{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/329",
    "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": 329,
    "subject": "First Post-Many Thoughts",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-06-05T16:55:09+00:00",
    "last": "1997-06-05T16:55:09+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0005-0330@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "1997-06-05T16:55:09+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) First Post-Many Thoughts",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've known about this mailing list for months, but waited until I finally\ngot my hands on Exodus re-read the first three, and finished the fourth\nbefore I took a look at the archives.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Long Sun\n\"quartet,\" and now that I've read through the archives, I'm deeply\ngrateful for many of your insights which have helped me appreciate this\nseries even more.  Since my first choice for a Whorl-name, \"Thorax\" has\nalready been bandied about, I think I'll let y'all call me \"Rostrum.\"\n\nHaving read through the earlier discussions, I'd like to comment on a few\npoints that haven't been discussed.\n\n1) I really like the idea of the Whorl having been in the Blue/Green\nsystem for years as it explains several things including Q's presence, the\nrevolt of Pas's family, and the ship failing, but I think there's some\ncounter-evidence.  \n\nWhen Silk sees the outside of the Whorl for the first time in Lake, he\nsees a flash of light and then the Whorl is shaken as if by the Outsider's\nhand.  It seemed clear to me that the ship's engines were firing and it\nwas accelerating/decelerating.  The implication seemed to be that the ship\nhad at that moment started to arrive at its destination.  If it had been\nin a (presumably) stable orbit of the Blue/Green system for years, why\nwould the engines be firing?  \n\n2)  When Kypris offers Silk the chance to \"be Pas\" what exactly is she\nreally offering?  My first thought in the scene where Silk's face becomes\none of the heads of Pas was, \"Which head?  The Typhon (controlling) head or\nthe other (servant) head?\"  Wouldn't Typhon \"riding\" Silk be a very\nsimilar sort of thing to the way he \"rode\" the slave whose body his head\nwas attached to?  Have Tartaros & Kypris assembled the \"functional\" parts\nof Pas and now need a personality (Silk) to \"control\" the Pas program, or\nis it the other way around?  \n\nAs others have pointed out, it seems likely that Silk is the body Pas was\nintended to possess/ride when it came time for the Cargo to disembark and\ncolonize.  Is Kypris proposing an ironic reversal of things?  Did it\nhappen?  Is Silk's personality controlling the Pas program now?  Or is\nKypris really on Typhon's side and is she proposing a way of using Silk \nto restore Typhon?\n\n3)  There are at least two sets of scenes that I can't think of a path for\nHorn to know about them.  First are the scenes where Musk trains the hawk\nand prepares the kite.  Second is the one where Q turns into a winged\nserpent.  Does Lemur ever reveal to Silk how they brought down the flier?\nIf so, the Musk scenes could be fictional reconstructions.  Likewise, Q's\nthoughts could be fictions Horn extrapolates from subsequent knowledge of\nthe inhumani.  Are those satisfying explanations?  Any other scenes that\nseem like the must be fictional?\n\n4) Re: the death of the bird named Hierax - I got the impression that\nMucor had possessed it and caused it to fall in order to save Silk.\nAnyone else agree?\n\n5) Re: the shape of Silk's voided cross - Everyone seems to assume that\nit's made up of capital gammas whereas I'd been thinking of the\nlooping lower-case gammas.\n\n6) Re: the mechanism of sacrifice - Since all sacrifices are done in front\nof a Sacred Window, perhaps there's simply a low-level program (like a\nmonitor) that watches for sacrifices and passes the data along to the\nappropriate god.  Since the digitized personalities seem to have some\nlimits on their attention spans, they may have set up some kind of\ninstructions like \"when I'm doing a, don't interrupt me unless x number of\nbabies get sacrificed, when I'm doing b, don't interrupt me unless y\nnumber of babies get sacrificed, unless it's Silk, in which case interrupt\nme no matter what.\"\n\n7) Re: the mechanism of augury - What does the augur do immediately before\na sacrifice?  He *looks at the Window* and begs for a theophany.  Perhaps\nMainframe gives augurs subliminal messages.  Or perhaps sacrifices are\nnormally no more accurate than horoscopes, but at the sacrifice at\nOrpine's funeral, Kypris gave Silk a subliminal message before her\ntheophany. (Why?) \n\n8) vizcacha wrote in what seems to be a majority opinion:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Wolfe in the person of Horn chides us for thinking a partial\npossession by Kypris could turn Mint into a great general."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I got the exact opposite impression from this passage.  My take was that,\njust as Silk often misinterprets things, Horn is doing the same.  I think\nWolfe is chiding the misconception, articulated by Horn, that Love is a\nwarm, fuzzy, syrupy thing when, in fact, true Love, as exemplified by the\nOutsider (whom Silk says Kypris will become more like, the more she\nbecomes like Love), is a powerful, forceful, even fearsome thing.\n\nAlso, it seems that, in general, possession by any god gives the posessee\namazing skills - look at what Kypris+Chenille can do with a knife.\n\nSpeaking of vizcacha, I can't tell you how cool I think it is to see Dave\nLebling on this list.  I'm a major Infocom fan and highly recommend their\ngames - even after 10-15 years, they're still some of the best computer\nadventure games available (and you can get almost all of them on a CD from\nActivision for about $20).  I haven't played Starcross yet, but it's\ndefinitely on my list of games I want to spend some time with.  I loved\nSpellbreaker, Dave!  I've always thought Gene Wolfe, with his incredible\ngifts of subtlety would be a great interactive-fiction writer.\n\nWell, I've got more thoughts, but thats way too many for one post already.\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}