{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/989", "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": 989, "subject": "Digest whorl.v011.n032", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2000-08-30T20:25:27+00:00", "last": "2000-08-31T07:14:39+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Josh Levitan", "address": "josh_levitan at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2000-08-30T20:25:27+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v011.n032", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This will probably put me at odds with the usual bunch, but I'd like now to\nsuggest that the entire notion about how the inhumi are able to fly back \nand\nforth between Green and Blue is folklore concocted by the\nscientifically-illiterate colonists.\n\nConsider the following two passages from BLUE:\n\n\"The inhumi can fly...They can even fly through the airless vastness of the\nabyss, passing from Green to Blue, and back to Green, when they are at or\nnear conjunction. I have never understood how that was possible.\" (180)\n\nThis does not stop Horn, however, from speculating thusly:\n\n\"By an extreme effort, they could 'jump' out of the great sea of air\nsurrounding the whorl they wished to leave, taking aim at the whorl to \nwhich\nthey wished to go. Their aim would not have to be precise, since they would\nbegin to fall toward the whorl they were trying to reach as soon as they\nneared it. Landers, as I knew even then, must be built so that they will \nnot\noverheat when they arrive at a new whorl. But landers are much larger than\nthe largest boats, and being constructed almost entirely of metals, they\nmust be much heavier. The inhumi are not bigger than small men, although\nthey appear so large when their wings are spread; and even though they are\nstrong, they are no means heavy. Light objects fall much more slowly than\nheavy ones, something that anyone may see by dropping a feather as I have\njust dropped Oreb's here at my desk. The heat that troubles the landers \nmust\npresent no great problems to the inhumi.\"\n\nApparently, basic science has never been taught at Horn's schola, and if an\nequivalent speech were someday made in a George Lukas movie, we'd all be\nhowling our sides off. But by showing us how scientifically naïve Horn is, \nI\nbelieve Wolfe is attempting to suggest that Horn and his fellow colonists \ndo\nnot have the necessary background to see how wildly implausible\nwinged-flight between the two worlds is. \"Jumping\" so mightily they escape\nGreen's gravitational pull; \"falling\" toward their new destination; failing\nto burn up when they hit the new whorl's atmosphere because they're lighter\nthan landers; these are the sorts of speculations an ignorant (if innocent)\nperson makes, but they are definitely not congruent to reality. (Horn does\nnot attempt to explain why an inhumu's blood gases don't boil off in the\nvacuum of space, but his biology is also suspect; thus his failure to\nexplain correctly the facts of life to Mora, where nutrition and body fat\npercentage are the primary determinants of menarche.) As for the \nobservation\nthat the inhumi seem more plentiful during a conjunction, I'd like to\nsuggest that this is because the inhumi are simply seeking to exploit a\nniche created by the giant storms and tidal havoc, and where there may be\nquite a few displaced persons and ruined, vulnerable buildings; and that \nthe\nniche is why they migrate, not because the worlds are closer for a \ncrossing.\n\nBut if the inhumi don't wing their way across the void, how do they\naccomplish the transit? mantis has mentioned the landers already, but \nsurely\nthere are not many of these. But what about the oneiric transport Incanto\nuses, always undergone, at least so far, with an inhuma at his side? As\nKrait at one time tells Horn, \"Our race is older than yours, and has\nlearned things that you can't even dream of.\" Could this then be the method\nby which they access Blue--perhaps appropriated from the Neighbors as a\nblood secret?\n\nBecause no matter which way the feather falls, I'm not buying the\nwings-across-space theory.\n\nRobert Borski" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Then Peter Westlake wrote:\n\nI suggested this a while ago, but alga had some evidence that they\nreally could:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yes, they really can (see LS3, the end). They shut down their breathing.\nBut they can't do it for very long distances, only when the two worlds \nare\nat their closest conjunction. They come to Blue to feed (assuming that \nthe\nGreen colonists are not enough for them), but they need to return to \nGreen\nto breed. Landers are not part of the scenario, as they are not good with\ntools (Krait pretty much tells us this)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course, they do have human slaves, now. I can't look up the passage\nalga cites until I get home; anyone recall the details?