# SPOILER WARNING for Ballad of Beta-2 *The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 29 Apr 1999* > 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. --- ### Robert Patterson *29 Apr 1999, 19:19* More details about Delany, Ballad of Beta-2 12 generation ships left Earth for the Leffer System in 2242. 60 yrs later on Earth, cheap FTL travel was discovered, obviating the need for any more generation ships. When the fleet of g-ships finally arrived, only ten arrived, and two of those were empty. The remnants on board the ships were not re-integrated into civilization due to their semi-barbarian and traumatized state. (This element is somewhat like Long Sun.) The Beta-2, which our hero explores as an assignment in his anthropology course, is one of the ships that arrived empty. After much interesting investigation, our hero discovers that the g-ship expedition encountered a race of intelligent energy-beings that live only among the stars--where hyperdrive ships never go. These beings accidentally traumatized the inhabitants--both culturally & physically--and also initiated some virgin births. Our hero meets one of the half-human progeny and gets the scoop from him. ``` Robert Patterson http://home.midsouth.rr.com/rpatterson *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. ``` ---