# Last Year is Ancient History

*The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 13 Feb 2001*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1153>

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### Dave Lebling
*13 Feb 2001, 21:42*

> From: adamsteph at earthlink.net (Adam Stephanides)
> But this would mean that, in introducing inhumi to the Whorl, the
> Neighbors were actually creating the inhumi as a threat for humans, by
> restoring their intelligence.

<<From: dd at adobe.com (David DiGiacomo)
The Neighbors of Green sent their slave inhumi to prey on the Neighbors of
Blue.  Once that source of blood was exhausted, the inhumi turned on the
Neighbors of Green, ultimately destroying their civilization.>>

I don't think the inhumi ever lost their intelligence. In OBW it's made
fairly clear that the Neighbors left Blue very recently. The revolt of the
inhumi on Green could have happened only a few years before the first
landers touched down. There could well have been enough Neighbors alive on
both Blue and Green to keep the inhumi (or at least a bunch of them)
intelligent until the fresh blood arrived.

The more interesting question to me is, why did the Neighbors decide to see
what human-inhumi were like before giving us Blue and Green? Couldn't they
just look around the Whorl themselves and draw their own conclusions? The
motives of aliens, eh?

    Dave Lebling
    aka vizcacha


*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

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