(urth) Typhon's nature

[Gerry Quinn]

From: David Stockhoff 
> On 10/14/2011 8:53 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > 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.

> Significant in what sense?

Significant to our interpretation of the story.

> If I ruled worlds with all those tools you list, and then you found out 
> I was psionic (without using a psionic helmet), would that not strike 
> you as significant?

Not really, if psychic powers are reasonably common.

> What if I boasted of these powers?
> What if I claimed (or hinted at) them but had none?

I don’t see evidence that Typhon did either of those things.

He does have strong arms and hands, strong enough to dangle Severian over a cliff.  But then again, he took those from Piaton. 

> All these hypotheticals are situations in which the "significance" of 
> psionic powers TO THE STORY is quite high. Wolfe has made choices---the 
> choices are significant.

I don’t see it.  When did he claim to have psychic powers?


> > 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.

> Again, it's not that the distinction between technologies is small. It's 
> that the distinction between forms of matter is small, so that putting 
> on an electromechanical helmet to intensify brain-controlling 
> thought-waves generated by mutated brain tissues to rule the galaxy is 
> simply part of the fabric of what is possible (in pulp SF).

But again, that’s not really what Typhon did.

> I wonder again if there is a particular model for Wolfe in describing 
> Typhonic society, there being so many models to choose from. But I'm 
> inclined to think "as much as they dared" points to a removal of tissue, 
> not removal of a kind of set-top cable box for the brain. The story that 
> Lemur tried to limit Mucor's power through surgery but failed supports 
> this idea, since an implant could simply be removed. In this theory, 
> perhaps humans developed their brains on their own through exposure to 
> mental commands, or evolution (Mucor may not be all that unique).

Remember, Typhon’s people had spent their lives living in this system, and it had become deeply ingrained, producing engrams in the ordinary parts of the brain.  Typhon’s surgeons would have walked a narrow line trying to erase as much as possible of these memories without damaging intelligence or other functions.  Removing the internet apparatus would have been only part of the job – perhaps the easiest part.


> It's almost as though Wolfe posits, as a sort of philosophical joke, a 
> human gene for submission to kings that corresponds to a vulnerability 
> to imperious commands. Remove it and we think for ourselves. There is a 
> parallel between the "words-of-power" Severian uses on susceptible 
> machines at the Citadel as Autarch and the "mental speech" of Typhonic 
> society that turns humans into tools. 

I don’t think the people in Typhon’s society are tools any more than people in any tightly controlled society are tools.  Of course the mechanisms of control used by Typhon were more sophisticated than those available today, but perhaps some societies have been even more tightly controlled, using more brutal methods.  [And one must also think of the Ascians: probably many of us would prefer to live in Typhon’s Urth rather than in Ascia.]

> (Decuman's magic, too?) How much 
> is really meant to correspond between New and Long Sun?---but you do 
> have to wonder about the innateness question. Were people made more 
> vulnerable, or their rulers more powerful? My money is on Typhon's 
> uniqueness. OTOH, once you consider the central roles of his children, 
> and the way Mainframe weakly replicates their ability to abuse the 
> Mameltas that they had on Urth, I can certainly see it the other way.

Typhon *was* powerful and unique, but it was not any psychic powers he had that made him so.  Or so I think.  Once he ruled Urth, he imposed his will by a variety of means, but I doubt whether innate mind control abilities were part of it.

[I am reminded of the psychic vampires in Dan Simmons’ _Carrion Comfort_, the most powerful of whom rarely used his mind control powers except for amusement, surrounded as he was by minions eager to do his bidding.]


> Variability in psionic power could be a test of this. Do any of the 
> Mainframe gods show greater or lesser power? Did they on Urth? Such 
> variability might indicate variable inheritance of an inherited trait 
> for mind control. Lack of variability suggests standard 
> electromechanical enhancement.

I don’t see much in the way of variability, except maybe for Tartarus, who is atypical anyway by virtue of his blindness.

Echidna is (presumably) no blood relation of Typhon, yet her digitised personality has similar powers.  And anyway, of course, the Mainframe Gods no longer have organic bodies, so it is to be assumed that the same technological systems are used by all of them.  We are told, I think, that the process involves pulses of light transmitted by the Sacred Windows.

- Gerry Quinn



 
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