{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1261", "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": 1261, "subject": "Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "messages": 7, "voices": 6, "first": "2001-03-12T12:14:36+00:00", "last": "2001-03-12T21:59:38+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Robert Borski", "address": "rborski at charter.net" }, "date": "2001-03-12T12:14:36+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gamemeister Maroney (Unplugged) having asked:\n\n\n\nWell, as I've been arguing for some time now, I believe this notion answers\nmore questions than it generates.\n\nFor starters, it explains why the Blue-Green system was targeted by the\nWhorl. Pas/Typhon is simply going home. Doubtless, other habitable systems\nmuch closer to Urth could have been targeted, but they haven't--why not? To\nargue otherwise--that the Whorl arrived at Blue-Green by accident or\nmalfunction--leaves a rather hollow core at the center of the Long Sun\nseries. (\"Why did we come here, Silk?\" \"It appears, students, that the Whorl\ntook a wrong turn at Alpha Centauri. Whoops!\") I also find the idea that the\nWhorl has been programmed to temporarily stop at Blue-Green while it flushes\nits bilge tanks and reboots untenable because it takes away the impetus for\nthe Mainframe rebellion. As Horn notes, \"[Scylla] and her mother and some of\nPas's other sprats had tried to kill him because they did not want people\nleaving the old whorl to come to Blue where they would not be the gods.\" But\nif the Whorl's prime directive is as seed ship or long range voyager, why\nwouldn't Echidna et al still be aboard as its gods? Surely, they don't need\nthe colonists of Blue to worship them if they have other congregants.\n\nSecondly, Pas and the Neighbors both have two heads. Coincidence or plot\npoint? For the most part the twice-normal biology of the Blue-Green systems\nseems utilized more for exotic color than anything else (love those\neight-legged crocodiles of the Nadi). And as for Pas not having multiple\nlimbs, there's evidence that the Neighbors know how to bioengineer\nshape-shifting in the inhumi, so perhaps Pas knows how to do this himself.\n\nThirdly, who is the little girl in Hide's dream (RTTW, pgs. 22-24) who is\nbeing pursued by the talus-like doll and why are there also \"tall men with\ntoo many legs\" in some of the rooms Hide looks into? Isn't she Scylla, who\nwe know is on the run from Pas? And why would there be Neighbors present?\nWolfe's dream sequences are almost always meant to be revelatory.\n\nFourthly, at one point during IGJ, Horn sings in and translates from\nNeighborese--and not amateurishly, but well enough so that it completely\ndiscombobulates poor Colonel Terzo. When and how did Horn learn the language\nof the Neighbors? From darling one-armed Seawrack? But isn't Seawrack a\nminion of the Mother--Greater Scylla's clone on Blue? How, in turn, has\nScylla come to learn Neighborese? Personally, I favor the idea that the Pas\naspect of PassilkHorn is the one who's providing the translation skills\nbecause it's the least complicated. As a Neighbor, he's simply speaking his\nnative tongue.\n\nAnd these are just off the top of my much-scratched head.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2001-03-12T14:20:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\n\nFine and well, but you still haven't dealt with the fact that when\nSeverian meets Typhon in SWORD, Typhon doesn't remotely resemble a\nNeighbor, in any way, form, or fashion. Indeed, if he's a Neighbor,\nthe grafting of a human's head onto his shoulder seems unlikely in the\nextreme.\n\nIf the only way to arrive at a set of answers in BOTSS is by\ncompletely destroying continuity and consistency with BOTNS, my\nopinion is that those can't be the right answers." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com" }, "date": "2001-03-12T14:33:55+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:14 PM 3/12/01 -0600, Mssr. Borski wrote:\n\n\nWell, as I've been arguing for some time now, I believe this notion answers\nmore questions than it generates." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't like any of the answers, frankly. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For starters, it explains why the Blue-Green system was targeted by the\nWhorl. Pas/Typhon is simply going home. Doubtless, other habitable systems\nmuch closer to Urth could have been targeted, but they haven't--why not? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A. We don't know that there are. There's no evidence whatsoever to judge\nwhat criteria Typhon used to select the target for the _Whorl_. Personally,\nI think that habitable planets are few and far between. (Of course, I also\nbelieve that planets are an unnecessary luxury.)\n\nB. We don't know that they haven't. There's no textual evidence that the\n_Whorl_ is the only ship of its type. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Secondly, Pas and the Neighbors both have two heads. Coincidence or plot\npoint? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Pas's second head is artificial. This is explicitly stated in _New Sun_.