{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1393",
    "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": 1393,
    "subject": "The Secret: practical doubts",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-04-23T05:55:46+00:00",
    "last": "2001-04-23T05:55:46+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0701@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nicholas Gevers",
        "address": "vermoulian at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-23T05:55:46+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) The Secret: practical doubts",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "William Ansley: I agree with a good deal of your logic\nbelow. I've been arguing the strongest possible case\nfor the Secret as an offensive weapon, striving to\nexplain why the Secret would be so \"great and\nterrible\" that the inhumi supposedly would kill any\nhuman who knew it. I think that, given GW's enormous\ninterest in military matters, the specific aspects of\nmy theory about the Secret are probably what he had in\nmind in writing TBSS; but he is GW, of course.\nAmbiguity attends everything he writes. So yes: there\nare doubts about the Secret's applicability, just as\nyou say. Necessarily so. Still, humans acting upon\nknowledge of the Secret could do a good deal of damage\nto the inhumi; the crucial difference between inhumi\nand mosquitoes is that the former (some at least) are\nintelligent, and would be very worried at any\nsystematic threat to their offspring.\n\n--Nick Gevers.\n\n--- William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net> wrote: > I\nreally don't see how using astral travel to wipe"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "out the inhumi at \ntheir breeding pools can work.\n\n1) Can we be absolutely sure that the astral\njourneys are to real \nplaces and not just \"places on the astral plane\"\nthat resemble real \nplaces where one of the travellers has been before?\nCertainly some of \nthe places resemble real places the we have seen\nbefore (the Red Sun \nWhorl) but the nature of \"reality\" during these\nastral visits seems \nawfully malleable.\n\n2) Assuming astral travel can have physical effects\nin the \"real \nworld,\" I still don't believe that the inhumi could\nbe wiped out. We \nhaven't been able to wipe out mosquitos on earth\neven though the same \nmeans of attack should theoretically be effective\nand we have just \nabout the same level of motivation to do so as the  \nhuman \ninhabitants of Blue have to finish off the inhumi. I\nthink my \nmosquito analogy is a good one, since the inhumi\nseem to produce \nlarge numbers of (at least at first) not very\nintelligent offspring \nwhich are left to fend for themselves.\n\n3) Since astral travel requires the presence of an\ninhumi to work, \nthis method cannot be used to wipe out their\nbreeding pools without \ninhumi cooperation, at least to some degree. Perhaps\nthe inhumi \ncannot prevent at least a few of their number from\nbeing taken \ncaptive, but they could make it difficult. And\nsurely inhumi are \ncapable of suicide upon capture. Of course, since\nJahlee was willing \nto betray her kind, the argument could be made the\nothers like her \ncould be found. On the other hand, one can argue\nthat Jahlee is a \nunique case.\n\n4) Regarding the argument that only the intelligent\ninhumi offspring \nneed to be killed: as long as their are humans on\nGreen, intelligent \ninhumi can arise again very easily, unless all\nhumans on green are \ncompletely protected from inhumi predation. The only\nway to \nabsolutely assure that no more intelligent inhumi\nwill arise is to \nkill all of them.\n\nOf course you can say, as you have been, that\nSilk|Horn didn't \n*really* think the secret could be used effectively,\nbut you talk as \nif your version of the secret can be so used above."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}