Typhon's nature

Gerry Quinn · 12 Oct 2011, 13:46 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:46:36 +0100
Subject: (urth) Typhon's nature
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From: larry miller 

> As I posted before the Mandragora was likely a proto chem Typhon built
> to download into.  Theres a point in Long Sun where Silk having
> discovered that the Gods can possess chems and I remember Echidna
> mentioning a Prime Calcula in the Citadel.  Im sure this was a
> reference to the mandragora.  This would also keep with Wolfes naming
> conventions as Calculas is I believe the latin word for stone.

Are we talking about the same mandragora, i.e. the very ordinary homunculus briefly interrogated by Severian at the end of Citadel of the Autarch? 
It?s just a random foetus pickled in spirits and magically kept in a semi-alive state.  As it tells us itself: ?I was deformed, and died before birth, and have been kept here since in white brandy.?

Neither Typhon nor a mandrake are involved.  And surely the ?Prime Calcula? must refer to a central processing unit of Mainframe (I would not surprise me if some of the problems of the Whorl arise from Mainframe being damaged during the war of the gods, but that?s speculation.)  I am pretty sure it is actually called the Prime Calculator.    Echidna is losing control of Marble as she says the word:

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    Her head swivelled toward the Sacred Window.  ?The prime calcula... His citadel.? [?] Her knees would no longer support her; she crumpled [?] seeming to shrink as she fell.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

So the ellipses can be naturally interpreted as indicating an interrupted word/sentence. 
- Gerry Quinn
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