Shaving Clones

Chris · 25 Jun 2005, 16:48 · from 2005-June.txt.gz
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From: rasputin_ at hotmail.com (Chris)
Date: Sat Jun 25 16:48:25 2005
Subject: (urth) Shaving Clones
In-Reply-To: <32667385.1119658752837.JavaMail.root at wamui-karabash.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BAY102-F178DB72C9256F4CEF7E09386EC0 at phx.gbl>

I do recognize that this plays on the biggest weakness of an attempted clone 
theory, but then in a broader sense almost any constructive theory of this 
kind from Wolfe's work has problems with "economy". Wolfe does not make it 
easy to draw clean, economical interpretations of his stories (which is not 
to say we shouldn't still *try* to be economical in our interpretations). 
That said I would just take it as implicit that a theory like this faces an 
uphill battle, and needs fairly strong arguments to be convincing, and leave 
it at that.

Crush said:
> >I don't think it's unworkable, I just think it's significantly awkward.
>
>Yes, but you find it awkward because (I find this stunning) you
>found nothing particularly suspicious about Tussah's declaration
>that Silk was somehow his "son". I found the statement absurd.

This strays from my original point as far as the Wolfe quotation goes: if we 
take it as granted that Wolfe was speaking figuratively, then the quotation 
doesn't really provide usable evidence for any theory, yours or otherwise. 
Yes, I can see how you could read it the way you do, but I can also see how 
it can be read in other ways *even if your theory were correct*.

But you are correct in that I don't find it unreasonable for Tussah to 
consider his chosen heir, who he has taken extraordinary effort to set up 
and protect, as his "son" in a sense. It's just that this isn't my reason 
for finding your reading awkward. I find it awkward because referring to 
Typhon as "Calde" in a context where the term is sure to be taken as 
referring to someone else flouts basic conversational rules - which is 
obvious, and we agreed on from the beginning. And no, I don't take the 
awkwardness to be decisive in ruling out your reading, because it's not 
beyond Wolfe. I just don't see any possibility of a decisive interpretation 
of that statement either way.

>And why go out of your way to have an embryo succeed you?

It has been too long since I read the Long Sun series to try to 
psychoanalyze Tussah, and I doubt there's enough in the text to allow that 
anyway, but possibly because he wanted an especially effective leader to 
follow him? Because he cared for the people under his rule? Or possibly as a 
final gesture of his own power beyond death, in choosing and maneuvering the 
person who would carry on after him? (I would have to dig, but I seem to 
recall Machiavelli putting a similar sentiment in the mouth of some 
historical ruler or other). Maybe out of pure spite for his political 
enemies, wanting to be sure his successor would be strong enough to 
defeat/destroy them.

>And how did he know that Silk would become Calde'? After all,
>with his leadership skills, he might have ascended to the
>Ayuntamiento or succeded Quetzal?

This leads to an odd bit of speculation which I don't know whether there's 
any solid evidence to be found, but... I seem to recall there is something 
very odd towards the beginning of the Long Sun series, where someone has put 
up a huge graffiti to the effect of "Silk for Calde!" long before Silk is 
well-known or has done anything to attract public attention to himself. It 
always seemed quite out of place. It seemed to me that someone, before the 
story even begins, is preparing to maneuver Silk into taking over, and it is 
a mystery as to who's behind it. Possibly agents secretly loyal to Tussah 
who were left to watch Silk and push him into leadership when the time came?

>And since Silk's embryo came from the Whorl, how did his
>second set of parents get in the Mainframe?
>
>As I said, I didn't go trying to figure out how to get clones on Whorl.
>As I saw it, Wolfe left no other explanation.

All of the original Whorl colonists, including the ones in stasis, 
originally came from Urth. Perhaps a couple of them were Silk's parents? It 
wouldn't require that much of a stretch.

As an aside, Mainframe is a concept that always struck me as odd, and I just 
don't see how it can possibly work as presented (or why its designer would 
want to set it up that way). Which possibly points to some further secret 
about the nature of Mainframe, but if so I haven't been able to place it.

> >Tussah was in charge of one city, among how many? Hundreds? I don't
> >think this provides any special reason to believe that Tussah is a clone 
>of
> >Typhon.
>
>I did not say this as proof that Tussah was a clone of Typhon. I was
>responding to your assertion that Pas would prefer a clone of himself
>to lead the colonists rather than a clone of his son. I was agreeing with
>you.

Well, backing up from the question of Typhon's preferences for a second: in 
the broadest terms, either Tussah's being a clone of Typhon was an intended 
part of the plan for evacuating the ship, or it was not. If it was part of 
the plan, then this suggests that the same thing would be true in the other 
cities as well, implying lots of clones brought into play (though I am not 
sure how that would work in a matriarchal city, for example). If it was not 
part of the plan, then Tussah's being a clone of Typhon ends up being 
incidental, and we are left with a big question of how/why this came about 
that has no good answer.

>But the embryos *were* sent on the Whorl with the very intent that they 
>would
>use their predispositions for leadership to make the colonies successful. 
>That
>is stated explicitly. We know that.

Right. And this to me falls into a category of planning that is something 
like: "give them good starting materials, and hope for the best." And that 
does seem to be the way Typhon operated. What I don't see happening, though, 
is a sort of micro-manipulation where Pas, from the beginning of the voyage, 
says: "At time X I want a person with THIS set of genes in THIS particular 
position."

But this is just another way of working on the angle that either having a 
clone (Tussah) in place at that time is intentional, or it is not. If it's 
intentional, it really stretches the bounds of what we can reasonably expect 
Pas to have planned, even if he made the plan on the spot just before 
decanting the clone. And this also does not seem to be a sensible or 
workable way to plan things.

>Okay. For the record, we've moved off of Tussah and on to Horn.
>
>First of all, it was only a guess. Secondly, Horn was about 15. That makes
>his birth a good deal less than 10 years after Tussah's murder. Tussah, I
>presume, knew who was his "son not of his body". Everyone guessed he
>was already out there somewhere. It did't require special knowledge of
>their future at all.

Well, OK, here I should ask: if Horn was also a decanted embryo, do you 
think his being present at the same manteion where Silk would eventually end 
up was intended, or mere coincidence? If coincidence, what would be the 
purpose of taking an exhorbitantly expensively embryo and dropping him into 
a poor family, in a location where he is unlikely to get a great education 
and where statistically he stands a greater chance of being killed in some 
random accident or crime before reaching a reasonable age? If he's meant to 
play some role, or be a backup, why not decant him earlier so that he could 
be a more reasonable age when the time came?

On the other hand if he was meant to be there under the tutelage of Silk, 
whoever put him there would have to have an unrealistically exact sense of 
what was going to happen and when.

>THe text says that embryos had to be procured from the black market. They
>weren't easy to get. Why would you assume the person who did it could time
>it? I'm not certain any living person knew that Silk was the "son" or 
>whether
>the son had died of measles at 10.

I agree, and this goes right along with what I was trying to get at. It 
makes Horn's presence at that place and time even more inexplicable.

> >Lots of people in New Viron knew Horn first hand. And they get to see 
>Silk's
> >body when Silkhorn returns to New Viron. I do not think Silk was so old 
>that
> >a family resemblance would have been that impossible to discern. 
>Especially
> >in a family that striking.
>
>Come on! You're telling me that anyone would recognize you as your father's 
>son
>without the two of you compare side by side, even if one of your was 
>paunchy
>and balding and the other was rail-thin, had long white hair, and a missing 
>eye?

For the average person, perhaps not (but realistically, maybe). But we're 
supposedly talking about someone for whom facial features are extremely 
important, this is what I was getting at. If the "face of command" is 
genetically passed on, then someone who actually has it will have certain 
distinctive features, won't they? And if Horn didn't get the features, then 
he wouldn't have had the face and uncanny leadership skills you assume him 
to have. Though for the record I do not think Horn had any particularly 
uncanny leadership skills other than having learned from a good teacher - 
but then again, I don't think Horn is a clone either.
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