(urth) Short Sun blog review

[James Wynn]

>>> Roy-
>>> Lemur said: "A certain ruler, a man who had the strength to rule alone
>>> and so called himself the monarch, built our whorl, Patera. It was to
>>> be a message from himself to the universe." (LAKE, 298)
>>>
>>> The people on Urth would never see the _Whorl_, never receive the
>>> message.
>>
>> James Wynn-
>> Isn't this like saying that the Apollo lunar missions would never be
>> seen by Americans or Soviets or the other nations it was intended to
>> impress? It certainly isn't true for the Apollo missions. Why would it
>> necessarily be so for the Whorl mission?
>
> António Pedro Marques-
> The Apollo missions wouldn't be as impressive if they hadn't really been
> shown to reach the moon. The landings on Blue/Green weren't televised 
> back
> to Urth.

Let's try a different analogy. Do the governments of Pakistan and Iran 
need to use a nuclear weapon for their nuclear weapon projects to 
inspire patriotism?

Imagine footage of the construction of Whorl...the carving of the 
asteroid, the building of the cities, the prospect of sending thousands 
of Urthlings to a distant planet that could be freely portrayed as a 
fertile Eden, a lucrative opportunity, and a Land of Adventure. The 
actual landing of the colonists was almost irrelevant. What mattered  
was the huge propagandist art based on the construction project and the 
/aspirations/ of its purpose. The Whorl would be a monument...the Hoover 
Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Rushmore to the third power. It 
would definitely capture the imagination of the masses and *portray 
Typhon's rule as one of affluence, technology, and limitless power*.

In Lan Wright's "The Last Hope of the Earth" (which has far to many 
parallels to the LS/SS to be coincidental), the colonization project was 
the central support for Earth morale even though no one on Earth had 
seen any of the actual colonies. Typhon would not have been saddled with 
/their/ limitations. And to the extent that realities of the project was 
less than inspiring, the Whorl was far enough away that he could make 
stuff up.

u+16b9