(urth) Shaving Clones

[James Wynn]

Chris said:
>I devised the following theory: 
>everyone on Urth is genetically Severian, including Typhon.

Ha ha! Dan'l already devised that retort the day I first declared
that the explanation for Wolfe's answer was that Tussah was
a clone of Typhon (although he may not remember it).

>I don't think it's unworkable, I just think it's significantly awkward. 

Yes, but you find it awkward because (I find this stunning) you
found nothing particularly suspicious about Tussah's declaration
that Silk was somehow his "son". I found the statement absurd.
There was certainly no requirement that Tussah be succeeded by a
blood heir. Silk's bio-mom was not Tussah's wife. Tussah certainly
had other women. Furthermore, the circumstances of Silk's 
implantation were never revealed and could never be proven and
would probably work against Silk's popularity if it were.
Why assert that his "son" would follow after him?

And why go out of your way to have an embryo succeed you?
And how did he know that Silk would become Calde'? After all,
with his leadership skills, he might have ascended to the
Ayuntamiento or succeded Quetzal?
And since Silk's embryo came from the Whorl, how did his 
second set of parents get in the Mainframe?

As I said, I didn't go trying to figure out how to get clones on Whorl.
As I saw it, Wolfe left no other explanation.

>And when you start trying to divine his intention here, you can go a number of 
>ways. Just as one example, does he mean the "Calde" (in its non-obvious 
>sense) is Silk's father, or does he mean the Calde (Tussah) is his "father" 
>(in a figurative sense - even given the question was about Silk's 
>"ancestry", even this can be taken figuratively). I'm sure other 
>interpretations are possible, and I'm skeptical of all of them - I don't 
>think this quotation does much to back up any theory.

I don't think Tussah, under the self-evident circumstances in the text, can
be called Silk's "father" even figuratively. If I go with your interpretation,
I'm left with the explanation that Wolfe totally misunderstood the question
(and responded with unnecessarily abrupt dismissiveness) or
ultimately lied. But why lie if the answer to Silk's ancestry is merely that
Silk's parentage is that they are not characters in the story?
For these reasons, Wolfe's answer -- unlooked for -- hit me like a ton
of bricks.

>>[Typhon] *did* clone himself. When the Whorl came in to
>>orbit around their destination, TUSSAH was in
>>charge.

>Tussah was in charge of one city, among how many? Hundreds? I don't
>think this provides any special reason to believe that Tussah is a clone of 
>Typhon. 

I did not say this as proof that Tussah was a clone of Typhon. I was
responding to your assertion that Pas would prefer a clone of himself
to lead the colonists rather than a clone of his son. I was agreeing with
you. 

We don't know what went on at other cities. This is a story about one
particular city.

>And I don't see how it would be especially advantageous to have a 
>clone of Typhon "in charge" when the time came - sure, such a clone might be 
>genetically predisposed to successful leadership, but then *anyone who 
>gained and held that post* would likely be predisposed to successful 
>leadership. 

But the embryos *were* sent on the Whorl with the very intent that they would
use their predispositions for leadership to make the colonies successful. That
is stated explicitly. We know that. I didn't decide that a clone of Typhon had to
be among them. Well before I fingered Tussah as a clone, there were
discussions on this list about the similarities between Silk and Typhon. 
Many people were comfortably certain that the Silk-embryo was a clone of
Typhon. I still think there are enough clues to make that theory inviting.
I believe it was James Jordon who first asserted that Silk was a clone of
the son of Typhon and proto-Kypris. I didn't like the idea at first...actually
not until I was convinced that Tussah was a clone.

>And children don't always turn out the way you'd like them to, 
>even if they have the "right genes" - unless of course Pas was going to 
>possess Tussah when the time came, but you've already argued against that.

I think that is one of the themes of the story.

>Here I'd like to make a general comment that applies to things brought up in 
>several different posts (and not specifically here) - we have to be careful 
>not to give Typhon too much credit for omniscience. 

I think the failure of Typhon's plan to go off unhitched is pretty much a
backstory of LS/SS.  By the time, the colonists actually disembark, the
Whorl is falling apart, the Mainframe's modules are at war, the chems
have practically lost their ability to procreate since the females wore
out, people have been using their shuttle cards for money and breaking
them up into "bits".

The plan as it ends up is not Typhon's but Pas's. And of course the Pas that
is resurrected is not the Pas that left Urth.

>>>Nor is there any
>>>indication of who, if anyone, would give such an embryo to them to
>>>raise, or why.
>
>>This is a very good point. In my opinion, the person was Quetzal and his
>>purpose was as a backup plan in case neither Silk nor Awk succeeded in
>>bringing about the Plan of Pas. That's my guess.
>>
>I don't understand this, for reasons somewhat connecting with what was said 
>above - it implies instrumental roles for specific individuals in "the Plan 
>of Pas", sight unseen.Quetzal would then have to have known their roles 
>something like 12 years in advance to get Horn in place. And since Pas had 
>been out of commission for some time before that, Pas would have had to have 
>planned out the course of events before many of the key players were even 
>born.

Okay. For the record, we've moved off of Tussah and on to Horn.

First of all, it was only a guess. Secondly, Horn was about 15. That makes
his birth a good deal less than 10 years after Tussah's murder. Tussah, I
presume, knew who was his "son not of his body". Everyone guessed he
was already out there somewhere. It did't require special knowledge of
their future at all. It only requires knowledge that the embryos were granted
special propensities in leadership. That ability was the greatest threat to the
Ayuntamiento since they were for no one's good but their own. We're never
told how Horn found out about the leadership abilities by the way. Who told him?  

I fingered Quetzal because he is the only non-simulated character in the story
with a vested interest in seeing the Plan of Pas come off.

>Aside from that it seems impossible that Horn could possibly have filled in 
>for Silk, even if he had supergenes. If the plan was for him to be a backup, 
>it would seem safer to seed him in place much earlier.

THe text says that embryos had to be procured from the black market. They
weren't easy to get. Why would you assume the person who did it could time 
it? I'm not certain any living person knew that Silk was the "son" or whether
the son had died of measles at 10.

>The alternative here seems to be either to say that cloneHorn was dropped 
>into place by some supreme agency capable of micro-managing individual lives 

The point was that he would have powers that could be used. According to [I
don't remember who] Blood had Mucor emplanted just to see what powers she
would have.

>>As the text states, there were very few people who knew Silk first hand...
>>certainly not for very long. Most of those who did, were still on the 
>>Whorl.
>>Without the two side-by-side, whose to compare them?

>Lots of people in New Viron knew Horn first hand. And they get to see Silk's 
>body when Silkhorn returns to New Viron. I do not think Silk was so old that 
>a family resemblance would have been that impossible to discern. Especially 
>in a family that striking.

Come on! You're telling me that anyone would recognize you as your father's son
without the two of you compare side by side, even if one of your was paunchy
and balding and the other was rail-thin, had long white hair, and a missing eye? 

~ Crush