(urth) Is Agia a Robot?

[brunians at brunians.org]

It's one of Hethor's rants, where he goes on and on about his paracoita.

I think it's where he's trying to become Severian's assistant.

.



> I'd read this more as Wolfe musing, "How will I call robots without
> sounding like ad copy for a Japanese toy? Hm, well the inventor of
> robots called them chemical in nature. This runs against the cliche.
> Thus, applying Brunians' radical principle, I shall call them "chems." "
>
> He faced this problem with Long Sun, where robotness was known and
> accepted as part of what is not hidden (the local world created by the
> local archon).
>
> With New Sun, he did not face this problem, because he said instead, "I
> will not refer to robots at all; they are hidden." On Urth, they are
> part of the Outside, not the Inside.
>
> And yet both universes are full of robots, half-robots, future robots,
> former robots, humans on their way to becoming robots/robots becoming
> humans. Perhaps the halo around Agia and Agilus is a blessing of a union
> between bot and human as much as man and woman.
>
> Furthermore, I read robots as being almost blasphemous in their
> unnaturalness, plainly the work of an inferior Creator, although not at
> all evil. It's a small step from there to sexbots, which are already
> available in Japan.
>
> (In fact, I can't think of anything more perfectly blasphemous than a
> pair of sexy male/female twins mating and creating a race of superbots.
> Dr Who would have stopped them in the nick of time; Severian would kill
> them. Perhaps Severian's story is in part a record of his stopping
> various potential future histories so that only one remains.)
>
> Recall that Tolkien made a big deal of explaining that Sauron and his
> predecessor could not create life, only twist it.
>
> Brunians, where is the line telling us that Hethor digs bots?
>
> brunians at brunians.org wrote:
>> So they have some hydraulic tubing, a few wires, whatever.
>>
>> I think this theory is gaining and not losing strength.
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>> On 6/18/2010 3:13 AM, Mark Lewin wrote:
>>>
>>>> ... or because they are chemical?
>>>>
>>> FWIW, Wikipedia says in Capek's original play the robots are based on a
>>> chemical process.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
>>> IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
>>> < http://ieeetamut.org >
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