{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/109",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 109,
    "subject": "Moly, Tartaros",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-02-19T18:21:02+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-19T18:21:02+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0003-0159@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "al at interport.net"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-19T18:21:02+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Moly, Tartaros",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Molybdenum (Moly) is the real name Marble had before she took orders.\nMagnesia (Maggie) was Hammersmith's sweetheart's name, and she pretends for\na while to be that person though she is not by nature a liar (see Silk on\nthe airship roof talking to Horn). She reverts to Moly on the trip to Blue."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "But to give you the workout that you deserve . . . if Pas is just a\npuppet, then who is fighting Echidna, and how, and why?  If Tartaros\ncan't use images because he's blind, then Tartaros cannot be the\npuppetmaster, right?  So an accomplice, like Kypris, or, oh\nThelexiepeia (I got this new theory about her . . . I'm sure you can\nguess), or maybe Kypris and Thel together.  Anyway, okay, we'll say\nfor the sake of your theory that some non-Tartaros agency does that\nwhole Punch and Judy, Pas and Echidna act on the wide screen tv for\nthe Cargo's viewing pleasure and edification (IV, 204-205).  If Pas\nisn't real, then what are they using against Echidna?  And why didn't\nTartaros do any or all of this before, in the last few decades? (Or is\nthe Echidna in the Echidna-fighting-Pas scene a fake, too?)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Whew, that *is* a workout! One at a time: Tartaros is wiping Echidna out of\nMainframe but it takes time. He can't use his own image, but he can pull\nthe strings (manipulate the data) for the Pas image. Kypris is sort of an\nally, but I'm pretty sure it's he who pulled them at the first two Pas\ntheophanies we actually see (first, just after he leaves Auk for the first\ntime in a week and, second, the Pas/Echidna/Pas thing when what's left of\ntough old Echidna makes a last-ditch effort---I won't speculate on the Q\ntheophany). I don't think there's a shred of evidence that Thelx (or your\nbeloved Sphygx) is even alive any more (though she could be brought back).\nWhat are they using against Echidna--hey, Tartaros is something of a\nhacker, hadn't you noticed? Why didn't he do it before? I think it had to\ndo with the repairs Mamelta made to the ship, and also with his connection\nto Auk.\n\nI think that answers everything. The flaw in the argument is that Kypris,\nand seemingly only Kypris, is able to operate on some local screens (never\nin a manteion, you'll notice, and the only one for sure is Hy's) *before*\nthe Mamelta fix. But Q answers that flaw at one point when he says she's\nbeen running ever since Pas died and that they've never caught her. \"They\"\nseems to refer to the gods, but it could also refer to the technicians who\nshut down the theophanies for Q in the first place. Probably both.\n\nI think the sleeping bios are technicians and pilots, not beauty queens and\nhunky hunks. If they happen to be good-looking, hey, that's a plus."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Not to be mean or too flip, but we don't know the real name of a lot\nof characters and gods (sure, Pas is Typhon, but is Tartaros Erebus\n[<g> at alga for firming up this one, too, with Tartaros Rex!],\nand who is Echidna?).  Maytera Marble might be the major symbol of\nwhy we don't.  If you can figure out how Mint gets melded into the\nidentity Marble/Rose (as happens toward the end of EXODUS), then maybe\nyou are on the path."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Now mantis, you know I get impatient when your lineage gets too\nliteral---Wolfe has more imagination than that. But surely, surely you have\nnoted a connection between the malevolent Hera of The Odyssey, the\nmalevolent Juno of The Aeniad (sp) and our own beloved Echidna. And I don't\nthink Tartaros is Erebus at all---that's a grim joke having to do with his\nblindness, as both Potto and Scylla tell you. He seems more like a blind\nDaedalus (and we meet him in a labyrinth, heh, heh--oh mantis, is your\nbutton blinkin') or Hephaestos, Daedalus's patron. Hierax is the god of\ndeath (and there isn't a shed of evidence that he still exists either).\nMint is NOT melded into Marble/Rose. Jeez!"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The situation is very convoluted.  For one example, the issue of Marble's\nlies is complicated by the fact that the one lie we know most about\ndoesn't seem like much of a lie.  That is: she \"lied\" that she had\nposed for the goddess in the painting that hangs on the wall.  Then it\nturns out that the artist's mother posed, and the chem maid (future\nMarble, in whole or in part) stood in for her.  So she =did= pose for\nthe goddess, though not for the face of the goddess.  This is a\n=lie=?  Yumpin Yimini!"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Her lie, dear mantis, the one that upsets both her and Silk, is about her\nname. See above. Many a lass has lied to catch a good-looking soldier."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I still favor Potto's explanation, as you put it: a two\nhundred year (subjective) journey, one way, to establish a\ncolony for the glory of the Monarch.  Sounds like something\na monarch would do, like a bunch of them did on our planet\nover the last six hundred years or so.  (Penal colonies came\nlater, after the first waves of I-Claim-This-Land-in-the-Name-of \ncolonies, no?)  That Blue turns out to be a rotten place\ndoesn't necessarily mean that Pas had bad intentions.\nScience fiction is full of stories of people colonizing\nunpleasant planets.  Maybe the Blue/Green system was the\nbest Pas could get given his financial and technological\nlimits.  Maybe he bought or leased it from the Inhumi.  (\"In\nconsideration for a fee of 1200 juicy bodies per year...\")\nQuetzal is the super, come up to make sure the new tenants\nget moved in safely..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Of course. And with any other writer I'd never question the legit-colony\ntheory. But Typhon is so awful in NS and the gods (at least Scylla and\nEchidna) are so awful in LS and Wolfe is so sneaky that ya jus' never know.\n\nAnd I completely agree with you (rana) about the weather system being\nhopelessly, irreparably screwed up, which necessitates exodus no matter\nwhat lies without.\n\n-alga-\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}