(urth) Inhumi's secret and numbers on Blue

Wed Nov 28 07:53:14 PST 2012

DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:

'a character claiming that only he can provide eternal life' = 'a character
saying he goes from house to house delivering gifts via chimneys' = 'a
folkloric lie used to scare children'

Sure.  You bet.

Anyway, it's funny on the inhumi flight through space and
transmogrification issue for me:  I'm staunch that the Solar Cycle world is
one open to supernatural and paranormal causality, but I've never
instinctively felt those two characteristics of the inhumi were anything
but 'normal' 'scientific' phenomena as yet unknown and unexplainable to the
understanding of the world of Wolfe's readers.  (And I'm undecided on
whether the inhumi are telling tall tales about their flight through space
or whether they literally do that - but the latter possibility is not at
all ruled out for me.)

-DOJP

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:08 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:

> You're absolutely correct: We're not talking about hard SF here. Some
> basic reasons to give the inhunu space flight theory a break are (1) they
> are aliens whose physiology we have only the smallest clues about (2) we do
> indeed keep expanding our understanding of the limits of earthly life
> (although to be fair bacteria don't quite count) (3) as you suggest, we
> know they have the powers of glamour and inhumation, so why not
> Cthulhu-like "flight" between "the stars"? (Tzadkiel seems to do it.) I've
> argued for the first two; the last bothers me because I'm not really sure I
> accept the shapechanging powers.
>
> Still, winged flight between planets requires ether to swim in. Wolfe does
> not propose an ether. He makes allusions to Lovecraft but does not
> resurrect the whole Lovecraftian pseudoscientific context for winged
> flight. So even just arguing from literary suspension of disbelief is
> problematic.
>
> From this perspective, the claim is not dissimilar from a character saying
> he goes from house to house delivering gifts via chimneys, or claiming he
> has a ring to control the world, or claiming that only he can provide
> eternal life, or ... In other words, it sounds like a folkloric lie used to
> scare children, one which is in this case slightly out of place. Some
> things we tell ourselves about vampires (inhumi) are true, and some are
> not. Given Wolfe's fixation on the "truth" of myth, this seems to fit:
> Vampires don't fly through space---they lie and deceive and strike at night
> when you are alone and unprotected. This is where I end up.
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* "entonio at gmail.com" <entonio at gmail.com>
> *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 28, 2012 8:57 AM
> *Subject:* Re: (urth) Inhumi's secret and numbers on Blue
>
> Didn't Anne McCaffrey have some such filiform beings land on a planet as
> well?
>
> I find the insistence on the unfeasibility of inhumi travel misguided,
> except when it aims to point out that they may be lying (that's what they
> and their hosts do, after all). We keep discovering creatures here on earth
> living lives formerly considered impossible, and I mean impossible, not
> unlikely. To hold on to what we know to dismiss what we don't is what
> flat-earthers did. Still, I'm inclined to think the inhumi  can't cross the
> void the way we're told they do.
>
> They don't seem to have anything like a cell wall either, so no
> hypothetical  plant-like abilities. Otoh, theres their shapeshifting thing
> (which I find no one protesting!), so all bets are off.
>
> António
>
>
> No dia 27/11/2012, às 22:57, nate jarvis <natejarv at gmail.com> escreveu:
>
> > If the Neighbors sent/brought the inhumi to the Whorl to judge what
> > humans are like based on how the inhumi parasitizing them behaved,
> > then how did they do so? If the Neighbors on Green were shipping
> > inhumi to Bue as part of their war between Green and Blue, what was
> > their method of shipping?
> >
> > Climbing a mountain--even one that pokes up out of the atmosphere like
> > our own Olympus Mons--and then flapping your wings really really hard
> > to fly through vacuum just seems silly. The inhumi obviously do use
> > human tech to travel--that's how Krait and Horn get to Green--but they
> > might also still be using Neighbor tech to travel during the events of
> > Short Sun.
> >
> > David Stockhoff lists:
> > (1) Vacuum rupture
> > (2) Radiation
> > (3) Heat/cold variation
> > (4) Navigation/propulsion
> > (5) Reentry/landing
> > (6) Food/air
> >
> > Micrometeorite impacts should maybe also be included.
> >
> > If inhumi have a means of going into protected stasis then #4 and
> > likely #5 present insurmountable obstacles. If they were being fired
> > out of cannons, that might address #4, but I don't recall any hint of
> > space guns on Green, nor any reason to believe that the inhumi are
> > capable of calculating where they would like to aim a space gun, let
> > alone manipulating controls to do so themselves.
> >
> > So why do people on Blue believe that the inhumi fly through space? Is
> > this just a case of the inhumi themselves knowing how to start rumors,
> > and wanting that particular piece of misinformation in wide
> > circulation on Blue?
> >
> > Nate.
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-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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