(urth) Shooting the moon

James Wynn thewynns at earthlink.net
Tue Jun 28 16:36:06 PDT 2005


>>I said:
>>A nasty shot from the bushes IMO, and I'll stand by
>>that.

>Roy said:
>Do you also stand by this (to Chris)?

If you're offering a defense, it's a lame one. If it is an apology, it's
worse. Take your best shot, but stand in the open as you do.

I agree moving on is the best recourse, considering all.
The quicker the better. 

>On the same page and in the same conversation as the passage
>we're disputing, Hoof asked (of Scylla), "Did she say Pas would kill her if
>he could?" Silkhorn answered, "That is indeed what she said, but I am not
>certain it's true and I'm not Pas."
>
>This conversation takes place very near the end of Silkhorn's career on
>Blue. He denies being Pas, which is certainly literally true. Then how is it
>that this person "who arguably knows as much or more about Pas than anyone",
>doesn't know Pas' intentions toward his renegade daughter?

a) I don't argue that Silk was intended to rule the colonies as an emperor. The
story takes place in Viron. The Vironese colonists are at issue. The Rajan
is not Silk. He more and he's less. 

b) I don't think one needs to be intimately knowledgeable about Pas to argue that
Scylla's fear that He intends to erase her were legitimate. He's been chasing her,
her sister, and her mother for 20 years. And Hieros is reportedly "dead".  I think
the Rajan's lack of conviction concerning Pas's lethal intentions toward Scylla
suggests more about HIS knowledge of Pas than Scylla's fear suggests HERS.
I suggests that Pas final action about Scylla is simply not knowable by anyone.

c) It is hardly necessary, even if I held that extreme view (see a) of Pas's
intentions toward Silk, for Silk to know everything about Pas's intentions or
potential intentions toward Scylla.

d) I agree that the Rajan is not Pas, although he and Pas contain much that is
the same. Silk was grafted to Pas so He could live, and Horn was grafted to
Silk afterward for the same reason. 

>If, as you would seem to have it, Silkhorn is somehow (never mind how it
>came to be) the flesh-and-blood culmination of Pas' presumed plan to rule
>the colonies by proxy, when was that plan made and by whom?
>Typhon or Pas?
>None, I think, will argue that the two personalities are the same. 

a) Oh waitaminute. I see part of the confusion here.
I don't say "Silkhorn", the Rajan, was "the flesh-and-blood culmination" 
of any plan of Pas. There's no way Pas could have planned on the Rajan for
many many reasons...some of which you will not even agree with.
I do say that SILK and TUSSAH and were part of the Plan of Pas with
respect to Viron. But it was not necessary for Typhon to plan it from
Urth. Tussah's implantation could be argued to be timed with the Whorl's
arrival to Blue, but Silk's was done by Tussah after Pas's erasure.
 
b) I agree that Pas and Tussah are not the same personality.

c) Pas's plan was to have the colonists disembark the Whorl. 
Quetzal's Plan, for different reasons, was the same. 
Tussah, I argue, was part of both plans (unknowingly in Quetzal's case) 
and, it seems to me, he personally cared enough about Pas's plan to
install Silk as a back-up in case he was murdered (as, the text
suggests to me, he anticipated). 

I don't know his reasons, they would probably have been multiple. But he
considered it vital that he be succeeded by a souped-up embryo...if he himself
were such an embryo, that certainly explains that decision.

But he didn't have to have "a son". He could have identified Silk in any way.
Why this fatherly affection for a boy he never seems to have met?
Did calling Silk his "son" help establish his right to the Caldeship? Nope.
Maybe Tussah had Silk's career mapped out and that gave him a sense
of investment in Silk? Uh uh.
There's NO reason to believe Tussah anticipated that Silk would join the
Chapter. It obviously didn't matter a whit as far as his plan for the "son not
of his body". (But it worked for Quetzal in that he could manipulate his
career.) 

So why call Silk his "son". Because it was a simple fact. That is all.

>[At this point, Roy really warms to his task. He describes his
understanding of my theory which is, unfortunately, wrong for the
most part.]

You've blown my assertion that Tussah was a clone of Typhon way beyond any
speculation I've made. Part of it is due to your misunderstanding about what
I'm saying about the Rajan, and the rest is...just not what I'm saying. Certainly
not what I've intended to convey. *I* have never intentionally claimed that it is
MY belief that Typhon or Pas intended to have a personality downloaded into
a clone. Maybe he did. The text doesn't' say so AFAIK. But the Rajan says
that Pas would not have found that necessary. 

And I have another reason to doubt it:
If Scylla is any guide, no god-entity WOULD EVER WANT TO PERMANENTLY LEAVE
THE MAINFRAME. Any sub-deity that possessed a mortal being would die when that being
died. That's why the gods never possessed a being permanently. Even Kypris left Chenille
when she was still needed to search for Silk. The prospect of possessing a human and
going to Blue would be UNTHINKABLE. Scylla only did it because she thought Pas must
have created connections to the Mainframe on Blue. She didn't find any, that was a
big mistake on her part and she knew it.

>You assert that "Silk is a clone of the son of Typhon and Kypris' original". 

Ah! Good! Finally. Yes, that is what I assert.

>Why on Urth would Typhon have had such a hypothetical son cloned?
>Did Echidna know about it?

I don't know. Did she know about Kypris? Could she do anything about
it if she did know? (Maybe she tried...)

>More importantly, why would Wolfe give such dubious gene donors
>to the star of his seven-volume opus?