\nTyphon doesn't show any evidence of having any other attribute of the\nNeighbors, including a long nose, an excess of limbs, etc. I wouldn't\npresume to call something that obvious a \"coincidence\", but I think that\nthe connection is more subtle than that. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thirdly, who is the little girl in Hide's dream (RTTW, pgs. 22-24) who is\nbeing pursued by the talus-like doll and why are there also \"tall men with\ntoo many legs\" in some of the rooms Hide looks into? Isn't she Scylla, who\nwe know is on the run from Pas? And why would there be Neighbors present?\nWolfe's dream sequences are almost always meant to be revelatory." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't see any direct link between the presence of Neighbors in Hide's\ndream and the presence of Scylla. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Fourthly, at one point during IGJ, Horn sings in and translates from\nNeighborese--and not amateurishly, but well enough so that it completely\ndiscombobulates poor Colonel Terzo. When and how did Horn learn the language\nof the Neighbors? From darling one-armed Seawrack? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Obviously, you are more familiar with the book than I, but I never got the\nsense that Seawrack was singing in the Neighbors' language, or that Horn\nhad the opportunity to actually learn it from her. It seems equally likely\nthat Horn learned the Neighbors' language from becoming Neighborly himself. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://www.nyrsf.com\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-03-12T12:45:47+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'll reply to a couple of specific points, but, Robert, it seems to \nme that this (like much discussion on this list) is a flagrant \nviolation of Ockham's principle, multiplying entities (in this \ncase unsupported hypotheses) with no real need. Nothing you've\nbrought up is inconsistent with Typhon being pretty much what he\nappears to be in tBotNS.\n\nSpecific points:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For starters, it explains why the Blue-Green system was targeted\nby the Whorl. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because it had to target _some_ system. \n\nThere is no particular reason to suppose that Ty-Pas knew the \nNeighbors and/or inhumi existed. Nor is there any particular \nreason to believe that there were other star systems, nearer \nto Urth, that would serve Typhon's purposes. Note \n (1) The timescale; we're talking about a future distant enough\n that the \"neighborhood\" _will_ have changed.\n (2) We don't entirely know what Typhon's purposes _are_.\n (3) Given (2), we can't say for certain what would serve \n them -- for example, he may have wanted a certain minimum\n distance from Urth (because, e.g., nearer stars were already\n colonized, or were being monitored by Hierodules and the \n like to prevent human \"infection\").\nFinally, there is no real reason to assume that Typhon himself\nactually picked the target! He's a tyrant; he wouldn't do something\nlike this for himself. He'd say \"I want a system with these \ncharacteristics,\" and tell someone else to find it. (We know he\nhad _some_ boffins he trusted, or he'd never have submitted to the \nIncredible Two-Headed Man surgery.)\n\n[deletia]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Pas and the Neighbors both have two heads. Coincidence or plot\npoint? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or maybe just Wolfean obsession. He likes multiple heads.\nCerberus and all that, neh?\n\n--Dan'l\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Jordan", "address": "jbjordan4 at home.com" }, "date": "2001-03-12T16:45:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:14 PM 3/12/2001 -0600, Scratched Two-Headed Borski wrote:\nGamemeister Maroney (Unplugged) having asked:\n\n\n\nWell, as I've been arguing for some time now, I believe this notion answers\nmore questions than it generates." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I'll take the opposite view. More problems than answers.\n 1. Typhon has a human wife and human children and a human lover, no?\n 1a. They are wife/lover/children of his first body, therefore he's \nhuman.\n 1b. They are wife/lover/children of his second, grafted body; so \nmaybe he wasn't human to begin with.\n 1c. This is not Wolfe but Star Trek, and humans intermarry with \naliens all the time!!!!\n\n 2. Typhon's original head is not said, from my memory, to have any \nunusual characteristics that might make us think it was a Neighbor head. \nOkay, Wolfe dreamed up the Neighbors later on, but in that case we'd expect \nPas to be described as having one weird head. Don't recall any such thing.\n\n 3. I cannot recall evidence that Neighbors have two heads. Neither \nBabbie nor any of the other indigenous lifeforms of Blue do, do they? Have \nI forgotten something here? Even if they do, my other arguments still stand \n(for me, today).\n 3a. It's simpler, for me today, to think that Pas has two heads \nbecause by the time the Whorl was sent, Typhon's original body had died and \nhe'd grafted his head onto the second human body.\n\n 4. If Typhon wanted to Do Something About The Inhumi, why weren't \nthe armies of taluses and chems the first ones on board of the landers? \nThey'd be the Marines, sent in to clean up Green and Blue, not only because \nthey are soldiers but also because they'd be immune to the inhumi. That \ndoes not happen, and remember that Pas is alive and well by the time the \nlanders are sent to implement the Plan of Pas.\n 4a. Okay, the Whorl arrives, and Pas learns that the Neighbors \nhave gone. Well, all the more reason to send in the chems and taluses to \nclean up the inhumi before the human settlers arrive, or in tandem with them.\n 4b. Okay, Pas did not realize the inhumi would prey on the humans, \nbecause he was asleep when they came aboard the Whorl and was not aware \nthat they could. Well, he found out later on that the inhumi were preying \non humans, if not before, then from Horn; but probably as soon as he \nresurrected and chatted with his sons and daughters. So why not send in the \nchems then?\n\n 5. Well, maybe Typhon/Pas HATED the Neighbors, and the chems and \ntaluses were to fight the Neighbors. When he learned they were gone, he \nkept the robot armies on the Whorl.\n 5a. That means Typhon is either a Rogue Neighbor who hates the \nother Neighbors, or a human. I much favor the latter, for the reasons given \nabove.\n\n Now, I'm game to the suggestion that Typhon knew about the \nNeighbor system, and sent the Whorl there first. Humans have been in space \nfor a long time, and surely this system was known, in which case Typhon \nselected it for some reason. But given the presence of aliens on Urth, he \ncould have done so for other reasons, perhaps:\n (a) He knew that the Neighbors were vacating these planets, and \nthus that they were ripe for colonists.\n (b) He had a deal with the Neighbors; but in that case, why not \nsent in the chems and taluses?\n (c) He hated the Neighbors and wanted to take over their homeworlds.\nI favor (a).\n\n Well, in terms of (a), why didn't Pas send in the Robot Armies to \nwipe out the inhumi? That's a good question. At this point, I can only \nassume that the Plan of Pas means humans must fend for themselves. Which \ncarries this corollary: That the robots are only for the Whorl, and the \nWhorl was planned all along to make more than one stop.\n\nPatera One-headed Nutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com" }, "date": "2001-03-12T19:02:43+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 04:45 PM 3/12/01 -0600, Nutria wrote:\n Well, in terms of (a), why didn't Pas send in the Robot Armies to \nwipe out the inhumi? That's a good question. At this point, I can only \nassume that the Plan of Pas means humans must fend for themselves. Which \ncarries this corollary: That the robots are only for the Whorl, and the \nWhorl was planned all along to make more than one stop." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"What was Typhon's purpose in lanunching the Whorl and was the\nBlue/Green system the intended destination?\" Knowing Typhon as I do,\nhe probably had at least half a dozen purposes; but certainly one of\nthe chief must have been self-aggrandizement -- to return human kind\nto the stars would be a very great thing indeed. Yes, the Blue-Green\nsystem was the intended destination.\n<...>\nTyphon did not know about the inhumi [and] would have done\neverything possible to keep them out of the Whorl if he had.\n--Gene Wolfe, 14 Jun 1997 \n\n\nI suppose it's possible to assume that Typhon was a Neighbor and came to\nUrth as its conquerer but somehow didn't know about the inhumi. But that\nseems to be stretching credulity to support a theory which doesn't provide\ninteresting answers to any questions. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": " Kevin Maroney | Unplugged Games \n kmaroney at ungames.com | (212) 777-1190\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-03-12T21:59:38+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 3/12/01 12:14 PM, Robert Borski at rborski at charter.net wrote:\nthere's evidence that the Neighbors know how to bioengineer\nshape-shifting in the inhumi" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Where? Not in Chapter 23 of IGJ, where Horn gives Hide the lesson on the\ninhumi and the Neighbors." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Fourthly, at one point during IGJ, Horn sings in and translates from\nNeighborese--and not amateurishly, but well enough so that it completely\ndiscombobulates poor Colonel Terzo. When and how did Horn learn the language\nof the Neighbors? From darling one-armed Seawrack? But isn't Seawrack a\nminion of the Mother--Greater Scylla's clone on Blue? How, in turn, has\nScylla come to learn Neighborese? Personally, I favor the idea that the Pas\naspect of PassilkHorn is the one who's providing the translation skills\nbecause it's the least complicated. As a Neighbor, he's simply speaking his\nnative tongue." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I may be missing something again, but I don't see the problem here. The\nMother is a goddess of the Neighbors; why wouldn't she have been able to\nlearn their language and teach it to Seawrack? And Seawrack could have\ntaught Horn enough to translate the few lines he does (there's no need to\nassume it's an impromptu translation; he could have heard the same song in\nthe boat with Seawrack).\n\n--Adam\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }