(urth) the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes

[António Pedro Marques]

Tim O'Donnell wrote (19-01-2011 09:19):
> From: "Gerry Quinn" <gerryq at indigo.ie <mailto:gerryq at indigo.ie>>
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net
> <mailto:urth at lists.urth.net>>
> Subject: Re: (urth) the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes
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>  > You misunderstand me.  I wasn't talking about hints that Silk might be a
>  > clone of Typhon. What I'm saying is that if he is in fact such a clone,
>  > there must be a grand conspiracy between everyone who knows both
> their faces
>  > to hide it, and ther is no hint of such a grand conspiracy.
>  >
>  > But as for your point above, I think the bronze-skinned man is a
>  > representation of how an uploaded Silk would be part of Pas.  It says
>  > nothing about Silk's genealogy.  It's about the future, not the past.
>
> The jury is still out for me on the Silk/Typhon clone debate.  One thing
> that strikes me though is
> that we do not need a conspiracy of many failing to comment on Silk
> resembling Typhon.  We just
> need Horn and Nettle to agree to omit these details from the story.
> As pure speculation: Silk sees his face on Pas's body, realises that he
> is a clone of Typhon/Pas.
> The realisation that he is in some ways Pas sends him into a suicidal
> revery which fortunately he survives.
> He divulges the reason to Horn for this revelation and asks Horn not to
> share it with anyone.  Horn goes on
> to write his account of Silk portraying him in nothing but the best light.
>
> As I say this is not in reference to the text stronly but does allow
> many people to have noticed the resemblance
> between Silk and Pas and for only two individuals to collude to cover
> this fact up.

It is legitimate, but I think it's implausible on three counts:

- Why would Silk realising to have Pas's face (he doesn't even know what a 
clone is) make him suicidal? And we're talking about a guy who considers 
taluses to be people.

- If Silk has Typhon's face, it doesn't make much sense to think it will be 
a secret for anyone if Horn doesn't tell people. They don't need to be told, 
only to look at him. The exception are Horn's readers, but Silk doesn't know 
Horn will write a book about him, and anyway why keep something secret from 
the readers that will be known by everyone else?

- It's not just not mentioning the lookaliness himself or nobody mentioning 
it. It's nobody behaving accordingly, which I think requires a bit more 
conealing, to the poit of unfeasibility. Unless you want to reverse this 
argument and claim that the following around Silk is precisely attributable 
to his being Pas's. I don't think it works, but can be argued.