(urth) At risk of getting in over my head . . .

[Eric Ortlund]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 2:16 AM, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com>
wrote:


	On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 8:51 AM, Eric Ortlund
<eortlund at briercrest.ca> wrote:
	> Namely: how did
	> Patera Quetzal get into the Whorl?
	
	
	IIRC, the Neighbors intentionally infected the Whorl, the idea
being
	that the behavior of the inhumi would provide insight into the
human
	condition.
	

As SilkHorn explains to Vadsig in RTTW, while they are sailing from Dorp
to New Viron. 
 
There's a lot to think about in this. Just reviewing the conclusions I
came to and seeing how they look now on reflection ....
 
Inhumi can only breed on Green. Just drinking a human's blood doesn't
turn a primal inhumu into a self-aware being: only its children. The
Neighbors must have taken primal inhumi from Green to the Whorl, gotten
them to drink human blood, taken them back to Green to breed and then
selected some of the offspring to re-introduce to the Whorl. 
 
The Neighbors also took inhumi with them to their new world (also
according to SilkHorn), and it must be the same kind of process, except
on-going (as the infestation of the Whorl may not have been). Neighbors
monitor themselves periodically by letting inhumi take some of their
blood, transporting them back to Green to breed, and examining the
nature of the offspring. 
 
Everything suggests that the transportation of the inhumi must be
*physical*, not astral travelling. An astrally-transported inhumu is no
longer an inhumu. The Neighbors need space ships to do it. I believe
that the low, domed building SilkHorn sees on top of the great mountain
on Green is such a spaceship, and that the Neighbor he meets there is a
Neighbor-naut, the source of his information about the inhumu
infestation of the Whorl etc. The Neighbors select inhumi for
transportation to the Whorl and their new world by choosing from those
who manage to fly to the top of the mountain - the strongest-willed, the
ones who care about having sentient children and so on.
 
Jahlee was once one of these. She never flew from Green to Blue; no
inhumu does - that's a lie they tell themselves. Any inhumu on Blue came
there from Green on Auk's captured lander, or on a lander from the Whorl
(as with Fava, I think), or was transported there by the Neighbors. I
don't know which of these methods Jahlee used. 

	Mr. Thallassocrat: Thanks for the very thoughtful response.
There is indeed something very deep going on here. I'm reminded of when
SilkHorn's son asks him why he doesn't just flat out tell him what's
going on - and SilkHorn replies that he trying to get his son to think
for himself, to draw important conlcusions from scant evidence - and
isn't that what Wolfe is pushing us to do as readers, not just with his
texts but our own lives?

	Anyway, I'm thankful for your thoughts, especially the
Neighbor-Naut, which, while not knowing if it is correct, would
certainly explain things.  But about inhumi flying from Green to Blue -
I wonder if that's a lie, because as I remember, inhumi come in waves to
Green every three years or so when the two planets are close together.
So I *think* that checks out.  But obviously the whole issue is a huge
one.

	I'm delightfully stunned by the massive invention of the BSS
series - the massive machinations which Horn gets caught up in.

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