Subject: (whorl) Why the Whorl left early

From: Nicholas Gevers <vermoulian at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 07:46:37 +0000

Thanks to everyone who responded to my utopian
theorisings; I was testing the waters with some ideas
for a paper on TBSS...

One point: I think that GW intends us to understand
that the Whorl leaves very quickly after Silk and Co
return to it after RTW. Reason: Silk-in-Mainframe and
the corporeal Silk don't want Pas descending to Blue
with Mainframe and all, for the reasons Silk gave
Remora and because the Whorl needs Pas and Mainframe
where they are. Thus: emergency departure, far swifter
than M'to would have thought possible.

--Nick Gevers.

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 17:55:26 +0000

> than M'to would have thought possible.

But if Silk-in-Mainframe is enough in charge that he can get the Whorl to
leave early, he's probably enough in charge to prevent "Pas" from escaping
to Blue.

But then I'm of the opinion that "Passilk" implies that the only Pas left
in Mainframe is a Pas that is mostly controlled by Silk's downloaded
persona anyway.

-Rostrum

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 08:53:08 +0000

on 4/13/01 4:55 PM, Michael Straight at straight at email.unc.edu wrote:

>> return to it after RTW.

Earlier, I posted an argument that the Whorl does not leave very quickly,
but decades after Silk and Co. depart (to be pedantic, we don't know when
they arrive at the Whorl, or if they do at all).

>> Reason: Silk-in-Mainframe and

Indeed, how could Mainframe be gotten onto a loader and off the Whorl
without the cooperation of the Whorl's human inhabitants?  (If you argue
that the godlings could do it, then conversely they would also have the
power to prevent the emergency repairs.)

Also, given the level of technology on Blue, it will be a generation at
minimum before the colonists there are capable of powering and maintaining
Mainframe.  If it were to come down now, they might not even be able to
preserve its physical integrity, since they can't stop the landers from
being looted and rendered inoperable.

In fact, I'm not at all sure what Horn means when he says that Mainframe
will come to Blue.  We don't know, either, on what grounds he says this;
it's not in his conversation with the surgeon.

--Adam

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 11:24:36 +0000

> it's not in his conversation with the surgeon.

I read this as metonymy (like when Jews refer to G-d as "Heaven"); he
means that the gods of Mainframe will come to Blue, presumably by
posessing humans or animals, not that some (big?) physical computer will
be brought to Blue.

And based on Horn's comments about the possibility of getting a sacred
window working on Blue, at least one of us (Horn or me) drastically
misunderstands how the things work.  That *would* require bringing
Mainframe itself to Blue.

-Rostrum