(urth) interview questions

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
>>Gerry Quinn: of course the abo Marsch has studied anthropology in order to 
>>pose as an
>>anthropologist.
>
> Of course, of course! Quite a bit of knowledge to be packed into a short 
> amount of time,
> eh? Where did he learn it all? Studies with Dr. Veil, perhaps?

Well yes, in part!  I seem to recall he speaks of many conversations with 
her.  He also had access even on Sainte Anne to any texts Marsch brought 
with him, and to Marsch, and he has been over a year in Saint Croix with 
access to the university library.  There's no reason he shouldn't know as 
much anthropology as, say, an engineer who writes SF.


>>It's an obvious typo - it should have been "fifteen hundred".
>
> Obviously, obviously! And why not? There is no SIZE shifting here. Only 
> shape. Abos are
> human sized and can shift into human shape and that's it. Nothing else. No 
> trees. No worms.
> No Shadow Children. No cats. Nothing. One human changes to another human. 
> That's all. And
> that's final.

Yes it IS totally obvious, because in the next breath he talks about the 
mules having difficulty carrying it, and notes that they don;t appreciate 
the weight of the much pared-down carcass..  if you want to justify the 
other stuff, do so by all means, but not from this which is a perfectly 
plain and obvious typo.


>>Let me clarify:  it is myths and hypotheses that are never completely true 
>>or false in 5HoC -
>>not the (fictive) reality.
>
> Good one! Fictive reality. Yep, silly me. We can always tell what is real, 
> what is dream, what
> is myth and what is hypothesis in a Wolfe story. Clear as the nose on an 
> abo's face! ;- )

We can not necessarily solve all puzzles, but we can solve many and perhaps 
most.  Some theories are better an others, and some theories are objectively 
bilge.


>>I must thank you for inadvertently pointing me to one clue I had 
>>overlooked, i.e. the "planetary
>>face" of the Sainte Croix humans.  I had not before noticed that, like 
>>Marsch (VRT), the "gypsies
>>and criminal tribes" of Sainte Croix do not share this planetary face.  We 
>>have found the Sainte
>>Croix abos!
>
> Yep, yep, inadvertent. No credit for the inferiors, eh wot? ;- ). But the 
> "planetary look" Marsch
> (MARSCH!) notes is of a clone. A guy cloned so many times the extras had 
> to be sold off as slaves.
> (note the hunched shoulders and pointed chin of the slave that serves the 
> document reviewing
> official).

But the clone presumably was of the stock of the original colonists, thus 
sharing the planetary look, just as the clone of a Friesian  cow will look 
like other Friesian cows.



>> Is there one "best" conclusion? Yes.
>
> Gerry Quinn's. I get that.
>
> But...Tony Ellis is almost as sure his conclusion is the best. And it is 
> the opposite of Gerry Quinn's.

Actually no - it differs, I believe, only in that he believes in a second 
set of aliens who have killed and replaced the original human discoverers of 
Sainte Anne, and think they are them.  I believe this is an unnecessary 
twist, and that it is simpler to believe that the humans, after abandoning 
their tools, developed telepathy.  Apart from the exact origin of the Shadow 
Children, I don't think the theories differ.


> Which "best" are we lessers supposed to believe in?

Stop being so precious - you have been taking every opportunity to snipe at 
me in your condescending fashion over the last several weeks, and now you 
try to put words in my mouth to make believe I am insulting you. I've 
pointed out things I think are wrong with your theories - sorry if that 
offends.


>
> Jerry Friedman, I would generally accept a replacement of the word 
> "predjudice" with "bias" if you like.
> But sometimes true pre-judgement is the correct assessment. No matter how 
> ambiguous a text may be, some
> simply cannot accept the possibility of ambiguity.
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>