(urth) Typhon's nature

[larry miller]

Does anyone think this telepathic-internet might be connected with
Cyriacas story?

On 10/14/11, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:
>
> From: David Stockhoff
> On 10/12/2011 11:09 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>> > For me they are not confusing because I do not find it very important
>> > what exact mix of technological, personality, and psychic powers is
>> > possessed by Typhon. Whether he has sent his thoughts into far places
>> > by telepathy or by logging onto still extant computer databases is
>> > something we are simply not told, and Severian, if he knew, would
>> > probably find both possibilities equally astounding.
>
>> Astounding, or else pedestrian. We can't really tell, can we? But I
>> agree that mechanisms are not strictly critical outside of hard SF,
>> which this ain't. But what about my point above? An interstellar emperor
>> who basically uses Daddy's wealth to create his empire is quite
>> different from one who asserts the power of his self, is it not? (A
>> Trump-style president who uses self-promotion to hide his incompetence
>> vs an Eisenhower?) Force of personality, force of mind, same thing.
>> Fancy electronics---not so much. BIG difference there, and that's a
>> bigger point than ESP, aside from the cloning debate.
>>
>> Typhon wants to govern the universe by unleashing (ungoverning) himself.
>> That's why I call him anti-Autarch. If his powers come from himself, the
>> point is more strongly made.
>
> But I think we can all agree that Typhon does have great force of
> personality and will to power.  This is the essential thing about him.  To
> fulfil his drive to conquer he uses the things and people about him, and any
> tools available to him.  He uses armies, he uses databases.  He uses the
> power to command that by way of propaganda and years of power have been
> identified with his face in the mind of the populace – hence the whole head
> transplant.  If he has innate psychic powers he uses them too, but they are
> no more significant than the strength of his hands.
> In the Long Sun series, we learn more about life on Typhon’s Urth from
> Mamelta, a young computer technician who was one of the millions selected by
> Typhon and commanded to enter the Whorl as a sleeper.  We learn much from
> the very fact of command, of course: “We had to volunteer.  They were – you
> couldn’t say no.”  She agreed with Silk that the Loganstone was a “slave
> boat”.  [Note: This passage also seems to make it clear that Mamelta was
> nobody special on Urth.  Of course she might for all we know have been
> forced previously to donate eggs, and one of them could have been fertilised
> and engineered to eventually become Silk, and then she might have become the
> one of many sleepers woken by Mucor to be woken just as Silk arrived, but
> there is no indication in the text that any such series of coincidences
> happened.]
> We also learn that the inhabitants of Typhon’s Urth (or maybe just certain
> classes or occupations) were wired into some kind of always-on telepathic
> internet. They did not need to use normal speech to communicate, and the
> system was also used for control: the family of the Monarch danced or
> stalked through their dreams.  When they were placed in the Whorl, brain
> operations were needed to remove the apparatus (whether that consisted of
> modified brain tissue or electronics we are not told) associated with this
> internet, and to reduce their mental dependence on the rulers.  The latter
> was not possible to completely achieve  - and thus came about the eventual
> political/religious structure of the Whorl - but the surgeons did “as much
> as they dared”.  Brain centres associated with speech processing may have
> also needed to be revamped, or it may be that the ability to speak “to move
> my lips and my tongue... while I make this noise in my throat” was present
> anyway, though unused.
> So Typhon’s psychic domination of his people was technologically mediated,
> in the end.  Of course, Wolfe probably hadn’t decided on any of that when he
> wrote BotNS, and for all we know he may have leaned the other way at that
> time.
> - Gerry Quinn
>