{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/227",
    "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": 227,
    "subject": "Whorl Geography; Vance; Homemade Religions",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-03-19T17:43:13+00:00",
    "last": "1997-03-19T17:43:13+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0004-0261@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-03-19T17:43:13+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Whorl Geography; Vance; Homemade Religions",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Typhon almost certainly rules more than one world.  The population of\nthe Whorl may well come from several colony worlds, not just Urth.  We\nalso don't know for sure that the Sleepers come from Urth.  Their level\nof technological sophistication indicates to me that they may be part of\nTyphon's invasion/occupation force, rather than indigenes.\n\nThe Whorl's pattern of many cities with different customs and separated\nby difficult geography reminds me of Jack Vance.  He likes to have\nplanets with many different cultures (one classic example is _Big\nPlanet_).  While Vance may usually take a cynical attitude towards the\nreligions he depicts, they are also usually just as trumped-up as that\nof Viron.\n\nViron's religion was designed by Scylla as a parody of the state\nreligion of her whorl.  It (forgive me, Ranjit) doesn't seem much like\nthe religion of the Commonwealth or Ascia, the two countries we know\nmost about from _New Sun_.  It appears to be a pagan, syncretic sort of\nreligion, and if you substitute \"real\" gods for the ones we find in\n_Long Sun_, it reminds me more of ancient Greek or Roman pantheism more\nthan anything else.  Clearly the religion of Triviguante was designed by\nSphigx for her own peculiar reasons, perhaps as another parody (a\nfemale-centered Islam, as someone called it, seems about right). \nPerhaps each city of the Whorl has its own home-made sect.  No doubt\nthere are Scientologists lurking about somewhere...\n\n     -vizcacha\n     (david_lebling at avid.com)\n\nQuestions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}