{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/572",
    "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": 572,
    "subject": "Bye Silk! ... fusion ... and Escape from the Airship",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-11-03T13:19:23+00:00",
    "last": "1998-11-03T13:19:23+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0009-0039@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mark Millman",
        "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-11-03T13:19:23+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Bye Silk! ... fusion ... and Escape from the Airship",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On 3 November 1998 at 5:39 pm GMT, Alex David\nGroce wrote:\nGreg Neyman wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "    Rostrum - Hammerstone said in\nLake that making a child takes at least\ntwo years, and maybe as long as twenty\n(as they get the parts, presumably) ....\ndoes the couple enter the \"love-trance\"\nfor twenty years?  there's no way they\ncould be productive citizens and produce\nchildren simultaneously if that were the\ncase.\n    And even if it was the case, I'd imagine\nthat black mechanics would be able to find\na way to circumvent this."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Well, it wouldn't have to be a \"trance\"--humans\ndon't necessarily go into a trance to make a kid,\nbut don't have conscious access to the workings\nof it.  But it does seem odd the black mechanics\ncan't get at this if they can mess with programming\nas much as they seem to be able to (maybe Pas\nhad this a lot better guarded, especially the fusion\npack part--as that would seem to be the really\ndangerous part.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And, as Alex implicitly points out, when bios make a\nnew child, they're not at it 24 hours a day, seven days\na week.  The \"love-trance\" could manifest in a way\nanalogous to sleep or (perhaps better) dreaming.\n\n\"Hey, Rocky!  Whatcha up to last night?\"\n\n\"Well, Ruby and me was . . . well, ya know.  Makes\nthe night go by awful fast, though.  Seems like I just\nleft here.  By the way, you got one a' them widgets\nI told you about?\"\n\n\"Something like it, I think, but I'm not sure.  How's it\nlook to you?\"\n\n\"Umm . . . yeah, it looks a little off.  That's OK, though;\nI think I can figure something out.\"\n\nOr maybe Rocky just buys a lathe and a drill press\nand then goes sorting through the scrap heap.\n\nWhen Incus altered his soldier (was it Sand?  I can't\nremember), the soldier became Incus' best friend;\nbut was Incus able to alter the standing orders, or did\nthey still take precedence?  If the black magicians\nweren't able to interfere with the orders (I'm tempted\nto call them hard-wired, but I'm not sure of that) then\nthey also may not be able to crack the reproductive\nroutines.\n\nNacre\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}