{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/178",
    "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": 178,
    "subject": "Pike/Quetzal & Questions",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-04-10T11:43:14+00:00",
    "last": "1997-04-10T11:43:14+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0004-0018@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Kieran Cleary",
        "address": "kcleary at tinet.ie"
      },
      "date": "1997-04-10T11:43:14+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Re: Pike/Quetzal & Questions",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "(I'm resending this as it didn't seem to get through yesterday. \nApologies if you already received it.)\n\nHi Vance:\n\nI have to say I agree with you re Pike/Quetzal: I don't find the\nprevious explanations satisfactory, while not having a better one\nmyself! Many people have referred to Quetzal as a shape-shifter,\nthough the only shapes we see him assume are that of the winged serpent and\nold man. Sometimes it reads as if the serpent has donned the shell of\na human body (in fact, I don't see any other way since I don't\nconsider Q a Shape-shifter) which he can discard and resume at will.\nIt's also in bad shape: Q has to continually touch it up with powder\nto make it appear alive. On my first reading, I wildly thought that\nthis body was originally Pike's and that somehow, a la Marble/Rose,\nsome sort of Q/Pike convergence was happening. The timeline doesn't\nreally bear this out: Q was Prolocutor for many years while Pike was\nalive. I presume, though, that 33 years before Silk arrived at Sun\nStreet, that Q looked 33 years younger. Perhaps he needed to acquire\nan older body to avoid questions about his continued youthfulness\n(i.e. the kinds of questions that Loris, Lemur et al had to answer).\nJust a thought, though. Be ruthless!\n\nAs for your questions, roughly as far as I recollect:\n\n1. I think that Rose sometimes imagined herself as Echidna, and the\ndaughter referred to in that passage was actually Scylla. 2. The White\nHeaded One was given to Blood by Musk. Blood clipped its wings and put\nit on the roof, where it \"forgot that it couldn't fly\" in the fight\nwith Silk and fell to its death. 3. Not really sure: I think that Urus\nwas once part of Spider's knot and told Saba where to find Auk & co.\nwhen they were abducted and taken to the airship.\n\nalga:\n\nFWIW I also agree completely that, at least at some level, the \nOutsider passages refer to Severian, who at this time is also the New\nSun zooming towards Urth, who can manipulate Severian's Urthly body\nlike a puppet from great distances. If we're seeking some kind of\nconsistent explanation of how Severian is affecting affairs on the\nLong Sun, then I think that's probably it. The Increate in tBotNS\nisn't a personal god: there is a complicated hierarchy of beings who\nserve the Increate in the temporal universe. In no case does the\nIncreate explicitly intervene in  human affairs, relying instead on\nthe holy slaves to interact with humans. \n\nLasrach\n____________________________________________________________\nKieran Cleary\nSenior Research Engineer\nNorth West Labs\nFinisklin Industrial Estate\nSligo\nRepublic of Ireland\n\nTel. +353 71 69441\nFax. +353 71 69451\nemail kcleary at nwlabs.com\n___________________________________________________________"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}