{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/127",
    "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": 127,
    "subject": "Generation Ships",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1997-02-25T09:18:59+00:00",
    "last": "1997-02-26T05:15:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0003-0179@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-25T09:18:59+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Generation Ships",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis,\n\nNot to blow my own horn, but I wrote _Starcross_, the Infocom game you\nmention.  It was modelled most explicitly on _Rendezvous with Rama_. The\nidea was that the generation ship was a puzzle posed by its builders,\nand the prize was a star-drive.  Each system it stopped in had\n\"contributed\" inhabitants.\n\nDon't forget Damon Knight's _Thorinn's World_, where (IIRC) the\nprotagonist gets the chance to land the ship and doesn't.  Like _Long\nSun_, it starts looking like something very much else (in this case, an\nIcelandic saga).\n\nThere was also the classic van Vogt (?) story where the home technology\nsurpasses what was available when the ship was launched, so it arrives\nat Alpha Centauri to find a thriving colony already in place.\n\nrat,\n\nThose are great references.  I had completely forgotten the \"Starlost\"\nmonitors (no doubt Harlan Ellison would like us to forget all of it). \nBTW, I think Joe-Jim in _Orphans of the Sky_ was the leader of the\nmuties; the \"normal\" people were ruled by a thearchy.\n\nThe monitors also remind me of the \"Mirror, mirror, on the wall\" in\n\"Snow White\" (not to mention the one in Vance's _Lyonesse_ trilogy). \nRecall that \"glass\" is an old synonym for \"mirror.\" No wonder Hyacinth\ngot caught by Kypris; she's the original stereotypical woman who can't\nwalk by a shop window without looking at her reflection.\n\n     -vizcacha (watch that 'z'!)\n     (david_lebling at avid.com)\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0003-0185@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-02-26T05:15:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Generation Ships",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0003-0179@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Reply:  Item #2848746 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#\n\nvizcacha,\n\nRe: \"Starcross,\" frankly I thought it was better than RENDEZVOUS\nWITH RAMA.  Maybe because of the interactive nature?  Here I was\ngoing to mention the whole \"floater vector\" thing, or \"what happens\nwhen an object leaves the surface of a big centerfuge, even if it is\nnear the axis\" which is covered in \"Starcross\" and had my friends arguing\nover the physics.  That was the very best Infocom game, imho--kudos\nto you!  (Did you write any other games?)\n\nThe van Vogt you are thinking of is \"Alpha Centauri,\" I believe.\n(They use a suspended animation drug and a slower than light drive.)\n\nKiernan Cleary,\n\nHello and welcome aboard.  Re: Moly, right, it is short for\nMolybdenum--this is given in the text and in the lists.  I just\nwanted to point out that it is another case where the name has two\nmeanings.  While we're on the topic of names, do you (or anybody\nelse, for that matter) have a notion of what animal Jerboa is\nthinking of (IV, 172) when he wonders if \"Incus\" is a egg eating,\ntree-dwelling creature?  (For the answer I'm braced and ready for\na very bad pun.)\n\nRe: Flier names, Derek Bell caught most of them.  Of course, if you\nand Derek (and anybody else) could find the other odd Flier words, or\ndetermine what the male/female naming conventions are (\"Sumaire\"\nseems quite strange--unless she is an inhumu, of course.  Then it\nmakes perfect sense! <g>), that would be a handy thing.\n\nalga,\n\nRe: \"Black Sheep,\" it reads like one of the \"The Island of Doctor\nDeath and Other Stories\" stories.  Imho.\n\n=mantis=\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}