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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>David Stockhoff wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>> Gerry Quinn wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>> > </FONT>It's not just drop ceilings that
he recognised - he worked the mirror transporter. How was he familiar with
<FONT size=2 face=Arial>> > </FONT>that technology? You would at
first sight expect it to be wildly futuristic by his standards - but no, he
was <FONT size=2 face=Arial> > > </FONT>instantly able to operate it.
<DIV class=plainMail><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail><FONT size=2 face=Arial>> </FONT>---I don't understand
your assumptions. Is transporter technology incompatible with
inexpensive-renovation <FONT size=2 face=Arial> > </FONT>technology? Is
it impossible to build transporters on or under the ground? So maybe they had
them on ships. <FONT size=2 face=Arial>> </FONT>So what?</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail><FONT size=2 face=Arial>What we know is that Jonas knows
how to operate them. Now it seems unlikely to me that transporters were
ever a commonplace technology, that most people would have been able
to operate just as in other times most people could drive a car.
So this is perhaps a technology that Jonas learned to use as part of
his duties as a crewman on the Fortunate Cloud. But then there must have
been a mirror transporter aboard the ship. Surprise... it's right outside
the door of the antechamber, or at least not far away (they have to descend a
lot of steps... a bit like getting anywhere in the Matachin Tower).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV class=plainMail>> OTOH, the very idea of a drop ceiling on a spaceship
is almost silly. They are filthy because they trap dirt. They > > are
meant only to hide pipes and so on. On a spaceship, you can't waste your payload
on things like that, and </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> you would organize your functional space more
efficiently than to have inaccessible pipes. Think submarines, not > aircraft
carriers.</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>I agree they are a bit questionable on a ship, though by no
means impossible. It is interesting that Jonas recognised them and
Severian didn't, though (nor did Jonas expect him to). They must be
uncommon in the architecture of Severian's day. But they seemed normal to
Jonas. "<SPAN lang=EN-IE>I'm sure that's what we used to call a drop
ceiling." </SPAN>So does the architecture of the antechamber derive from
Jonas's day? If so, it being Jonas's ship is an obvious possibility.</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>Why does Jonas hallucinate about his craft here
anyway? Okay, maybe he thinks of it every time he has a nightmare.
But maybe, there's something about this place. This place that he *has* to
get out of.</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail><BR>> > Here's the entrance to the transporter
room:<BR>> > <BR> > > We
had descended perhaps a hundred steps when we reached a door painted with a
crimson teratoid
> > sign that appeared to me to be
a glyph from some tongue beyond the shores of Urth.<BR>> > <BR>> >
Wolfe is spelling it out! Okay, an alternative interpretation is that the
symbol is associated with Inire. But if you > > prefer, here's
another allusion to starflight. [See, I can play the allusion game too!]
<DIV
class=plainMail>> > <BR>> > this
wing has always been Father Inire's<BR>> > <BR>> > Inire grabs the
high tech stuff, natch. A starship is perfect for him.<BR></DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> -Meaningless. You can't have stairs and doors with
DANGER glyphs underground?</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>Sure you can. But wouldn't the DANGER glyph be a
standard Urth one? Of course you might expect that too on a spaceship
launched from Urth, so it does not make a lot of sense either way. But one
reason for it, I suggest, would be simply to make the reader think again that we
are not in a normal Urth building, but something from far away. This
particular thread is thin, I will admit.</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail><BR>> > > The problem with painting a starship
interior, which I am surprised no one here sees, is that life support </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> > > systems would fail if the crew went around
renovating the ship. If it didn't fail, the crew eventually would get >
</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> > > sick.<BR><BR>> > I don't see how you
can confidently assert that. Sure, if you tried to bring a conventional
painting crew into a > > > ramshackle vessel such as the current
International Space Station, it would probably cause a few problems. > >
> But we are talking about a much more sophisticated vessel of the future.
Possibly decorative materials also > > > > have advanced so that
Sick Starship Syndrome is a concern of the past.</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> ---I can confidently assert it because I have no
choice but to do so. It's simple physics+medicine. Wolfe is a </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> materials engineer. He knows about particulate matter.
He may not know much about lungs, but he knows about </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> rules dictating how much dust factory workers can
breathe. Even wood dust is deadly---and highly flammable too. </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> If your future super-safe paint is to be admitted as
evidence, why does it flake? Why not create pre-fab colored > </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>> panels?<BR><BR>I really think you are making too much
of these limitations on the permissible furnishing of spacecraft which,
though far in Urth's past, are far in our future. They have artificial
gravity; if they also have good air filtration, dust may not be as much
of a problem as you imagine. Think of them as like ships on Earth -
you can put anything you want there, within reason.</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>They use paint because it looks better. Would you
want to sail in a grotty pre-fab starship? And maybe it didn't flake at
all during the voyage anyway.</DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail> </DIV>
<DIV class=plainMail>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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