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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=dstockhoff@verizon.net
href="mailto:dstockhoff@verizon.net">David Stockhoff</A> </DIV>
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style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>On 10/14/2011 8:53 AM, Gerry Quinn
wrote:<BR><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> But I
think we can all agree that Typhon does have great force of <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> personality and will to
power. This is the essential thing about him. <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> To fulfil his drive to
conquer he uses the things and people about <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> him, and any tools available
to him. He uses armies, he uses <BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">>
</FONT>> databases. He uses the power to command that by way of propaganda
and <BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> years of power
have been identified with his face in the mind of the <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> populace – hence the whole
head transplant. If he has innate psychic <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> powers he uses them too, but
they are no more significant than the <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> strength of his
hands.</DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>Significant in what
sense?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Significant to our interpretation of the story.<BR><BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>If I ruled worlds with all those
tools you list, and then you found out <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>I was psionic (without using a
psionic helmet), would that not strike <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>you as significant?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Not really, if psychic powers are reasonably common.<BR><BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>What if I boasted of these
powers?<BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>What if I claimed
(or hinted at) them but had none?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don’t see evidence that Typhon did either of those things.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>He does have strong arms and hands, strong enough to dangle Severian over a
cliff. But then again, he took those from Piaton. <BR><BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>All these hypotheticals are
situations in which the "significance" of <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>psionic powers TO THE STORY is
quite high. Wolfe has made choices---the <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>choices are significant.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don’t see it. When did he claim to have psychic powers?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> So Typhon’s
psychic domination of his people was technologically <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> mediated, in the end. Of
course, Wolfe probably hadn’t decided on any <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> of that when he wrote BotNS,
and for all we know he may have leaned <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>> the other way at that
time.</DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>Again, it's not
that the distinction between technologies is small. It's <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>that the distinction between forms
of matter is small, so that putting <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>on an electromechanical helmet to
intensify brain-controlling <BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">>
</FONT>thought-waves generated by mutated brain tissues to rule the galaxy is
<BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>simply part of the
fabric of what is possible (in pulp SF).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But again, that’s not really what Typhon did.</DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>I wonder again if
there is a particular model for Wolfe in describing <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>Typhonic society, there being so
many models to choose from. But I'm <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>inclined to think "as much as they
dared" points to a removal of tissue, <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>not removal of a kind of set-top
cable box for the brain. The story that <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>Lemur tried to limit Mucor's power
through surgery but failed supports <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>this idea, since an implant could
simply be removed. In this theory, <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>perhaps humans developed their
brains on their own through exposure to <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>mental commands, or evolution
(Mucor may not be all that unique).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>It's almost as
though Wolfe posits, as a sort of philosophical joke, a <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>human gene for submission to kings
that corresponds to a vulnerability <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>to imperious commands. Remove it
and we think for ourselves. There is a <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>parallel between the
"words-of-power" Severian uses on susceptible <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>machines at the Citadel as Autarch
and the "mental speech" of Typhonic <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>society that turns humans into
tools. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.]</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>(Decuman's magic, too?)
How much <BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>is really meant
to correspond between New and Long Sun?---but you do <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>have to wonder about the
innateness question. Were people made more <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>vulnerable, or their rulers more
powerful? My money is on Typhon's <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>uniqueness. OTOH, once you
consider the central roles of his children, <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>and the way Mainframe weakly
replicates their ability to abuse the <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>Mameltas that they had on Urth, I
can certainly see it the other way.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>[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.]</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>Variability in
psionic power could be a test of this. Do any of the <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>Mainframe gods show greater or
lesser power? Did they on Urth? Such <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>variability might indicate
variable inheritance of an inherited trait <BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">> </FONT>for mind control. Lack of
variability suggests standard <BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">>
</FONT>electromechanical enhancement.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don’t see much in the way of variability, except maybe for Tartarus, who
is atypical anyway by virtue of his blindness.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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