Who is the Long Sun?

matthew.malthouse · 09 Sep 2003, 09:41 · from urth-v0309.mbox · original

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From: matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk
Subject: Re: (urth) Who is the Long Sun?
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 10:41:39 +0100
Message-ID: <urth-v0309-4081 at digest.urth.net>
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On 06/09/2003 16:56:13 "Andrew Bollen" wrote:

>Roy wrote:
>
>> All this casual talk of cloning that's been going on lately from=20
various
>> quarters strikes me as improbable, given what we know of Typhon. He=20
wanted
>> to live forever--and he wanted to do it with the same face he started=20
out
>> with. If cloning had been a workable option available to Typhon, why
>didn't
>> he use it, rather than resort to the bizarre choice of having his own=20
head
>> cut off?
>
>Another gap between New Sun and SS/LS. IMO it would be odd if the Typhon=20
of
>SS/LS could not clone huimans, given the apparent level of genetic
>technology at his command. And as Roy says, if the Typhon of NS could=20
clone,
>and given that he can download personailites, a head transplant doesn't=20
seem
>like the best solution to his problem.

We can store egg and sperm.  We can perform in vitro fertilisation and=20
store the resulting gamete.  However human cloning remains a theoretical=20
proposition and the "success" of animal cloning problematic.

If Typhon could do better such technologies would seem to have presented a=20
simpler solution than chems.

The personality download is clearly possible but we can't say that it is=20
perfect.  Pas is not the Typhon we glimps on Urth.  If the dlifferences=20
are deliberate rather than an artifact of an imperfect process we need a=20
motivation for the manipulations.

For New, Long and Short suns to be internally consistant Typhon cannot=20
have perfect cloning or more esoteric genetic manipulation at his=20
disposal.

If they are not internally conistsant (be that as deliberate policy or=20
from the constraints of retro-fitting Typhon into the more recent story)=20
there can be no coherant solution apt to both stories.

For my part I suspect that Typhon was a lot more technologically=20
constrained than he sugegstes to Severain at either of their meetings.

Matthew

--=20

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