{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/748", "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": 748, "subject": "Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "2000-01-11T16:29:32+00:00", "last": "2000-01-19T13:00:21+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com" }, "date": "2000-01-11T16:29:32+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 04:18 PM 1/11/00 -0500, Jim wrote:\nVery strange thought I can't shake: What if Horn just _sees_ these extra\nlegs on everybody, because of his eye or something (esp. the Neighbors)? No,\nI can't point to a single thing that would \"prove\" this. I'm possessed!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The cover for _In Green's Jungles_ shows a Neighbor, many legs and all.\nThat, of course, proves nothing. \n\nWombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-01-15T17:40:14+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I still say that the secret (probably) is that when humans learn to live\nwith each other in love and charity (not enslaving one another, for\ninstance), the inhumi will follow suit, being imitators of humanity. That's\nwhy Quetzal is ambiguous, because he learned from Patera Pike. \n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-01-19T12:52:04+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 08:57 AM 1/18/00 -0500, you wrote:\nBut if this is the secret, then why doesn't Jahlee burst out laughing when\nthreatened with it? At that very minute she is being presented with _deeds_\nshowing just how far humans are from accomplishing such - the Rajan is\npreparing to use the inhumi to prey on his human enemies.\n\nNo, whatever \"the secret\" is, it's got to be a darn sight more - _do-able_,\nas they say." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good point. The \"secret\" does seem to be something that can be \"done\" on\nthe spot. I have to agree that my suggestion as regards the \"secret\" seems\nto be in error. \n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "2000-01-19T13:00:21+00:00", "subject": "RE: (whorl) Revealed at Last! What (Would Have) Killed the", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 11:17 PM 1/18/00 -0500, you wrote:\n\nThe threat contained in the secret that Horn uses to control the inhumi\n(Krait's secret) has to be something that they believe is possible to carry\nout. If the threat Horn is holding over them is, \"I will tell people that\nthey can defeat you by following the Golden Rule,\" I think they would have\nhave laughed in his face. The inhumi know human nature much too well to\nbelieve that, even with the survival of humanity at stake, all people, or\neven most of them will be able to do unto others only what they would have\nthe others do unto them. While it seems possible to me that if all the\npeople on Blue started to love one another then the inhumi would love them\nas well and no longer want to prey on them, I don't think that the\nprecondition is possible. And, more importantly for my argument, I don't\nbelieve that the inhumi would believe it was possible, either.\n\nI think that if we have enough information to know what the secret is\nalready (and we may not) then it has to be something a good deal more\nspecific than obeying the Golden Rule, although I don't think it's\nsomething entirely different. I think this quote is the key:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "p 350: \"If only we protected one another, they would all be idiots or\nworse. As\nit is, they always get enough to keep them going.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think the secret is that ALL human beings must be protected from the bite\nof the inhumi. No one on Blue wants the inhumi to feed on themselves or\ntheir loved ones and they will usually go to great lengths to prevent it.\nBut, even though most of them probably don't want the inhumi to feed on any\nhuman being, they won't risk themselves or even make much of an effort to\nprotect anyone else. But, if everyone knew that if the inhumi were\nprevented from getting any human blood at all, they would become\nunintelligent and (more importantly) unable to pose as human, then they\nmight be motivated to actually act on this knowledge.\n\nI have to wonder how possible this complete protection would be, however.\nIt doesn't seem entirely plausible to me, which makes me expect that there\nwill turn out to be more than this to Krait's secret.\n\nWilliam Ansley" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tIt seems to me that your proposal has the same problem as the \"golden\nrule\" notion that I've been forced to reject. Everybody has to do it. It's\njust a kind of negative side of the golden rule. Yet what Horn-dude\n(whoever he is) threatens seems to be something more immediate. Also, both\nthe golden rule proposal and your proposal mean that as soon as one person\nfalls out of the system, he can be used by the inhumi again, and the\n\"defeat\" is undone. \n\tI think that both the \"golden rule\" and the \"universal protection\" ideas\nare present and important in the book, but the \"secret\" would seem to be\nsomething that can be implemented without such univeral cooperation.\n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }