{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/555",
    "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": 555,
    "subject": "more questions",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "1998-10-27T20:06:56+00:00",
    "last": "1998-10-28T19:10:06+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0009-0006@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Greg Neyman",
        "address": "greg.neyman at gte.net"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-27T20:06:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) more questions",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thanks for answering Peter.  Anybody have any ideas on Silk tracing circles\non his cheek?\n\nAnyhoop, where did the Whorl get it's energy from?  At first, I thought the\nWhorl was an interstellar ramjet, collecting hydrogen with and electro\nmagnetic funnel, which if fused in its long sun, and expelling the helium\nfor propulsion.  But ramjets have to be moving to work, and a) something\nwould have had to accelerate the whorl in the first place, and b) it turns\nout that Whorl sat in the blue/green system for several years, which would\nhave made any ramjet inoperable.\n    Which leads to the next question: how did the whorl propel itself?\n\n\n    Another question ... if chems had personal fusion packs to power\nthemselves (when General mint charges in Calde, she swings her azoth, and\nthe book describes how it goes through a soldier's fusion core), why did\nthings like taluses and floaters still rely on fish oil, presumably for\ninternal-combustion engines?\n\n    That's it for now ... more as I think of them ... if these answers are\nin the archives, and I've overlooked them .. I'm sorry ...\n    /\\/\\     Greg Neyman               Greg.Neyman at gte.net\n___/____\\___ http://www.trailerpark.com/siesta/thehat/\n  |HE  HA|\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0009-0007@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Westlake",
        "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-28T10:28:37+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) more questions",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0009-0006@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 20:06 1998-10-27 -0800, Greg Neyman wrote:\nThanks for answering Peter.  Anybody have any ideas on Silk tracing circles\non his cheek?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Someone suggested that it was to do with his father's razor, which\nis mentioned from time to time; he might have a scar there."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "   Another question ... if chems had personal fusion packs to power\nthemselves (when General mint charges in Calde, she swings her azoth, and\nthe book describes how it goes through a soldier's fusion core), why did\nthings like taluses and floaters still rely on fish oil, presumably for\ninternal-combustion engines?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "They're manufactured on board, where the technology is a lot lower\nthan that of the society that launched the Whorl.\n\nSpectacled Bear.\n\nPeter Westlake, Harlequin Ltd, Barrington Hall, Barrington, Cambs CB2 5RG.\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0009-0010@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Matthew Malthouse",
        "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-28T19:10:06+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) more questions",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0009-0007@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Greg Neyman wrote:\n    Another question ... if chems had personal fusion packs to power\nthemselves (when General mint charges in Calde, she swings her azoth, and\nthe book describes how it goes through a soldier's fusion core), why did\nthings like taluses and floaters still rely on fish oil, presumably for\ninternal-combustion engines?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The chems were created before launch and on board before the human cargo\nawoke. Presumably their power source was a product of the culture that built\nthe Whorl.\n\nThere _may_ have been some taluses with similar power that we did not see. The\none's that we did see were presumably built by the people of the Whorl - and\nwe get to see the foundry - and thus limited to the technologies they posess.\n\nThere is a gap however: chems can make children if they have the parts, how\nthose would be powered is open to question.  Maybe it is not the lack of\nknowledge but of working parts that limit the taluses to combustion power.\n\nMatthew\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}