(urth) Inhumi in the Whorl

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
>
>>> Perhaps this is a reason to presume they did NOT infect humanity with 
>>> inhumi by transporting natural state inhumi to the Whorl and then 
>>> returning them to Green. That is a complex operation that I would prefer 
>>> to be hinted at in the text
>>
>> It's not just hinted at in the text - we're pretty much told that that 
>> was done.
>
> It is, at best, inferrable. But it is a totally unnecessary presumption.

By some definitions of "unnecessary".  We are told they boarded the Whorl. 
We are told they infected the humans with inhumi.  We know there were inhumi 
on the Whorl.  It is reasonable to assume they carried out the infection 
when they boarded the Whorl.


>> [Except we don't know they brought the inhumi back to Green afterwards. 
>> Maybe they just killed them.]
>
> Impossible. The inhumi must return to Green to lay their eggs. In your 
> scenario, they would have to release the wild inhumi in the Whorl and then 
> recollect them for transport back.

Good point.  Although it would probably have been easier to capture humans 
rather than release and recapture inhumi (these may have been the human 
"acquaintances" Windcloud spoke of).  You're right, they must have made two 
trips.


>>> ...if they used dream-travel (the only method available to them as, so 
>>> far as I see).
>>
>> But how could they have infected the Whorl with inhumi uising dream 
>> travel? (Nor do time travel or bodily possession appear useful in this 
>> regard.)
>
> All they need to do is to influence some portion of humanity to make an 
> expedition to Green and ensure some of them are fed on by inhumi.  From a 
> technical perspective, that's a much simpler operation.

You're forgetting that they would still have to get the resulting inhumi 
onto the Whorl.  Also, the time scale doesn't seem to work.  Windcloud said 
he boarded the Whorl before it arrived in their system, which fits a lot 
better with the apparent length of time Quetzal was in Viron.

There's no record of such an expedition, and no indication that Quetzal in 
particular was brought back from one.  And how would they influence people 
to do this anyway?  How would they even get to the Whorl to influence them, 
without having travelled there physically?


>> I don't see how they could have got to Green from Blue using dream travel 
>> either.  It seems to me they must have had spaceships of some kind.
>> They could have got their astral bodies to Green by travelling with 
>> inhumi who had come from there.  But they'd have had no reason to build a 
>> city there, because their own physical bodies would have been sleeping 
>> back on Earth.
>
> So? If you want to colonize the verdant Green, why not leave your bodies 
> behind to build your cities on Green? That's like saying the Ayuntamiento 
> had no reason to possess chem bodies because they had bodies of their own.

We have no indication that dream travel can be used to make a permant 
relocation, or that dream travellers can bear children to colonise a new 
planet.

Silkhorn knows all about it, and he reckons they used spaceships.


>> So just like Silkhorn, they use dream travel when appropriate, but at 
>> other times they use spaceships. At the end of RTTW, Silk is going in 
>> search of a spaceship to travel to the Whorl, even though he has 
>> previously engaged in interplanetary and even iterstellar dream travel.
>
> And the Rajan planned to use a Whorl ship to get there. Even accepting 
> that he might have to fight inhumi for it. Yet only 60 years previously--  
> the Neighbors had spaceships of their own. So there's not a single 
> Neighbor ship left on the planet? Also, he's taking humans with 
> him--humans cannot leave their bodies behind for long periods as they 
> travel astrally.

He's met some Neighbours - they didn't necessarily give him the keys to 
their spaceships.  Also, you say yourself here that humans cannot leave 
their bodies behind for long periods  - why would you expect that Neighbours 
could?


- Gerry Quinn