(urth) Marble on Urth

James Wynn crushtv at gmail.com
Wed Jun 1 14:56:23 PDT 2011


Thanks, Roy.

Just a clarification and a couple of interpretations that I don't agree about.

>> J Wynn:
>> 2) The reason no such list or menu appeared to her under Urth's sun was
>> because she was a bio.
> Roy:
> We both know that Marble was a chem, not a bio.

Yes. What I assert is that the chems personalities come from scans a people
using the same technology that made the gods. Their memories were wiped
(to the extent they could be), skills added, and the personalities
tinkered to make them better suited to their jobs.
That's why the Ayunamiento was so easily able to retro-fit bodies
for themselves from chems. If Lemur had known more about chems, he might not
have been surprised that his body could die without him even realizing.
It also explains why Rose's parts so readily absorbed her personality and memories.

> Roy C. Lackey wrote:
> She remembered standing in a sun-drenched field in a line of servants as
> they and chem soldiers waited for the transport ship that would take them up
> to the_Whorl_:
> ----------------
>      "Enormous darkness high overhead, blotting the sun-drenched field,
The above is surely a description of a scene on the Whorl.


> the straggling line of servants in which she had stood, and the soldiers'
> precise column. She had seen it descend from the sky, at first a fleck of
> black that had seemed no bigger than a flake of soot; [...](CALDE, 285)

What is "coming down" here is the line of servants and soldiers.
Because they are on the Whorl, she can see the very long line descend
from the skylands.

> She remembered when she first woke, naked, in what seems to be a factory or
> storage room containing other fem chems, and trying to boot up
> (EXODUS, 119-20). She was given clothes suitable for a maid (125).

It's from the beginning of chapter 7 for those not using a hardcover version or Epiphany:

    "I've been trying to remember where I came from," Maytera Marble ventured.
    "I don't think it was like this at all [the talus yard] ." [...]
    I couldn't remember a thing [about it previously], I'm sure. Not till
    poor Maytera Rose bequeathed me my new parts. I'm sure I must have told
    you about them.[...] They're much better than my old ones,
    but after I'd put them in, it was hard for me to keep straight which memories
    were Marble's and which were mine. [...]
    Anyway, I recollect a big room with green walls. There were pallets, or
    perhaps metal tables, little ones about as high as a bed. [...]
    I was lying on one, and I didn't have any clothes on. [...]
    I was trying to boot, and I remember that the girl next to me sat up and
    said she was naked, which she certainly was. When she did, somebody brought
    her a dress."

Then later:

    "The clothes that were given to me when I woke? I didn't get to them,
    but you're right. After a while I sat up too, and another girl gave me
    my first clothes. Were you going to ask me what kind of clothes they were?"

    Swallow nodded. "That's right, I was."

    "A little black dress, very simple, with rather a short skirt.
    Underclothes." Maytera Marble paused to smile. "I was about to say I'd
    prefer not to describe them, but they were so plain that there's hardly
    anything to describe. Black shoes with low heels, but I don't think there
    were any stockings. A pretty little lace apron and a matching cap.
    It's easy for me to describe those clothes, because people from Ermine's
    came to Patera's palace just before we left, and there were young women
    dressed exactly as I was then, except that they had stockings."

    "Did they come to clean?" Swallow asked. "Sweep and dust?"

    "Dear Chenille and I have done that already. To wash the dishes they'll need
    tonight and set the table, and wash walls we haven't gotten to.
    At least I hope they'll wash those walls and the downstairs windows.
    I asked them to."

    Swallow nodded again. "You see, Calde, each of us is born to do certain
    things. Maytera was born to sweep and dust, and wash walls and floors,
    and she's still doing it. Did you have to urge her to?"

    Silk shook his head.

    "I would have been surprised if you'd said you did..."

The text doesn't really give a clue as to whether this is on Urth or the Whorl.
However, if it was on Urth, it doesn't seem she had a job on Urth prior to
working on the Whorl. She says this is "where she came from". She didn't come
from the "so-and-so plantation". Her first job was working on the Whorl.

Aside from information about chem psychology, Swallow's analysis reflects
on Silk as well since his personality was tinkered to make him a leader.


J.


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