(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf
Gerry Quinn
gerry at bindweed.com
Sat Mar 30 07:44:45 PDT 2013
From: Marc Aramini
> Sorry, I will slow down now that I have finally wrapped my head around
> some of the weirder quotes. I think the pertinent feature is on page 138
> of A story where the old wise one talks of a star faring species that was
> influenced by a people that used their hands only to take. They were
> influenced by those individuals and went on, greater than before, before
> crashing into the water of st Anne - "the singing shape slipped steaming
> into the sea."
>
> This quote kind of casts doubt on any actual human presence on st Anne-
> ancient starfaring shadow children imitating primitive man, then
> crashing on st Anne and being imitated by the shape shifting populace,
> a copy of a copy until real men show up.
Humans are a species, and the passage says the second species "came among"
the first. Those are the only two species that need be involved. It was
their mind-songs that were amplified by the interaction, becoming "greater
than before". The bad poetry of the OWO demonstrates this - the starcrosser
technology involving a splashdown in the sea is exactly the same as is used
by humans throughout the three novellas.
It is only reiterating what we are told elsewhere. English-speaking
colonists land (splash down, if you prefer), causing the transformation both
of the indigenes (impressed by the colonists' power, they transform into
what seem like men) and also the colonists (with their new-found telepathic
powers, influenced by the indigenes and the drug they found, they shield the
planets from external view in order to keep them for themselves, and
ultimately become the Shadow Children).
At the end of 'A Story', the twin planets become visible, and passing French
ships land. The French colonise the 'newly-discovered' planets, and are
later ousted by English speakers (presumably the planets are in a stellar
zone largely colonised by them).
- Gerry Quinn
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