5HC plot-cloaking device

Tony Ellis · 24 Jan 2001, 22:35 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: "Tony Ellis" <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Subject: (urth) 5HC plot-cloaking device
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 22:35:19 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0262 at digest.urth.net>
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Rostrum wrote:

> Reading "A Story," I got the impression that the field was hiding St. Anne
> from an already-settled-by-humans St. Croix, not shielding the whole
> system from Earth.
>

Read "V.R.T.".  In one of the interrogation dialogues "Q" specifically says=
 that
"both our worlds remained unknown when planets more distant from Earth had =
been
colonized for decades." The telepathic shield clearly applied to the whole =
system.

The fact that the starcrossers arrive so rapidly is kind of convenient for =
the plot,
I agree. To say the least. But notice that the Shadow child doesn't just sa=
y he's
going to remove the shield, he says of the starcrossers that he is going to=
 "sing
them in" - which suggests he's actually telepathically summoning them. This=
 also
explains why they happen to land just where they can rescue Sandwalker and =
co.,
rather on any other stretch of coastland on the planet. :-)

David Duffy wrote:

> I think we're in the wrong worldview here.  The song is magical, so
> its effects break down immediately from the point of view of a pre-Contact
> narrator, no matter how acausal that appears to science fiction critics ;)

Well, the song -is- telepathic. It may appear magical to Sandwalker and his=
 friends,
but that's because they're ignorant savages. :-)

But surely its effects would appear to "break down immediately" regardless =
of the
point of view of the onlookers?

> I would have thought that any shielding effects on foreigners would be ps=
ychic
> in nature...their own perception would be that they just hadn't got aroun=
d to
> colonizing St Anne yet.

No, the effect of the song really was to hide the planets. See my answer to=
 Rostrum,
just above.

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