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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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<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">On
10/17/2011 11:21 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:<BR>><BR>> > He is a man who –
inspired by the sea monsters – is trying to make <BR>> > himself into a
god by the use of technology. He intends to attain <BR>> > immortality,
and, like many animals of our own Earth that do not die <BR>> > of old
age, this requires continuous growth. He may well be centuries <BR>> > old
already, and when he meets Severian at the end of _Urth_ he has <BR>> >
not aged in fifty years, just grown larger.<BR>> > Perhaps his large size
also accommodates a larger brain. In any case, <BR>> > he has given
himself gills because he knows he must eventually enter <BR>> > the sea
and dwell there.<BR></DIV></DIV>
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So your explanation for his growth is technological as well? Is it a <BR>>
side effect of immortality? Has he somehow managed to turn off a death <BR>>
gene in his own body, or turned on a growth gene?<BR></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">The
latter, I think. Whatever he has done he has tapped the cellular
mechanisms of creatures such as crocodiles and tortoises, which are said to grow
forever and never die of old age. (I suspect that is not quite accurate,
but the idea is well known. And human growth hormone has been touted as an
anti-aging technology.)</DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>> I don't disagree with these possibilities, I just think natural
genes <BR>> are an easier path. I know a few decades ago it was popular to
wonder if <BR>> body death wasn't programmed, simply because it was then
discovered that <BR>> cell death was programmed. The two may or may not be
related. But at <BR>> least the presence of such an idea in popular culture
might lend the <BR>> theory some substance without needing strong
evidence.</DIV>
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<DIV>Well, maybe he has managed to turn off or on some natural genes. But
presumably he still must use some unnatural mechanism – control genes, drugs or
whatever.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>> > > Would it not work just as well if he's of Juturna's race
and size, and<BR>> > > those are natural gills Sev mistook for scars?
Are we to believe <BR>> > > Juturna<BR>> > > must come up for
air like a whale? What is her race anyway: is she a<BR>> > > large
human who swims deep, or a fish evolved to be humanoid? Let's get<BR>> >
> our assumptions straight.<BR>> > Juturna is not human, I believe, nor
fish either. She has been created <BR>> > or spawned by one of the sea
monsters. If we assume that the bean <BR>> > story refers to the sea
monsters, then eggs or nanofactories or <BR>> > whatever were thrown into
the seas of Urth, eventually becoming them. <BR>> > Their origin was
off-Urth.<BR>> > Whether she comes up for air I don’t know, but I think if
she had <BR>> > gills like Baldanders then Severian, who gave her a good
looking over, <BR>> > would have noticed it.<BR>> Eh. Maybe. Who knows
what gills look like on a humanoid or what Severian <BR>> notices. Recall
that he had to get in bed with Baldanders to notice his <BR>> gills.</DIV>
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<DIV>Perhaps they are usually covered by his shirt. Juturna likes to swan
around topless or worse.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>> > As for Baldanders gills being natural: Baldanders is not
natural, he <BR>> > is sui generis and a self-made man, right down to the
gills.<BR>><BR>> This reads like a thematic assumption applied top-down to
prove itself. <BR>> If he's natural, so are the gills. I like Baldanders as
self-created and <BR>> -experimented on, but what evidence is there that he's
_entirely_ <BR>> unnatural or self-"made"?<BR>> <BR>> Are you assuming
that Baldanders was born a human man?<BR></DIV>
<DIV>Yes. Of course he could be from somewhere else, but we are not given
any obvious indications of it. And we know for a fact that he is heavily
into biological experimentation. If he were an amphibious alien, there
would be no obvious reason for this.</DIV>
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<DIV>- Gerry Quinn</DIV>
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