From: tony.ellis@futurenet.co.uk (Tony Ellis)
Subject: (urth) re: Liev's Postpostulate; A Story; Human-Annese interbreeding
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 11:15:25 +0100

Adam Louis Stephanides wrote:
> ...There are several possibilities:
> 
> 1) Annese can change their DNA along with their shapes.
> 
> 2) All Annese, not just the Shadow children, were descendants of an
> earlier wave of human colonization.
> 
> 3) Either of the alternatives I presented for "Liev's Postpostulate" (the
> Annese are French settlers gone native, or projections of the settler's
> thoughts).
> 
> 4) R.T. is not V.R.T.'s genetic father.
> 
> Any opinions?

I say you're closest with theory 2. The Annese _are_ the descendants of
an earlier wave of human colonization, but the Shadow Children are not.
(Although they may yet be of human stock.)

The idea that the abos descend from "some earlier wave of human
expansion" from Gondwanaland is first raised way back in The Fifth Head
of Cerberus by the narrator. It seems pretty damn unlikely at the time,
but lo and behold it gets confirmed in "A Story". Originally the Old
Wise One remembers wrongly, imagining that the Shadow Children landed on
the planet, to find an indigenous humanoid race of mimics:

"You come of a race of shape-changers - like those we called werewolves
in our old home. When we came some of you looked like every kind of
beast... we walked amongst you in power and majesty and might, hissing
like a thousand serpents as we splashed down in your sea, stepping like
conquerors when we strode ashore with burning lights in our fists, and
flame."

But Shadow Children have a very confused sense of identity (numerous
examples), and a few pages later, the Old Wise One remembers more
clearly:

"Since first _they_ came here," the Old Wise One corrected him gently.
"Now I am half a man, and know that we were always here listening to
thought that did not come; listening without thought of our own to be
men." (He adds "Or it may be that all are one stock, half-remembering".)

This means that for a lot of what the Old Wise One has said earlier, you
have to replace "You" with "We" and vice versa. Humanity arrived on St
Anne in prehistoric times and became the Annese. The indigenous,
shape-shifting race are the Shadow Children, or what they grew out of.

This explains why abos and humans, such as VRT's mother and RT, can
interbreed. It also gives us Liev's Postpostulate: it's not that the
Free People are colonists gone native, but that they interbred with (or
possibly replaced) the original French settlers. Hence "I have read the
interview with Mrs. Blount -- a hundred times while I was in the hills
-- and I know who I believe the Free People to be". What Mrs Blount says
is: 

"those little French girls... weren't they the cutest things? ..one of
those Frenchies would come in, just in rags you know, but with a ribbon
and a flower in her hair, and every boy's head would turn."

Now doesn't that sound like the famed Annese ability for mimicry?

I am Liev and I have left.

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