(urth) Violet = Plutonium?

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/13/2011 3:54 PM, entonio at gmail.com wrote:
> No dia 2011/11/13, às 17:21, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> 
> escreveu:
>
>> What bothers me is that Siyuf herself later appears as a chem double. 
>> Up to that point, the reader has no particular idea that chems can 
>> actually fake being human, to the point that the Ayuntamiento decides 
>> to send the fake Siyuf home in her place---and apparently succeeds 
>> though their plan fails.
>
> Quite otherwise. The reader has by then witnessed in shock the 
> unmasking of the chem councillors.


Not quite otherwise at all. The reader does not sleep with the 
councillors. Of course, we're not just talking about fooling readers, 
are we, um, er, hey?

The councillors were never very convincing as humans---Patera Quetzal 
kept his secret longer. Lemur reveals his status almost as soon as we 
meet him. None of the Ayuntamiento ever went out in public anyway, so 
they had little need to work at fooling anyone and if they did it it's 
not shown. They didn't live in deep cover as Siyuf and Violet do.

And the Siyuf double does not have a real Siyuf lying in bed controlling 
her. Lemur's death shows us how NOT to do it that way. The Ayuntamiento 
couldn't just whip another Councillor off the assembly line, could it? 
Silk had to bargain with a talusmaker just to get taluses.

So how was Siyuf 2 built? What kind of tech do the Councillors have, 
exactly? Scanning? Instant facial replication? Is this not worth knowing?