{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/689",
    "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": 689,
    "subject": "The Prisoners in Cell 986",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-05-31T16:39:06+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-01T13:50:41+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0027@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-31T16:39:06+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Prisoners in Cell 986",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yet another mystery I detail in my CAVE CANEM involves the account of Mrs.\nBlount in VRT of FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS.\n\nMrs. Blount is an 80 year old woman Dr. Marsch interviews for his\nanthropological research, hoping to glean some abo lore. She tells the good\ndoctor how she was actually born aboard one of the \"colony\" ships just\nbefore it departed for Sainte Anne from Earth, but it is most curious\naccount.\n\nFor starters a war is going on on Sainte Anne, although it does end before\nher ship makes planetfall. We know this because Mrs. B. mentions how only\nthe very smallest French children did not bear war injuries. That the war\nhad been going on at least 21 years--which is how long it takes the ship to\nreach Sainte Anne-- we also know, because Mrs. Blount never says anything\nlike \"Gosh, imagine our surprise when we got to the New Eden and found out\na war had broken out while we're in transit.\" As the shipbound travelers\nare put to sleep on boarding the vessal, they're also precluded any advance\nknowledge of a sudden war having broken out as well.\n\nBut why would you want to ship out to someplace where a war was going on,\nespecially if you were pregnant, as Mrs. Blount's mother was? It would be a\nlittle like picking Bosnia for a vacation spree with your kids during the\nheight of the Yugoslav conflict.\n\nWe also have Mrs. Blount's account of the ship's name. It's Nine-Eight-Six.\nNot a name, but a number. Mrs. Blount subsequently tells us it's not one of\nthe first ships to launch, but one of the earlier. She also tells us she\nonce heard ships had names instead of numbers, which she feels would have\nbeen \"prettier.\"\n\nAgain, this seemed strange, and for a while both mantis and I attempted all\nsorts of decoding, not coming up with anything. But then as we were\ndiscussing how prisoner Two Twelve To the Mountains was almost certainly\nNumber Five (2 + 1 + 2 = 5), another clue fell into place.\n\nThe only numbers given in all of VRT are cell numbers.\n\nWhat if the ship named Nine-Eight-Six was actually a single big cell? I.e.,\nnot a colony ship in the regular sense of the word, but one that was used\nto transfer prisoners to an off-world penal colony--which immediately\nrecalls Australia, the similarly-named abos of which are already a tangent.\nQuestion for our fine Australian representative, Mr. Broderick: are there\nany towns in Australia named Blount? Or perhaps some historical penal\ncolony figure similarly named?\n\nAlso, granted that the passengers of Nine-Eight-Six are prison scum, would\nany government be bothered by the notion that they might lose their lives\nin some conflict on the other end of the destination? Me thinks not,\nmateys.\n\nThis is also lends a whole new angle to possible reasons for the aforesaid\nwar--i.e., the French of Sainte Anne-Sainte Croix doing a reverse Emma\nLazarus and saying to the Mother World, hey, would you mind not sending us\nyour tired, poor, muddled refuse, please.\n\nClearly, it's quite possible the sisterworlds of FIFTH HEAD may have\nstarted out as penal colonies.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n \n\n\n "
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0031@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Damien Broderick",
        "address": "damien at ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-01T13:50:41+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) re: The Prisoners in Cell 986",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0012-0027@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\"Robert Borski\" <rborski at coredcs.com> asks:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "are there any towns in Australia named Blount? Or perhaps some historical\npenal\ncolony figure similarly named?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Nothing springs to mind.  Bad luck.  \n\nDamien"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}