{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/831",
    "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": 831,
    "subject": "Aunt Jeannine isn't an abo...",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-19T00:31:25+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-19T00:31:25+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0014-0053@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "William H. Ansley",
        "address": "wansley at warwick.net"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-19T00:31:25+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Aunt Jeannine isn't an abo...",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Aunt Jeannine isn't an abo, she's a dead abo priest!\n\nI don't believe this but I could have argued it from the parallels I found\nbetween the first and second novellas of 5HC. (I couldn't have argued it\nconvincingly, but I could have argued it.) I just started this way to see\nif alga would notice."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "But even if V.R.T. had somehow inherited Marsch's knowledge, how would\nthat tell him #5's a clone?  He hasn't seen #5's father; all #5 tells him\nis \"'I'm supposed to look a great deal like my father,'\" something not\nuncommon among us non-clones, not \"'I'm supposed to look exactly like my\nfather did at my age'\"; and as far as I know clones per se have no\ndistinguishing marks.  It's a strange passage (and has been so noted\nearlier on this list, IIRC).  Maybe he saw a photograph of #5's father\nsomewhere.  Another, perhaps less likely, possibility is that V.R.T. has\nheard rumors that there is a wealthy family of clones somewhere on St.\nCroix, and when he meets #5 and hear his remark he thinks \"Oh, maybe this\nis _that_ family.\"  I agree that it's best to stick as close to the text\nas possible, but I think the above suggestions are preferable in this\nregard to positing an otherwise unmentioned ability in V.R.T."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I assume that you mean personality merging when you say \"otherwise\nunmentioned ability in V.R.T.\" alga is the one who suggested the merger\ntheory, not me. I don't accept it any more than you do, as I attempted to\nsay in the message you are quoting from. I find the \"Are you a clone?\"\npassage strange for the precise reasons you do, as I also attempted to say\nin an earlier message.\n\nAlthough I can't recall any direct evidence right now, I certainly got the\nimpression in 5HC that the whole clone business was kept a deep, dark\nsecret and successfully so. Thus, I find the idea of VRT having some other\nsource of knowledge about the Wolfes unlikely.\n\nMy feeling right now is that VRT just guessed right about #5 being a clone.\n(I am tending to the \"all wild guesses in 5HC are true\" theory. Now all I\nhave to do is precisely define \"wild\" as it pertains to guesses and create\na numerical scale of wildness, list all the guesses in 5HC, rate them on\nthe wild-o-meter and figure out the 'wild'/'not wild' cut off point, then\nsearch the text for evidence of whether they came true or not. I should\nhave it done before lunch tomorrow. 8->) So he could have read up on\nanthropological relaxation between that time and the time of the fatal\nmeeting with #5 and Maitre.\n\nWhich is what you said, IIRC.\n\nFor two guys who agree so much we are exchanging a lot of messages. 8-)\n\nWilliam Ansley"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}