{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/7",
    "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": 7,
    "subject": "Witches, mainly",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-04-15T04:02:00+00:00",
    "last": "1997-04-15T04:02:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0001-0008@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-04-15T04:02:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Witches, mainly",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Reply:  Item #5601061 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00#\n\nLasrach,\n\nWell, the witches' table artifact isn't in the Lexicon, so I'll tell\nwhat I know and what others have said.  You remember it quite well.\nThe hairless critters seem crippled, though, I think.  Anyway, if it\nain't some hologrammic form of Pac Man (<g>), then it is very hard to\ntell what it is.\n\nJeff Wilson and I tried to tackle this, using two analogies (\"witches\nreally are witches\" and \"witches really are some technologically\nadvanced department of government, such as we might have in the US\ntoday\") and their shared origin with the torturers' guild.\n\nFirst of all: since the Matachin is the tower of Severity, is the\nWitches' Keep the tower of Mercy?  No. (That would be the healers'\ntower, or the cathedral of the Claw and the pelerines.)\n\nWhen the jailers' guild was broken up into two, the torturers were\ngiven the task of strict obedience and were forbidden to interrogate\nor judge in any way--theirs is only to do what they are told to do.\nGranted, the women were said to be too sadistic, so the witches\npresumably are forbidden to torture . . . but can they interrogate?\nWell, not directly at least, and they don't have any clients . . .\n\nTraditionally, witches are involved with information gathering.\nCrystal balls, magic cauldrons; Macbeth and witches of Endor stuff.\nJeff thought that the Windows of the Whorl pointed to similar casual\nhigh tech devices for the witches--I said maybe but look out, those\n\"mirrors\" are teleport devices.  Basically we decided that the witches\nwere something like the NSA, monitoring ftl/psionic communications,\nwatching for big movements against the Commonwealth.\n\nWhich brings us back to that table.  I still don't know.  If like\nreal witches, then maybe it is a form of divination, like\nfortune-telling by cockroach observation.  It seems somewhat like a\nscientist watching mice run a maze.  Since the witches don't show any\nbiotech ability, it seems less likely that these are homunculi that\nthey have created, yet that is a possibility.  Or it could be a\nsacred window showing life-in-progress on another world, or in\nanother dimension.\n\nThe Miracle of Apu-Punchau, OTOH, was likely created by the good ship\nTzadkiel.  Yes, the tunnel corridors of the Old Citadel seem linked to\nthe corridors of of Time (as the Last House is) since Valeria has lived\nher life outside of Time as we know it.  The Green Man does not know of\nthe New Sun since the New Sun is all he and his kind have ever known.\nJonas & Miles . . . ah, that's a complicated one I'll save for later,\nor for others . . . or for later others . . . the option you mention\nis the most comforting one (well, it was for me at least), but I'm afraid\nthe evidence points to something a bit more disturbing . . .\n\nWell, enough for now.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}