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<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTinXcJr6aK+XjMj4v8WwjDzWhm8EtA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Andrew Mason:
_Epiphany_ certainly diverges from earlier editions at one point: the
memorable line 'At that moment I burst into the room' is changed to
the dull 'At that moment Horn burst into the room'..
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Okay. That's really bizarre. They 'fixed' that but they didn't fix
the Marble/Mint mix-up.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTinXcJr6aK+XjMj4v8WwjDzWhm8EtA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<pre wrap="">
Why would anyone make prosthetic hands for a woman that look old? On the
other hand, whatever one believes about Rose's hands, the fact that they
are *old-looking* requires its own speculative theory. She first started
wearing them when she was in her forties.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
Can you remember where that is established? If she was actually old
when she got them, they can have been made to look old just to blend
naturally with the rest of her. If, on the other hand, they were made
for a chem, why would they be made to look old? The sense I get is
that Marble looked young for as long as she had a human appearance at
all.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
It is in "Calde of the Long Sun" during Rose's funeral when
Echidna-in-Marble takes Musk and burns him in the flames:<br>
<blockquote>"This fine and living man," she pronounced slowly, "is
presented to me, to Divine Echidna." Her hands, *the bony
blue-veined hands of a elderly bio*, glowed crimson in the flames.
"Mother of the Gods. Incomparable Echidna, Queen of the _Whorl_.
Fair Echidna! Smile upon us. Send us beasts for the chase. Great
Echidna! Put forth thy green grass for our kine..."<br>
</blockquote>
Whatever you choose to believe about Marble's/Rose's hands,
explaining them requires that you leave specific textual references.
Female chems always look like young girls. That is established
(although I'd have to look it up). Rose got the hands when she was
in her 40s. Blood remembers when she had the first one installed and
recognized it.<br>
<br>
Roy has proffered that perhaps they were mocked to look old so they
would "age with her". But of course that presumes that she would get
old enough for the body to match the hands. Others have suggested it
was done to keep Rose humble.<br>
<br>
I say that the hands first belonged to Betel and were mocked to look
old so it would not be apparent that they _were_ prosthesis. The
embarrassment was due to the origin of those hands. And where they
came from was what Marble was reminding Betel of -- shaming her--
when she repeatedly asked for shriving by Betel over lying about
having posed for that picture in the cenoby. She was implying
"Remember Betel? I took Molybdenum's identity just as you took her
hands."<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTinXcJr6aK+XjMj4v8WwjDzWhm8EtA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">That they are, in any case, mechanical and not flesh seems to be
established by the fact that, when one is severed, the talus workshop
is thought to be the place to go to have it reattached. .I don't think
the talus manufacturers would be able to work with flesh. Isn't there
even a bit about how it's not just a matter of welding, there are
wires that have to be reattached, or something like that?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Yes. They are definitely not flesh.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTinXcJr6aK+XjMj4v8WwjDzWhm8EtA@mail.gmail.com"
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<pre wrap="">3) They absorbed her personality so readily because that is what
chem-technology is designed to do. That's why Marble can remember Urth's
short sun.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
I don't follow this - why in any case would Marble not remember the
short sun? Wasn't she created under it?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Does she recount a single memory regarding her life under Urth's sun
as does Rigoglo?<br>
I contend her memories are from those of a bio. Additionally, there
is this from Nightside.<br>
<blockquote>"Maytera Marble could remember the short sun, a disk of
orange fire; and it seemed to her that the chief virtue of that
old sun had been that no list, no menu, ever appeared unbidden
beneath its rays."<br>
</blockquote>
Either:<br>
<br>
1) This makes no sense because until relatively recently no list or
menu appeared to Marble "unbidden" under the Long Sun either.<br>
<br>
2) The reason no such list or menu appeared to her under Urth's sun
was because she was a bio.<br>
<br>
J.<br>
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