{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/648",
    "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": 648,
    "subject": "Codename: Alex",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1999-10-01T19:07:51+00:00",
    "last": "1999-10-01T19:46:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0046@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "akt at ibm.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-01T19:07:51+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Codename: Alex",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "No spoilers for after what Alga's read, btw."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "You are a gent, Alex, but I suggest that we take off the gloves. People who\nhaven't read the new book simply shouldn't download the Whorl list for a\nwhile; they can cavort around in Urth if they need a Wolfe fix. We need to\ntalk!\n\nSo say I after blowing off most of my day to steam all the way through it. I\nwill go back more carefully, but I was carried away.\n\nWhat Alex was protecting me from was my shock at the live burial of the\ninhumi, which seemed a truly inhumane death--of course I didn't know at that\npoint what would happen later in the plot. And what I suggest to you at\n*this* point is that this is Krait's secret, simply that, imprisoned and\ndeprived of food and stimulus, the inhumi can survive for a long time in a\nkind of shriveled hibernation from which they quickly recover when given\nfresh blood. We have to assume that Horn almost improbably early on realizes\nthat he can use this knowledge to his strategic advantage--but why not\nassume this? Horn seems to have a natural military bent, like Mint and\nSeverian. (Well, I guess Mint's is not entirely natural.) He is quick and\ndecisive and drives a hard but fair bargain with the inhumi when the time\ncomes. Is it so illogical to think that he foresees how he can do this?\nAfter all, he is perhaps the one person on Blue who can contemplate an\ninhumu without complete involuntary horror. David Lebling's funny blurb is\nalso true.\n\n-alga\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0010-0047@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-01T19:46:20+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (whorl) Codename: Alex",
      "in_reply_to": "<whorl-v0010-0046@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "But if this is Krait's big nasty secret, how does it reduce the inhumi to\n(inexact quote, I'm at work) \"little more than animals.\"  If the secret\nstrategic victory over the inhumi is to bury them all alive, I think both\nHorn and the inhumi are vastly over-reacting to the threat!  The inhumi\npulled out of the ground are back to their normal nasty selves after a quick\nfix of cow, and certainly don't seem reduced to animal level.  Mind you, I\ndon't think my \"intelligent blood\" thing is the exact secret either--it has\nto be something people could DO to the inhumi (don't let them drink blood?\nthat's already the goal...  force feed them stupid animals?  also unlikely).\n\nI think the burial is MORE inhumane now, if the inhumi (as seems) are somehow\nconscious for a long period/forever.  Horn's approach to this is interesting,\nin that it's Silk-like, since he doesn't let them stay that way which would\nbe monstrous, but (very vaguely) Machiavellian in that he USES his solution\nto this moral problem to win his war.  \n\nThe intelligent blood idea does present the cruel vision of species that, in\norder to remain morally and intellectually aware, must do something morally\nrepulsive.  Essentially, to have any will, they must exercise their will in\na malevolent way.\n\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}