Subject: (whorl) Cards

From: mary whalen <marewhalen at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 21:40:30 +0000

This is Sean Whalen (prion).

I've just finished reading The Book of the Long Sun, and thought I'd
give some of the thoughts I had after reading the Whorl archives.

The use of the computer cards as currency always seemed a little
strange, and I have a theory about why this came about.  Basically,
Typhon didn't want the crew of the Whorl to be able to betray him by
getting away/sabotaging/disobeying him by using the ships and/or other
similar things before the Whorl arrived at its destination and the
Cargo left to settle the planet and Typhon reappeared in day-to-day
life.

By taking the cards out of the things he didn't want the Crew (who
still retained their memories of technology use because they needed to
be able to run the ship's functions) to use, he renders them useless.
To keep the cards in a safe place that could be accessed when his plan
neared conclusion he gives them to the partly-amnesiac Cargo to keep. 
He tells them to use it as currency.  He thus spreads it around among
the people who can each use their own cards to put into the machinery
of the ship in which they leave the Whorl.  It spreads it out over the
whole Whorl, and because it's money, the people won't want to part
with it.  The Crew wouldn't be able to go around and collect the
cards, and the Cargo wouldn't help at all, they don't want to give
away their money.  When Typhon wants them to leave, he just instructs
them to bring their cards with them, which they'll probably do anyway.
 On the ship, he tells them to put the cards into the slots and the
ship functions, taking them down.

prion
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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 08:49:21 +0000

On Thu, 9 Jul 1998, Sean Whalen wrote:

> Typhon didn't want the crew of the Whorl to be able to betray him 
[...]
> ship functions, taking them down.

I think this makes sense.  I'll just add that the breaking of cards into
bits is a tragedy unforseen by Typhon (not to mention a nifty pun). 
Except I don't know enough economics to guess how plausible it is cards
could have once been common currency and changed so that for most peasants
they represent a huge sum. 

-Rostrum

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From: John Gersten <jgersten at slip.net>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 08:11:26 +0000

> they represent a huge sum. 

Is is a certainty that, once broken into bits (so to speak), the cards
cannot ever be re-integrated?

That question aside, I agree with Sean's original post, though I'd never
thought about it that way before <grin>.

John (a newbie who is delighted to find this list isn't completely silent
after all -- I feel like I just had a theophany via pine! <g>)

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 11:58:37 +0000

> cannot ever be re-integrated?

No, but what's the likelihood of finding the right 100 bits you need to
reassemble a given card?

-Rostrum

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From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at crossover.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 12:35:40 +0000

>No, but what's the likelihood of finding the right 100 bits you need to

Well, there's no guarantee that the Cards are program chips--they could
just be pure memory, or power, or something else interchangable. 

If they're not interchangable, then the whole idea that Pas set them up as
currency weakens anyway--although I suppose if one Card holds an entire
personality--"Majordomo Fred", say--then just bringing along a good set of
them would give you enough personalities to make the system functional.

However, I don't think that's what is going on. I suspect the Cards became
a unit of currency for the reason that gold did on Earth: they're scarce,
measurable, almost indestructable, pretty, and portable. 

--
Wombat

-- 
Kevin Maroney--Crossover Technologies--kmaroney at crossver.com
   We must move forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And twirling,
   ever twirling, into the future. --Bob "Citizen Kang" Dole