(urth) Recent human crash-landing on St Anne

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Tony Ellis" <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
> Some problems with this line of reasoning.
>
> Firstly, there *is* no recently-lost spaceship in the text. You have
> to invent one out of whole cloth. Yes, you can say all records of such
> a ship were conveniently lost, but you can say that about any fact
> invented to support any theory. For example: I think the Annese grew
> tree-circle observatories for thousands of years. We don't have any
> record of them because, hey, they rotted, which Marsch actually says
> is happening to the current observatory. If we can have missing recent
> spaceships we can have missing ancient tree-circles.

We know that in recent history there has been a scramble for colonies and a 
vicious war between colonial powers.  We know that there is no direct 
communication with Earth.  In such a universe, a lost ship is no stretch at 
all.

The missing trees are more difficult - maybe the old trees rot, but when 
exactly do you plant new ones, and where?  In the same places or somewhere 
else?  Surely it would be easier to build a new observatory than to renew 
the old one?


> Also, Marsch never entertains the idea of a recent crash. He's the one
> actually living in this future, he knows better than us what's
> feasible and what isn't. He muses that the Annese could *almost* be
> the descendants of "an earlier wave of colonisation", but he never
> considers that they could be the descendants of a missing ship from
> the *current* wave of human colonisation. If it was possible for St
> Anne to have been colonised by a ship that crashed a couple of hundred
> years ago - even some ship he has never heard of - this would be the
> moment for Wolfe to make him consider it. He doesn't.

Marsch is represented as a bit of an idiot.  Besides, as I've said before, 
the soloutions to puzzles should not generally be put in the mouths of 
characters, except in certain fairly definable circumstances.


> And again, Dollo's Law. Taken at face value, it explains why VRT is
> physically unable to hold a pen the usual way. We have the answer to a
> puzzle. If we say VRT is actually an alien (who for no good reason can
> only learn to hold a pen the wrong way), suddenly the evoking of
> Dollo's Law needs an explanation too.

I agree it works well with the ancient humans model.  It works okay as an 
analogy, though, in the alien imitator model, and that's all VRT says it is.


> Another problem, which I think we all need to consider in constructing
> 5HoC theories, is that VRT is supposed to be a half-abo. He certainly
> thinks he is. He has less of his mother's ability to change how he
> looks, but more ability to dress himself, cook and write. If abos
> breeding with humans doesn't suit your theory, sure, you can invent
> reasons why he only thinks he is half-abo, but I'd put more faith in a
> theory where you don't have to.

As an advocate of the alien imitator theory, I am not too hung up on whether 
breeding is possible or not, because Wolfe is not writing hard SF.  However, 
it's quite in accordance with the story that they don't interbreed (the 
cuckoo hypothesis in the case of characters like VRT).

How do you know how VRT's abilities compare with those of his mother?  If 
shapechanging is an ability of the ancient humans (for reasons that need to 
be explained) he does rather well with it, substituting for a professional 
man from Earth and getting away with it for quite some time (he was unlucky 
to be caught).  His mother did not pull off any coup of this sort.

I don't know if he thinks he is genetically the son of his apparent father - 
does he indicate this anywhere?

- Gerry Quinn