{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/757", "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": 757, "subject": "Abo Artifacts", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-06-10T14:48:38+00:00", "last": "1998-06-11T08:15:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-06-10T14:48:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Abo Artifacts", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Several dispatches ago, Tony Ellis wrote:\nWe're shown that VRT lacks the manual dexterity to have made the fake\nflint tools RT shows Marsch. That leaves RT. How did he make them, if\nhe's an abo too?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Victor comes right out and says such tools are made with one's teeth" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No he doesn't. He says \"With their teeth.\" Like any sulky adolescent\nconfronted by the embarrassing stupidity of adults, Victor is getting\nhis revenge by providing the most minimal, unhelpful response possible.\nHe's saying two things. He's saying \"You think my people made stuff like\nthat? What with, their teeth?\" And he's saying \"When they wanted to cut\nsomething they used their teeth. You morons. \"Only a few lines further\non, he clarifies this: \"The Free People didn't use those things. ...if\nthey wanted to cut something they used their teeth.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You don't -seriously - think it's possible to fashion flint tools with\nyour teeth, do you Robert?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marsch later adds such tools require little manual dexterity to chink\nout." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Absolutely. That's why RT can make them with his arthritic hands. VRT\nstill can't because he's a hopeless ham-fisted abo. He doesn't have this\nskill because none of his people have any tool-using skills. How many\ntimes do you count Sandwalker using a flint knife? And the other Hill\nPeople? And the Marshmen? Anyone?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm now willing to conceed you the wisdom of your arguments here, Tony. But\nthen where do these artifiacts come from if at the same time I wish to hold\ntrue to my Roy-is-an-abo theory (as opposed to your own nihil alienum)?\n\nWell, consider the following entry in VRT's notebook, somewhat after he's\nkilled Marsch:\n\n\"By sisterworld's light I have been looking among the rocks for\nimplements--eoliths. I have found\nnone.\" (p. 239)\n\nEoliths are chipped stones of the late Tertiary Period formerly held to\nhave been made by humans, but now known to be products of a natural,\nnonhuman agency (weathering, volcanic action, erosion, etc.). I submit\nthese are the so-called Annese artifacts he and Pop sell at their stand.\nRoy never made them because he has the same ham-fisted clumsiness you\nattribute to Victor. Personally I can think of no other reason why Victor\nwould be searching for eoliths, but if you can I'd be happy to hear you\nout. After all I was clearly wrong the first time. \n\nI also contend this bit of text suggests that Victor may have returned to\nRoncevaux after killing Marsch and did not spend all of his claimed three\nyears in the back of beyond.\n\nNotice also how Victor's search has not been conducted by daylight, but the\nlight of Sainte Croix. This suggests the museum artifacts Number Five sees\nare either eoliths or replicas of eoliths.\n\nRobert Borski (who is still looking for xanthic exculpation in the yellow\naspect of Eve's buttoned dress)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-06-11T08:15:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Abo Artifacts", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Robert Borski wrote:\nEoliths are chipped stones of the late Tertiary Period formerly held to\nhave been made by humans, but now known to be products of a natural,\nnonhuman agency (weathering, volcanic action, erosion, etc.). I submit\nthese are the so-called Annese artifacts he and Pop sell at their stand.\nRoy never made them because he has the same ham-fisted clumsiness you\nattribute to Victor." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry, but the artifacts the Trenchards sell are clearly manufactured\nfakes. Dr Marsch notes \"several... I am fairly sure had been made from\ncoloured glass, probably from pieces of broken whisky bottles. They were\nnew, as was shown by their razor-sharp edges (genuinely old flint or\nvolcanic glass implements have always lost their keeness by friction\nwith soil or grit);\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Notice also how Victor's search has not been conducted by daylight, but the\nlight of Sainte Croix. This suggests the museum artifacts Number Five sees\nare either eoliths or replicas of eoliths." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They're replicas of Trenchard's fakes. We're told that the museum\nartifacts are plastic replicas, and Trenchard boasts of his items that\n\"castings have been made of them so they could be sent all over the\nworld, and even to Sainte Croix.\"" } ] } ] }