{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5970",
    "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": 5970,
    "subject": "Urth Digest, Vol 78, Issue 46",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2011-02-12T21:43:21+00:00",
    "last": "2011-02-12T21:43:21+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<AANLkTi=2AFwDo6neQsL+cBRvAhvFvYLrVuN25XQv0T+k@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Andrew Mason",
        "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com"
      },
      "date": "2011-02-12T21:43:21+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 78, Issue 46",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "James Wynn wrote:\nI don't think it is likely Silk would ever have lived his life as a\nhumble augur. Assuming Silk is the one Tussah was thinking of when he\nsaid \"my son shall be Calde after me\", he new that his abilities would\ncarry him to the top wherever he was placed."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Was Tussah expecting to die just when he did? If not, perhaps he\nintended to do more to bring Silk to power. Still, perhaps he would\nhave become prolocutor. Quetzal shows you can do that without a\nspecific background.\n\nBut the Outsider is important. Silk suddenly comes to prominence\nimmediately after his enlightenment, and while it may be that Quetzal,\nand the Trivigauntis, are giving pushes to this movement, it's\nhappening before they could have become involved; people are standing\nround listening, and kneeilng in the street for a blessing, while he\nis talking to Blood right at the beginnng."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It is unlikely that Silk was originally the only one with gifts of his\nsort. However, he might have been the last. Or there might be others in\nplain sight. They would undoubtably be persons in positions of\nleadership--leadership gained without certification or struggle."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yes. I've sometimes wondered if Siyuf is one.\n\n\n. It's implied that the embryos were granted disparate abilities,"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "but it is hard to imagine that anyone would have thought only one with\nSilk's would be necessary."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, I agree, but that's because I think that while Silk is special,\nhe isn't super-special - he's not (intended to be) a figure of\nWhorlwide significance. I would think he is there to provide a leader\nfor Viron (or the Vironese colony), and there would be similar people\nin other cities. Those who think Silk always had a special destiny,\neither as vehicle or as heir, would see things differently\n\n\n By the the time of the evacuation, the human"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "embryos had all been lost. Perhaps, they were all located beneath Viron\nbecause it was the Cargo most like the Commonwealth."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think that if there were one store of embryos for the entire Whorl,\none would expect it to be at Mainframe. I also think it's significant\nthat the embryos were on the lander; this suggests they were meant to\nbe used after the landing 9as the animal embryos were), to provide\npeople with special ability in the second generation, which may be\nwhen the real hardships of colony life are likely to kick in."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "---------------"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And some he"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "? ?sent as frozen embryos, the products of carefully controlled matings\n? ?in his workshops.\"\n? ?RttW, Chap 6\n\nFor those who say Silk was a test tube baby and not a clone, here is\nyour confirmation."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thanks! And also (unless 'matings' is taken very literally) not an\nembryo produced the normal way and then harvested - at least, not the\nchild of people who were lovers in ordinary life."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}