(urth) Short Sun blog

[Jeff Wilson]

On 9/22/2010 9:39 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
> I think name "Typhon" places him quite firmly in the category of Abaia and Erebus and Scylla and
> Arioch and other mythological monster/demon named characters. I think those characters are fairly
> clear as extra-terrestrial in origin. Add the naming to the other evidence and I don't see much
> that argues that he is human and from Urth, other than his appearance.

"Typhon" shares human anatomy with Piaton, who *is* saint-named (the 
original was martyred by having the top of his skull sawed off, per the 
physicians' original plan), and his mind powers are impressively strong 
but don't put him categorically into nonhuman status with folks like 
Decuman and the Pelerine in the tent running around.

His nonbornness makes him a candidate for a eugenical test tube baby, 
who could perfectly well be from outer space where that sort of thing is 
in fashion but he needn't literally be an alien monster when a human 
tyrant is more than sufficiently monstrous. Human tyrants also have a 
habit of ruling under acquired names, like Stalin and Augustus.

> [FWIW, I think much of the same logic applies to Baldanders. I place quite a bit of stock in the
> story about how he just appeared one day on the lakeshore.

I can believe Balanders the giant first appeared on the lakeshore one 
day, but we have no way to know what name the smaller castle builder he 
"chased away" went by.

 > I don't think his advanced scientific
> knowledge comes solely from the hierodules.

Dr Talos mentions how Baldanders does primary research of his own, and 
of course Urth is littered with bits and pieces of ancient technology he 
can learn from.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >