(urth) interview questions

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Tony Ellis" <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
> I think it more likely that the Shadow Children are indigenous aliens,
> and not human. If they're human, you have to explain their telepathy;
> you have to explain the Old Wise One's remark that "before men came
> out of the sky... we were mostly long, and lived in holes between the
> roots of trees". You have to explain why we should believe his claim
> that his people are the real humans, when he claims in the same breath
> to be tall and strong and other patently crackheaded things, and you
> have to explain why we should instead disregard his later reversal of
> that claim.
>
> And while there are explanations for all those things, I don't think
> I've come across any that were particularly persuasive.

As a proponent of the theory that the Shadow Children are human, I'll set 
out the major reasons and/or answers I see to the foregoing objections.

Telepathy is the hard one.  How do they differ from ordinary humankind? 
The first differemce is the drug they take.  The second is that they have 
put away tools (perhaps as a consequence of discovering the drug).  I 
suggest it is a combination of these two; they have returned to the state of 
"long ago, before a fool struck fire" and rediscovered a lost human capacity 
for telepathy.  This power may be amplified by the presence of the native 
Annese  ("the first heard the songs of the second and sent them out again, 
greater than before").

The Old Wise One's comments are quite easily understood, however.  You have 
to remember the Old Wise One is not a Shadow Child.

"We were mostly long"  When he says this the Old Wise One is at this time 
composed from the collective unconscious of Sandwalker and the last Shadow 
Child ("now I am half a man...".  He tells of two different origins, and 
both are true, though he is confused as to which is which.  This one is 
Sandwalker's.

The other comments are not in the same breath but much earlier, when the 
Shadow Child consciousnesses dominate the Old Wise One.  He is speaking of 
how the Shadow Children see themselves when he says they are tall, and 
strong, and gods.  He's not lying or talking nonsense, just speaking a bit 
metaphorically.  And there is no reversal of his claim, because when he says 
"we were mostly long" he is speaking of Sandwalker's people.

I don't believe there is any problem with the Old Wise One.  Listen to him 
and he's perfectly clear. The only problem is swallowing that the human 
discoverers developed telepathic powers after putting away tools (perhaps 
with the aid of a drug).

Set against that, what about the problems if the Shadow Children are not 
human?  Either they are another group of Annese, or they are from somewhere 
else altogether.  In either case, we must assume there were original human 
discoverers - they have disappeared and a second group of aliens has popped 
up thinking they are them.  That is horribly inelegant.  Why did the humans 
disappear?  Why do the Shadow Children think they are the humans who landed? 
There are no apparent clues to any of these questions.

To avoid the problem of humans becoming telepathic, a complex history and a 
new race have to be adduced without any real evidence.

Telepathic humans are a standard SF trope, like FTL. You might say they are 
established areas of SF science!  We don't have to rule this out, when 
ruling it out does such violence to what is otherwise a pretty clear story.

- Gerry Quinn