into electronic beings of the prosimian Ayuntamiento family. That could be a clue to what is really going on in the entire Whorl.
Is it possible that going down to Blue is something like taking the red pill in
The Matrix- one's psyche and consciousness gets put into a fleshly human body again. Not sure how that fits into returning to The Whorl. Well, my familiarity with Long/ Short Sun isn't so great, so I'd be interested in the opinions of others.