Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the

Kevin J. Maroney11 Jan 2000, 16:29original

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At 04:18 PM 1/11/00 -0500, Jim wrote: Very strange thought I can't shake: What if Horn just sees these extra legs on everybody, because of his eye or something (esp. the Neighbors)? No, I can't point to a single thing that would "prove" this. I'm possessed!

The cover for In Green's Jungles shows a Neighbor, many legs and all. That, of course, proves nothing. Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Jim Jordan15 Jan 2000, 17:40original

↳ follows, by subject match Kevin J. Maroney

I still say that the secret (probably) is that when humans learn to live with each other in love and charity (not enslaving one another, for instance), the inhumi will follow suit, being imitators of humanity. That's why Quetzal is ambiguous, because he learned from Patera Pike. Nutria *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Jim Jordan19 Jan 2000, 12:52original

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At 08:57 AM 1/18/00 -0500, you wrote: But if this is the secret, then why doesn't Jahlee burst out laughing when threatened with it? At that very minute she is being presented with deeds showing just how far humans are from accomplishing such - the Rajan is preparing to use the inhumi to prey on his human enemies. No, whatever "the secret" is, it's got to be a darn sight more - do-able, as they say.

Good point. The "secret" does seem to be something that can be "done" on the spot. I have to agree that my suggestion as regards the "secret" seems to be in error. Nutria *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Jim Jordan19 Jan 2000, 13:00original

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At 11:17 PM 1/18/00 -0500, you wrote: The threat contained in the secret that Horn uses to control the inhumi (Krait's secret) has to be something that they believe is possible to carry out. If the threat Horn is holding over them is, "I will tell people that they can defeat you by following the Golden Rule," I think they would have have laughed in his face. The inhumi know human nature much too well to believe that, even with the survival of humanity at stake, all people, or even most of them will be able to do unto others only what they would have the others do unto them. While it seems possible to me that if all the people on Blue started to love one another then the inhumi would love them as well and no longer want to prey on them, I don't think that the precondition is possible. And, more importantly for my argument, I don't believe that the inhumi would believe it was possible, either. I think that if we have enough information to know what the secret is already (and we may not) then it has to be something a good deal more specific than obeying the Golden Rule, although I don't think it's something entirely different. I think this quote is the key:

p 350: "If only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or worse. As it is, they always get enough to keep them going."

I think the secret is that ALL human beings must be protected from the bite of the inhumi. No one on Blue wants the inhumi to feed on themselves or their loved ones and they will usually go to great lengths to prevent it. But, even though most of them probably don't want the inhumi to feed on any human being, they won't risk themselves or even make much of an effort to protect anyone else. But, if everyone knew that if the inhumi were prevented from getting any human blood at all, they would become unintelligent and (more importantly) unable to pose as human, then they might be motivated to actually act on this knowledge. I have to wonder how possible this complete protection would be, however. It doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, which makes me expect that there will turn out to be more than this to Krait's secret. William Ansley

It seems to me that your proposal has the same problem as the "golden rule" notion that I've been forced to reject. Everybody has to do it. It's just a kind of negative side of the golden rule. Yet what Horn-dude (whoever he is) threatens seems to be something more immediate. Also, both the golden rule proposal and your proposal mean that as soon as one person falls out of the system, he can be used by the inhumi again, and the "defeat" is undone. I think that both the "golden rule" and the "universal protection" ideas are present and important in the book, but the "secret" would seem to be something that can be implemented without such univeral cooperation. Nutria *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

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