(urth) Inhumi in the Whorl

[Mr Thalassocrat]

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 9:50 AM, Jack Smith <jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Quetzal has been Prolocutor for 33 years when Silk is enlightened.   I
> assumed he had come aboard the Whorl only a year or two before he became
> head of the Chapter, and then, as a shape-shifter, Quetzal took the place of
> a promising human augur who was already in line to become Prolocutor.
>
> The way Quetzal gets to the Whorl is, as far as I can tell, not explained
> in the text.
>
> I have a related question.  How do the inhumi travel from Green to Blue?
>  At conjunction, the two planets are 105,000 miles apart (In Green's
> Jungles, chap. 15).  This means most of the distance would be a vacuum, and
> so the ability of inhumi to fly like bats would be of no help.  After all,
> birds can't fly from the earth to the moon.
>
> But if the inhumi use some sort of mysterious astral projection, then why
> do they need to wait for conjunction to invade Blue?
>


Couple of points.

- The Neighbors first entered the Whorl as it approached Blue's sun, before
it went into orbit. (Testimony of one of them at SIlkhorn's trial in Doorp.)

- The Neighbors seeded the Whorl with inhumi (Silkhorn to Vadsig, on the way
from Doorp to New Viron). By comparing human-ish inhumi with their own
Neighbor-ish inhumi, they would get to understand humans better.

- As far as I can understand the process, it must have involved the
Neighbors first taking some "wild" inhumi to the Whorl, letting them feed,
taking them back to Green to breed, returning with some of the human-ish
offspring to the Whorl, and observing them in a human context.

- I think it's a fair assumption that Quetzal was one of these human-ish
offspring. He could have been placed in the Whorl some years before it
reached orbit - I don't think there is any precise info on exactly when the
Neighbors first made contact, only that it was when the Whorl was
approaching the Blue/Green system.

- Note that the same is probably true of Jahlee, when you think about it.
And also Fava, who seems to have spent time ont he Whorl. (Interesting to
speculate on whether we meet either of these or their "blood parents" in
BOTLS - I haven't managed to identify anybody.)

- My theory is that the inhumi don't actually fly between Green and Blue.
This story is just a lie they have propagated to conceal their reliance on
Auk's lander, the real means of transport. Anyway, I think the theory is
consistent with what we know, explains (umm spaced on name - the inhumu Horn
adopts) desire to board the lander, and avoids the physical impossibility of
the flying story.

- My other theory goes like this: The Neighbors used physcial spacecraft to
transport inhumi to and from the Whorl, and that we actually see one such
spacecraft in the squat, dome-like structure astral-SilkHorn encounters at
the top of the cliff on Green. The stiff, cloaked figure he sees is the
Neighbor-astronaut & from him SilkHorn learns about the seeding of the Whorl
etc. The Neighbors have selected human-ish inhumi to transport to the Whorl
from those who have had sufficient sentient determination and strength to
fly all the way to the top of the cliff, an arrangement illustrated from the
inhumi's point of view by Jahlee's story about her younger days.
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