Subject: (whorl) Re: godlings

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 13:20:19 +0000

Rostrum writing:

<I thought the main objection to the godlings is that in Act 1 (New Sun) the
author goes into detail about why anything that big would have to live in
the sea or collapse under its own weight and then in Act 3 he presents us
with such a creature without giving us any hint of how it is possible, or
even a sense that we're supposed to see this as a physics-defying miracle
(and Typhon/Mainframe's wonders seem to be otherwise technological, unlike
the "miraculous" wonders of Severian or Silkhorn's astral travel).>

<(Maybe our hint is in Act 2 at the talus construction plant, but then what
do you do with the obvious hints that organic Pig (he eats, his eyes are
flesh) is a godling?)>

Would it help to suggest that the term "godling" might be a generic one used
by the human Whorlese to connote anything of unusual size, whether it's
organic or mechanical? It's never used by anyone in Mainframe if I remember
correctly; and the first time it's mentioned by Horn (OBW, 157), it's linked
with his supposition that the gods themselves might be giant-sized. ("It may
be that our gods did not come among us except by enlightment and possession
because they were too large to do so; even the godlings that they send among
the people now are, for the most part, immense.")

I've already argued that the godlings may have originally been designed to
host the gods of Mainframe, of course, giving them an alternate raison
d'être. How better to preserve their prestige and awesome nature than by
taking on larger-than-life forms? Surely, whenever he got to where he was
going, Pas was not going to spend the rest of his life as a computer entity.
And there's evidence in the LS series that the gods of Mainframe can ride
not only people and animals, but chems.

Some of you also seem to believe the gravity aboard the Whorl is tantamount
to Urth's, but somewhere or other (can't find the actual passage), it's
mentioned that any potential departees with cardiac problems would be better
advised to stay aboard the Whorl because the strain is less on hearts there.
So a giant being of the size that picks up Horn would not be subject to the
same forces that preclude such magnitude here. Even if the Whorl's gravity
were earth-normal, however, there's the dinosaur parallel--are the godlings
really that much bigger than the largest of these? Plus we're also told by
Horn that "[The godlings] move slowly," (RTTW, 162) implying that even with
reduced gravity, there are constraining forces at work. Hide's dream also
contains a doll, "walking slow," which seems at least to me an obvious
parallel with Horn's slow-moving godling--implying perhaps that the godling
who picks up Horn is indeed a talus. Pig--he's something else--an organic
giant created by the same technomagic of Mainframe, only using different
components. But I'd argue that neither Pig nor the Brobdinagian who picks up
Horn are science-defying miracles, even by our own limited 21st century
standards. Just godlings--at least as the inhabitants of the Whorl define
them.

Robert Borski

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

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at ungames.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 14:46:58 +0000

At 01:20 PM 4/19/01 -0500, Robert B wrote:
>organic or mechanical? 

That seems contrary to the idea of "small godlings". If the Narrator is
indeed thinking of Pig a small godling, it seems odd to call him that when
he's only slightly larger than a normal human. It seems more likely that
the term "godling" refers to "constructed servants of Mainframe" regardless
of their body type.

Is there textual evidence that the giant godling is a flesh creature? I
don't remember seeing any such clues. If they aren't, then the restrictions
which apply to the sea giants don't apply to them. (I've made this point
before and don't remember anyone commenting on it; please forgive me if I
missed a previous response.)

-- 
Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
http://www.nyrsf.com

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 16:07:39 +0000

> by the human Whorlese to connote anything of unusual size, whether it's

But one of the main arguments for Pig's demideity ("godlingness"?) is that
comment about his ears, suggesting some kind of biological kinship with
the big guy.

> not only people and animals, but chems.

I agree, but if the godlings' purpose is to carry the gods to Blue, that
kind of negates your argument that they can be big becuase the Whorl's
apparent gravity is low.

> really that much bigger than the largest of these? 

I can't do the math myself, but I've read discussions of why a bipedal
human-type mammal can't be as big as a dinosaur.  Maybe with drastically
different biology and prosthetic bones and extra hearts to pump the blood
around it would be possible.  The muscles would probably have to be
augmented too.

But the point that the godlings don't seem anywhere near as big as the
undines is a good one.

-Rostrum

---

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 16:51:26 +0000

Kevin J. Maroney writing:

<That seems contrary to the idea of "small godlings". If the Narrator is
indeed thinking of Pig a small godling, it seems odd to call him that when
he's only slightly larger than a normal human.>

Guess it depends on how you configure Pig's height. When Horn first
encounters him (perhaps significantly the chapter is entitled "Great Pas's
Godling"), he is in Silk's body, who is considered tall. Horn subsequently
describes how Pig's hands are twice his own size, and at one point how Pig's
elbow brushed his ear. My own elbows are located at about the 3/5 mark of my
total height (I'm 6'4"), which may mean Pig is as tall as ten feet. Robert
Pershing Wadlow--the tallest person ever in history according to
Guinness--was only 8' 11". So I'd argue that Pig's height may well fall
within the parameters that define "small" godlingness.

Rostrum then arguing:

<But one of the main arguments for Pig's demideity ("godlingness"?) is that
comment about his ears, suggesting some kind of biological kinship with the
big guy.>

The ear link is almost certainly valid. As is shared eye size and the thick
black nails. But to argue this implies biological affininity isn't
necessarily so--chems, after all, resemble human beings (at least
superficially) and aren't related to us except as mechanical simulacra.

<I agree, but if the godlings' purpose is to carry the gods to Blue, that
kind of negates your argument that they can be big because the Whorl's
apparent gravity is low.>

You're right, but only if the giant godling who picks up Horn is organic. In
my post I tried to account for how either biological or taluslike godlings
might be technologically feasible; my own belief is as I stated: i.e., that
the bigger godling is a talus, who, as a mechancial, shouldn't be that
impeded by heavier gravities. (Of course, we all know that gravity doesn't
work the same way in the Blue-Green system as it does on Earth, since it
allows the inhumi to fly from one to another and then back again.<gr>)

Pig, I don't think, even as big as he is, would find it that difficult to
manuever on Blue or Green--plus he may have had modifications like the
talents to improve his overall agility.

I'm also on record as stating that I believe the Mother is a godling and
meant to host Scylla, but this involves accepting my notion that Pas and the
other Mainframe gods are Neighbor-type aliens.

Re yet another discredited theory of mine--that Pig has assassinated Silk in
his manse--one of the objections raised is that the structure containing the
augur that Pig kills has doors big enough for Pig to go through without
kneeling. But manse, according to the OED, also means mansion, and doesn't
mansion connote big doors?

Robert Borski

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 18:19:22 +0000

>other Mainframe gods are Neighbor-type aliens.

         Surely you don't still maintain this? If so, you should take up 
the arguments presented against it. Also, since you now say the other 
mainframe gods are neighbors, what about the very human pre-adolescent Scylla?

>his manse

         But Pig clearly "sees" that the Narrator is Silk, so how can he 
think he killed Silk? I just don't think this works.

>Robert Borski

Nutria

---

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 20:46:39 +0000

meant to host Scylla, but this involves accepting my notion that Pas and the
other Mainframe gods are Neighbor-type aliens.<<

<Surely you don't still maintain this? If so, you should take up the
arguments presented against it. Also, since you now say the other mainframe
gods are Neighbors, what about the very human pre-adolescent Scylla? >

Yep. Still do. Such is the strength of my various delusional belief systems,
including the one that maintains the Neighbors are capable of
shape-shifting. You all don't have to buy it. But it's how I choose to the
view the book--just as others believe there are ubiquitous Scylla-type
aliens scattered throughout the universe or the inhumi can negotiate the
vacuum between Blue and Green or that Silk has committed suicide or
accidentally bled to dead from cuts inflicted during the grieving process.
Chaçun yadda yadda yadda. As for Scylla's very human pre-adolescent
appearance, let me note that the head of Typhon grafted to Piaton appears
human (when in Rome, et cetera), and only the mythic aspect of his name
allows us to surmise he is actually an alien. Typhon possibly being able to
shift his appearance toward the human is one potential explanation for this;
but just as easily he could have had his technicians provide him and his
wife and children with humanoid-type features.

Which brings me to yet another unaccepted plot point. Alex David Groce once
accused me of conflating Cilinia, Greater Scylla, the Mother, and Mainframe
Scylla, and he's absolutely right because I think all four are aspects of
the same entity. Sisters of a feather, if you wish to throw in Oreb. And
therefore sort of an alien Mother-Daughter-Holy Ghost conglomerate.

