Wall of Nessus

Gerry Quinn · 11 Jun 2010, 12:36 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:36:02 +0100
Subject: (urth) Wall of Nessus
References: <000901cb080c$a24bd6a0$3dd14a0c@rclackey><4C113F93.6080403 at gmail.com>
	<003601cb0922$0df9bdc0$55cd4a0c@rclackey>
Message-ID: <55196EA2A43C49DCACFE5D27D9A6D341@jill>

From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
> James Wynn quoted and wrote:

>> I believe Typhon is doing some Yoda-speak here. He is saying there are
>> powers in the sea that NOW CONSIDER THEMSELVES RULERS and he'll sort
>> them out tout de suite. (There's some pattern-matching here with Bill
>> Reis in AEG.)
>
> Probably so. And I have little doubt that he could have dispatched them at
> least as easily as the U.S. Navy could have dealt with the Squid God. 
> Anyone
> who could build the _Whorl_ and manufacture hundreds of thousands of chem
> soldiers would have little trouble with sea monsters; and the Ascians, if
> they were even around in Typhon's era, would have been less than fleas to
> him.

I agree - the sea monsters may have great powers, but we clearly know that 
Typhon was concerned with other issues.  If he was beleaguered by Abaia, 
Erebus and Co., he would hardly have devoted resources to building the 
Whorl.  And we know from his own words that the crisis he faced was the 
rapid diminution of light and heat from the Sun.

Oddly enough, none of this stuff has been an issue for me - perhaps because 
I don;t read carefully enough.  in the first place, I totally don't remember 
the "now" in "powers in the sea", and in the second, I never got the 
impression that the wall was so enormous.  I don't remember seeing any 
figures, but I always imagined it as maybe ten metres thick and twenty high.

- Gerry Quinn

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