(urth) note Re: Short Sun blog

[Jeff Wilson]

On 9/23/2010 4:27 PM, Jane Delawney wrote:
> On 23/09/10 08:01, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> "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.
>
> There is no seed of doubt sown anywhere that Piaton is anything other
> than a human being - so it may be notable (perhaps) that there's no
> suggestion in any of Typhon's speechifying to Sev that there might have
> been a danger of rejection of the transplant ie. Piaton's body rejecting
> Typhon's head as foreign tissue - all Typhon appears to have been
> concerned about is the mastery of bodily functions.
...

> ps I'm making an assumption that GW would have been very well aware of
> the assorted problems associated with organ transplantation and
> rejection - these were well known even in the 1970s, though medical
> means of dealing with them have advanced since then.

The rejection issues are swept with the same hand wave that includes all 
the sublime biological technology on Urth. The old autarch's detail on 
the way the analepict works includes a transfer of brain cells that take 
up residence within the recipient; this along witht he physican at the 
ziggurat's repeated use of a single donor implies a rejection solution 
so robust that no prior preparation (other than the one dose) and no 
regimen afterward is needed and the concern is passe. So indeed Typhon 
would be free to chose his donor from all his slaves, not just those who 
are part of his alleged clone cohort.

Jonas is an example of a similar rejection-passe scenario: apparently 
the hollow androids' remnant occupant-serving features include some kind 
of physical as well as inductive interface to let the man operate the 
limbs after trauma, that has been reversed to let the limbs operate the 
man in the shepherd's case.

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