<<Re yet another discredited theory of mine--that Pig has assassinated Silk
in his manse>>

< But Pig clearly "sees" that the Narrator is Silk, so how can he think he
killed Silk? I just don't think this works. >

But the original human Silk--that is to say the unalloyed Patera Silk we
meet in the Long Sun series--or at least his biological housing or
meatware--_has_ died, if temporarily, whereas the "person" Pig bonds with is
an amalgam of Horn and Silk and Pas downloaded into Silk's body. And Pig
himself is clearly a dissembler, never once admitting he's a godling
(although the ear remarks in the Mainframe surgery comes close). It's also
in his best interests not to say he's killed Silk, since he needs Silk|Horn
to help him gain his sight back. Ergo, the semi-factual story he weaves and
tells the Narrator.

Robert Borski

---

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 00:27:05 +0000

I have been thinking about the godlings for a while, but I can't say 
I have really gotten anywhere. The large one that Horn|Silk 
encounters is described as having bestial pointed ears, cavernous 
nostrils, a huge mouth and relatively small eyes. To me this sounds 
like a fairy-tale ogre. If I look up ogre on a web dictionary

http://www.yourdictionary.com/

I see the following etymology:

Etymology: French, probably ultimately from Latin Orcus, god of the underworld

This doesn't seem to get me anywhere except to provide a tiny bit of 
tenuous support for Robert Borski's "Pig is a vehicle for Tartaros" 
theory.

Oh, well.

I am not at all sure we can definitely say Pig is a bio and not a 
chem. Chems are designed to look as much like bios as possible. For 
example:

At 5:16 PM -0700 4/19/01, maa32 wrote:
>Maytera Marble's rusings indicate that she was once covered in
>flesh (this occurs even before she takes Rose's parts).

I don't think this is quite correct. Chems seem to have a skin of 
flesh-like plastic when new. This has worn off of Maytera Marble 
during her long lifetime. The prosthetic hands Marble took from 
Maytera Rose look like an old lady's hands. But they cannot be 
covered in flesh since, if I recall correctly, Marble reaches into a 
sacrificial fire at some point during the Long Sun series (during an 
Epiphany of Echidna, I think) and her hands (which are Rose's old 
prosthetic hands at this point) are not harmed.

I assume that new chems must have artificial fingernails and hair if 
the illusion is to be complete, so Pig would have those if he was a 
chem. The fact that Silk|Horn's eye is transplanted into Pig really 
proves nothing; Wolfe treats chem parts and prosthetic parts for bios 
as interchangeable in the Long and Short Sun series [1]. This should 
mean that bio parts could serve as prosthetic parts for chems.

One thing I really disagree with is that, if the godlings are chems, 
they have anything to do with the super-taluses described in Long 
Sun. (Sorry, alga.)

Taluses were built with cargo technology [2], they were basically 
tanks with arms. They incorporated an AI chip "brain" that could not 
be built with cargo technology. There is no evidence that cargo 
technology could build chems. Even though the fact that godlings were 
really, really big might make them easier to build in some ways, the 
fact that they were capable of bipedal locomotion puts them beyond 
the reach of cargo technology. The taluses didn't have legs at all, 
they had treads. Even today we can barely build a robot that can 
"walk like a man." [3]

It seems to make more sense to me that all godlings are bios, even 
the big ones. This explains the different godling sizes naturally: 
they grow. If all godlings are chems, then they (probably) cannot 
grow and are constructed in various sizes for mysterious reasons.

Godlings certainly could be meant as vehicles for the gods of 
mainframe, but why would they wait to use them until they got to a 
planet. Even if that was Pas's plan, the rest of his family wasn't 
following it. Can you see Echina or Scylla passing up the chance to 
don the body of a gaint and terrorize people, if either of them could?

On the other hand, if the godlings are meant to act as an additional 
spur to drive people off of the Whorl, they don't seem to be 
necessary and they certainly don't seem more effective than the 
droughts and darkness already are.

William Ansley

[1] I still think this is a weak point in the books, although some 
have defended it. I certainly suppose that might be possible to make 
robots out of parts that could all serve as replacements for various 
human organs, but I am sure that the cost of designing and building 
such robots would be astronomical compared to the cost of building 
robots that were made of parts that did not all have to be compatible 
with human biology. I assume Wolfe did this to achieve an effect. It 
leads to a blurring of boundaries (how human are these chems, do they 
have souls?) and SF reversals (Jonas replacing his mechanical parts 
with biological tissue in the New Sun books, Marble taking parts from 
the dead Rose). Wolfe has a similar confusion in New Sun; among his 
characters, he has sailors that don't distinguish between sea-going 
and space-going ships.

[2] The level of technology possessed by the passengers on the Whorl, 
as opposed to the level of technology possessed by the builders of 
the Whorl or even it's crew.

[3] You may well say I am arguing as if I still consider the Sun 
books to be SF, although I said that I had abandoned that belief in 
an earlier message. That's not exactly what I said but I will admit I 
took a somewhat disingenuous position to make the rhetorical point 
that I had problems with RttW that went far beyond its hard-SF 
quotient.

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 08:52:33 +0000

On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, William Ansley wrote:

> human organs, 

Do we see any chem to human transfers in Long Sun?   Or were you just
referring to Jonas?  Having a robot canibalize a human's prosthetics for
spare parts is not so hard to swallow, but I agree going the other way
seems a lot harder.

> an earlier message. 

The Sun books are SF, they're SF in a universe where miracles happen.  
But just because some miracles occur (the New Sun, FTL Astral Travel)
doesn't mean that everything should be explained as a miracle.  For
example, just because astral travel is possible, it doesn't follow that
robots can use human organs for spare parts.

I feel certain Wolfe wants his readers to be asking, "How did that
happen?  How does that work?" in an SF sort of way, but at the same time,
he gives us a story where the answer to some of those questions is that
there is no scientific explanation.

-Rostrum

---

From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at home.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 09:47:00 +0000

>It seems to make more sense to me that all godlings are bios, even the big 
>ones. This explains the different godling sizes naturally: they grow.

>William Ansley

         Like Baldanders? Any possible connection?

Nutria

---

From: matthew.malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 16:01:53 +0000

>within the parameters that define "small" godlingness.

In the shriving scene soon after reaching Viron which I read (in a rather
befuddled state) last night there's a comment that Horn would come up to Pig's
knees.

It jarred me because although Pig is big nothing intimated *that* big to me
before.

Roughly I'm 70", to the knees is 20" so Horn/Silk might be 2/7 the height of
Pig.  If H/S were say 6'4" Pig would be 266" or 22 foot 2 inches at which point
I go Eeek!

The only other passage which I can recall that hints at such height is where Pig
and Horn leave Hyacinth's room an Pig "crawls" through the door.  Now the doors
in Blood's mansion are not likely to be mean little things but still I hadn't
visualised anything like a 20 foot jolly green (if grubby) giant.

Matthew

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at ungames.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 13:27:37 +0000

At 08:46 PM 4/19/01 -0500, Robert Borski wrote:
>...just as others believe ... that Silk has committed suicide or

Does anyone believe the latter? Silk's body is healthy, but his spirit/soul
is dying, implies the Neighbor.

-- 
   Kevin Maroney | Unplugged Games 
   kmaroney at ungames.com | (212) 777-1190

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 10:07:18 +0000

Der Borgelnuskie wrote:

> ... [O]thers believe ... that Silk has committed suicide or

As the originator (as far as I know) of the Silk-cut-himself-in-
grief hypothesis, I have to point out that this hypothesis does 
_not_ involve Silk bleeding to death, accidentally or otherwise.

In fact, I profoundly doubt the value or validity of _any_ theory 
that involves Silk being (physically) dead at the time Horn 
"possesses" him. The whole point of what the Neighbor offers Horn 
is to take a living soul from a dying body and put it into a 
living body with a dying soul. (My wording; I don't have the text 
before me.)

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at ungames.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 13:36:47 +0000

At 05:01 PM 4/20/01 +0100, Matthew wrote:
>Pig.  If H/S were say 6'4" Pig would be 266" or 22 foot 2 inches at which 
>point I go Eeek!

If Pig is 22 feet tall, it's hard to imagine that one of Silk|Horn's eyes
would fit into his eye sockets.