{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/880", "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": 880, "subject": "Star Trek & Alien Stones", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-07-01T15:09:55+00:00", "last": "1998-07-01T16:58:37+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at coredcs.com" }, "date": "1998-07-01T15:09:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Star Trek & Alien Stones", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Have any Star Trek friends you'd like to introduce to Gene Wolfe? How about\ngiving them \"Alien Stones\" to read? I see it basically as Gene Wolfe's take\non the original tv series.\n\nThe Gladiator is the Enterprise, Captain Daw is Captain Kirk, and\ncyberneticist Polk is Dr. McCoy. In Gene's universe, however (Gene Wolfe,\nnot Gene Roddenberry), there is no Mr. Spock, but there is a Mr.\nYoungmeadow (he's known by no other name) and he's the direct antithesis of\nSpock. Spock--a devil figure if I ever saw one, what with those pointed\nears and Vulcan heritage--is as coldly logical and unemotional as a\nmachine. Youngmeadow, on the other hand, is an empath, a lover of all\ncultures and peoples. He's also has the blond good looks of an angel (cf.\nSpock's dark saturninity), and his name 'young + meadow' recalls the\nverdure of the primordial Garden--as opposed to the fiery connotations of\nVulcan. He is our link back to Eden and symbolizes the concept of\nagape--selfless and self-giving love, according to the Bible--and in the\nend he sacrifices himself for the betterment of mankind. He's also\nresurrected like Christ, further extending the agape link.\n\nAlso present on this voyage of the Gladiator/Enterprise is Youngmeadow's\nwife. She too is an empath, and named Helen she's as beautiful and\ndesirable as the legendary Helen of Troy, whose face launched a 1000 ships.\nAll the men aboard the Gladiator are in love with her (\"Everyone,\nnotoriously, fell in love with empaths\"), including Daw. This love is what\nthe Bible refers to as eros, however, or sexual love, and is obviously less\npure than the agape of both Helen and her husband. Helen also brings to\nmind the endless succession of women James Kirk woos and beds in space.\n\nThen there's the giant alien ship discovered by the Gladiator. (Anybody\nremember \"The Corbomite Maneuver\" from the first incarnation of Star\nTrek? \"Alien Stones\" parallels it in many respects.) Daw, the Youngmeadows\nand various other crewmembers undertake an exploration of it (in part their\njourney through the ship's interior will resemble FANTASTIC VOYAGE), and\nwhat they eventually decide is that the entire ship may be a single giant\nartificial intelligence (though it obviously was built by six-fingered\nhumanoids, if we're to accept the base 12 and symbology of the ship's\nmathematical system). This recalls what Wad, Daw's synthetic alter-ego,\nhas mentioned earlier: \"Mankind has reached the stage where he evolves\nthrough his machine.\" What Wad fails to add, however, is: \"And as he does\nso he himself becomes more machinelike.\" \n\nI believe this moving away from the organic--from the stones of the world\nto the abstract, whether it's the Wad pc-generated simulation or binary\nnotation--symbolizes for Wolfe a retreat from the Edenic past, where we\nwere closer to God. Witness Daw's magnetic copies of the New and Old\nTestaments; they're absent in Wad's simulation (although Wad does have the\npotential for empathy/agape, according to Helen Youngmeadow). Daw also\navoids the use of sucking furniture to moor him while he sleeps; he's\nperfectly content to depend on the atavistic myoclonic response we\ninherited from our apelike ancestors (i.e., our arms will grip a tree limb\ntighter if we sense we're falling, even in sleep). As Helen mentions\nearlier, in regards to what the aliens may have left behind, what betrays\nthe heart are the things you take with you that are unnecessary. Daw could\nuse the sucking furniture, but chooses not to. He is at heart content with\nwhat God has given him evolutionarily. Another example of this moving away\nfrom God via machines: the space suits' survival programs, which tend to a\nperson's every metabolic need, even after death, when the flora in our\nintestines become the dominant organisms--another example of false or base\nimmortality. In many respects as well the giant alien craft is little more\nthan an asteroid sized version of one of these spacesuits. \n\nAnd yet for all its Godless parameters Daw stills likes the alien\nship--this embodies the last Biblical concept of love Wolfe has yet to to\nbring in: philos, or brotherly love, and perhaps it is the most important\nof the three for a starship captain to have. Daw also understands the\ndifference between eros and agape, and tries to moderate his approach to\nHelen Youngmeadow's desirability (recall as well the quote from the New\nTestament he cites about marriage in heaven). He is \"Alien Stones\" only\ncomplete human being, although the Youngmeadows are almost there. And while\nthe rest of humanity may elect to forsake its bond with God by entering\ninto congress with soulless machines, he will not. \n\nAs for the non-simulated Captain who taught Daw everything he knows, and\nwho Daw describes as \"A real captain...[and]... a crusty bastard [who]\ngenerally knew what he was doing\"?\n\nI submit he's an older, wiser James T. Kirk.\n\nscolex/Robert Borski\n \n\n\n\n\n\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1998-07-01T16:58:37+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Star Trek & Alien Stones", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "At 03:09 PM 7/1/98 -0500, you wrote: \n\n\"Helen of Troy, whose face launched a 1000 ships.\"\n\n\tYes. In the metric system, a minihelen is the amount of beauty\nnecessary to launch ONE ship.\n\nThe ever-loving, potrzebieic\n\nJim Jordan" } ] } ] }