\n\nAs for the science, I might believe they could survive re-entry,\nbeing able to spread their wings like a parachute, but then how\nwould it be possible to kill them by burning? Horn reports seeing\nthis during his visit to (?)Skano." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm gonna have to agree with Borski on this one. They can fly, and survive \nburied/in a vaccuum. But how the hell can they reach escape velocity and \nsurvive re-entry. Horn's explanation is very poor medieval-level science \nindeed, and it never even occurred to me until Borski pointed it out.\n\nNarwhal" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "akt", "address": "akt at attglobal.net" }, "date": "2000-08-30T20:59:21+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v011.n032", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 14:44 2000-08-29 -0500, Robert Borski wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Your question about reproduction is one I've pondered myself, but\nmainly in" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "the Green-Blue-Green transmission route. Do I have this right? An inhuma\nflies to Blue from Green during a conjunction and then spends the next\nseven\nyears attempting to slake her blood thirst. During the next conjunction\n(or\nthe following one?), she returns to Green, where she mates with an\ninhumu\n(or might this happen while still on Blue?), reproduces, and the\nresultant\negg incubates in the uv-rich climate of Green until it hatches. (Are\nthere\nno equatorial hot zones on Blue? Is Green that much closer orbitally to\nthe\nsun?) This seems to me like an extremely awkward reproductive\nstrategy--even\nif the inhumi lay multiple eggs. It also means in Krait's case that he\nmust\nundertake the hazardous hejira to Blue probably during the first\nconjunction\nhe witnesses, but if he wants to reproduce go back again later. (\"Hmmm.\nFood\nor sex? Well, you can never be too thin.\") Also: how exactly does the\nblood-to-egg core personality transfer work? If I'm an inhuma, does the\nfirst, middle or last person I dine on imprint my offspring? And do the\nmale\ninhumu's sero-victims contribute nothing?>>>\n\nNo, not exactly. Please, some other people look at IGJ 81-83 when Krait\nis actually telling the Secret. Let's agree: Events of 20 years ago are\na big clue; it says so right here. Sinew is, let's say, between 21 and\n25. An inhuma bit him as a toddler, dangerously, enough so that he\nnearly died, maybe because he was so little and she didn't realize that\nshe had taken too much blood. My assumption has always been that\nconjunction lasts long enough (weeks, months?) that an unhuma(u) could\nmake a round trip, which cuts out the 7-year thing. (And yes, there's\nplenty of evidence--I'm not going to look up page numbers just now--that\nthey can make the trip at conjunction. Neighbors predated landers.) No,\nI am sure they can't reproduce on Blue; if they could there would be far\nmore of them on Blue, and it's necessary to the plot to have to have\nthem return.\n\nThe other evidence we have is Fava's second tale. But this is puzzling.\nThe baby vampires' birth seems almost exactly like that of baby turtles.\nHow would Krait have the least notion of who Mom was? Is some kind of\nweird DNA instinct at work, the kind of thing that sends salmon\nupstream? I had originally thought that the reason Krait seemed so like\nSinew to Horn was that Sinew himself was very like Horn--hence the\nenmity--and that Krait, patterning himself as a younger Horn, became\nvery like Sinew. And this is still an attractive thought. But, reading\nover p 81-83 again. I realize it must be more than that. Horn seems to\nthink it is more than that, too, though the last sentence of IGJ (such a\nlovely sentence) soars it into metaphor.\n\nThe Secret has something to do with a fertile or gravid inhuma and a\nhuman child. Of course, I don't really know that it has to be a child,\nbut it was in this case. Maybe an odd take on the changeling idea?\n\n-alga\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alastair Reynolds", "address": "areynold at estsa2.estec.esa.nl" }, "date": "2000-08-31T07:14:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v011.n032", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm gonna have to agree with Borski on this one. They can fly, and survive\nburied/in a vaccuum. But how the hell can they reach escape velocity and\nsurvive re-entry. Horn's explanation is very poor medieval-level science\nindeed, and it never even occurred to me until Borski pointed it out.\n\nNarwhal\n_" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Me neither, I'm ashamed to say - but Robert is quite right that the\nmuddled \"explanation\" seems to be a tip-off from Wolfe that all is\nnot quite what it seems. \n\nAl" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": ".\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }