Seventeen

David Stockhoff · 27 May 2011, 00:04 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Thu, 26 May 2011 20:04:42 -0400
Subject: (urth) Seventeen
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Well, Wolfe was in Korea, so regardless of the actual political system 
that created them (and their battle formations don't seem very 
Communist), one may imagine being impressed for a lifetime by the 
implacableness of the Chinese army when they crossed the Yalu in winter, 
and that this might influence anyone greatly.

But since the Internet was not around in the 1970s, we are left with (a) 
Communist slogans (b) ad slogans as a source of total social 
brainwashing. From the soldier's tale, Ascia certainly sounds more like 
China than Madison Avenue, to me.

On 5/26/2011 7:51 PM, Nathan C. Tresch wrote:
> Can someone explain to me why the idea that the Ascians have anything 
> to do with communism is so popular?  He attributed his inspiration for 
> the Ascians to the Turks of the Byzantine period of history, and 
> points out that they are north american in origin in this interview:
>
> http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm
>
> Further, the idea that it takes a totalitarian society to produce a 
> culture where only certain slogans can be used to communicate seems 
> specious. I think it's just as likely that formalism and political 
> correctness taken to an extreme could produce such a culture, or that 
> some kind of mass media which spread slogans, (like the internet 
> spreading memes), could also be the impetus.
>
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 6:25 AM, Lee Berman <severfiansola at hotmail.com 
> <mailto:severfiansola at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     I like David's theory about 17 being a nice counterpart to 12 in a
>     gnostic parody of
>     Earth (which I roundly think Urth is meant to be).
>
>     Still, I don't feel the need to leave it at that. For me the the
>     Group of 17 might also refer to the
>     communist nations at the time of BotNS writing: USSR, China, Cuba,
>     N. Korea, N. Vietnam, Mongolia,
>     Cambodia, Laos, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
>     Poland, Hungary, E. Germany,Albania
>     and Yemen. (the # gets bigger if you want to add some short-lived
>     African communist states)
>
>     With regard to the origin of megatherians, I'm coming around to
>     the notion that they are all human in
>     origin. Jibes with the "Man is created in God's image" religious
>     idea. Aliens are always some form
>     of mutated human, be they Abaia or Famulimus.
>
>     I think Wolfe tries to show us the progression. It always starts
>     with a bid for immortality. Typhon
>     with his body grafts.  Baldanders with his eternal growth.  Even
>     Tzadkiel with his escape to the next
>     universe.
>
>     But by definition, becoming immortal means losing one's humanity.
>     Thus Baldanders' and Typhon's cruelty.
>     Even Tzadkiel must resort to genocide.  Baldanders is losing his
>     hearing. Typhon loses his whole body.
>     Pig is blind and the Godling has eyes so small we must guess he
>     will lose his sight with further growth.
>
>     We aren't given a lot of face time with the final products, but I
>     think we get enough with Tzadkiel,
>     The Mother and Great Scylla to conclude that when these former
>     human-types get big enough they can pinch
>     off human-sized agents to accomplish what they, in their large
>     bulk, cannot. We never see Abaia but it
>     is implied he can do the same thing.  The cold pale warriors, the
>     pandours, are a similar product of
>     Erebus I think.
>
>     (James, you implied that there is evidence in BotNS for Erebus
>     being long dead. Could you outline this?)
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