Why not? Dubious in what way? 

a) Do you mean they aren't "worthy" of being Silk's parents? I'm not
sure what sort of parents he ought to have had instead. I'd say centering
on a character who is, in a sense, an illegitimate son of Typhon and has a
backstory that without his knowledge *destines* him to be a savior is a
pretty interesting start for this story, is quite Wolfean, and fits in the mood
created by "The Book of the New Sun".

b) Do you mean that their parentage is not self-evident? 
Do you think Wolfe imagined, while writing "The Book of the New Sun",
that anyone would read the story close enough to figure
out that Dorcas was Severian's grandmother? By the time he started 
"The Long Sun", he knew the story would be sifted with fine combs. So he
hid the clues with more determination. Too much determination IMO.
So much so that while, I believe that Tussah is a clone of Typhon, I don't
think it can be deduced from the text to the exclusion of all other theories.
But once you make that intuitive leap, a whole heck of a lot falls into place.

>We have established, at least to my satisfaction, that Pas is not Typhon.

Okay. I agree. He's a facsimile, like "Silver Silk" is to Silk I suppose.
Like Mr Million was to his original. Maybe less than that even: Maybe more
like Krait was to Sinew. Who knows?

>[Here Roy makes an argument based on a belief that I'm arguing Pas
>wanted to rule the colonies as a clone. But, of course, I've only said
that Pas intended the colonies to be supplimented, united, and aided by
the embryos...Tussah among them. But the overarching theme is 
>embodied in "What particular need, therefore, did Pas have for a clone,
>much less the clone of a son, of Typhon?"]

I agree with everything you say regarding the fact that Pas did not need
a clone of Typhon to rule the colonies and I go further in that I seriously
doubt he wanted to rule the colonies personally at all.

***
I'm going to address your questions at this point only to show that
the Tussah=Typhon theory works for the sort of postulating you've
done. I'm only going to make the sort of ruminations you are making. 
I'm not claiming they are individually supported in the text:
****

1) Why did Tussah wait 7 years to implant an embryo? Perhaps he
thought he could bring Pas back himself and found it wasn't so easy.
The only knowledge required for Tussah to have is that HE himself
was a clone and that he know what what relation Silk's embryo 
had to himself. This implies that the clones Tussah had access to
had not yet been stolen from those refrigerators. I'm imagining
little labels on each embryo unless the gods were telling him. 
[You asked why Tussah didn't use a Typhon clone? Perhaps the
Typhon embryo in that refrigerator had already been used to make
Tussah.]

I am surprised that while it is perfectly clear to you that Typhon and
Pas were different personalities, it is so befuddling to you that Tussah,
even as a clone of Typhon, would act independently even if
he was in concurrence with Pas's overall plan. I'm surprised
it isn't obvious to you that Tussah would have experienced the same
sort of holy manipulation that Silk experienced from Kypris. Tussah
was implanted as the Whorl approached -- maybe it was at Pas's
instigation (things do not seem to have yet gone completely out of
hand) or maybe it was just, "well, here's one of those clones,
so he's the best  candidate to use." But it is not beyond reason that
Tussah knew that Pas had a plan to disembark, *or* EVEN that after
Pas's murder, Kypris didn't tell him...yet even if he didn't know what
the plan was, he MIGHT have known that Pas HAD a plan, and
felt a religious devotion to see it come off. None of that undermines
the reasonableness of Tussah being a clone of Typhon. 

But a preset plan designed by Typhon on Urth to have this particular
guy to do such and such is simply not necessary.

2) Why would Pas (and the rest of the pantheon) prefer to use those
embryos (who happen to be clones) to announce their plans as
opposed to anybody else? Well, the pantheon ARE NOT people.
They are avatars representing computer modules of the Mainframe.
This is stated, I forget where. They actually have functions within the
Mainframe...which might explain why the Rajan had some doubt that
Pas would completely eliminate Scylla. Since they are computer
modules they are governed by certain rules that do not require them
to _think_ "I must do this because my plan will work best if I do."
They lead the Cargo and announce their plans to the Cargo through
those embryos because they are programmed to do so...and they are
programed to do so because, with the hyped-up genes, they were
considered by the planners to be the best suited to lead and the best
able to convince the Cargo to do as the Mainframe tells them. 

Tussah *may* have been possessed in part, but no possessing deity
would think of going to Blue in a person and staying there permanently,
as I said above.

>After screwing around for a number of years (about seven?), Tussah
>decided to have the clone of Typhon's love child (Why that choice?
>A shortage of Typhon clones?)

Perhaps. We aren't told. We're only told that it would be a "the son
not of his body". Why do you suppose only a clone
of Typhon would do? Why do you suppose I think Tussah thought
only the a clone of the *son* of Typhon and Kypris would do? I don't.
He said "the son not of my body will be Calde after me" because it 
WAS such a person that he had implanted and hidden away...I 
presume it was done in conjunction with Kypris.

>Then, years after he died, Tussah _somehow_ connived to have
>a proper clone of Typhon implanted in yet another woman.

Hmmm...On being asked to suppose who implanted Horn, I fingered Quetzal
as a likely candidate. I don't think I ever supposed it was Tussah.

>Wait! Maybe it was Quetzal who was behind all this cloning around.

Ah! Your imagination seems to have led you in the same direction as me.

>But, no, where would [Quetzal] have obtained all the inside knowledge
needed to have pulled it off? 

Quetzal? Are you serious? Much of it, no doubt from Tussah himself.
But probably not exclusively.

>And why would he have wanted to? He was a scout for the
>blood-thirsty inhumi.

A scout? I don't see any reason to suppose that. But he wanted what all
the inhumi wanted: a thriving colony on Green. For his own reasons,
he wanted the Plan of Pas to succeed.

There is no need for Tussah or Kypris or Pas or anyone else to know
about the inhumi for them all to share the same desire.

Do any of my answers incline you to retell the story differently?

~ James Wynn



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