Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 11:53:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael Straight 
Subject: Re: (urth) blonds of the Commonwealth

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, Alice K. Turner wrote:

> A thought to add to my own last post: there is a logical explanation, or at
> least a novelist's explanation, for the culturally, racially and sexually
> segregated cities (or enclaves) of the Whorl and Blue. It's that old joker
> Typhon/Pas at it again. He wants his "ark" to preserve as many or Urth's
> customs and bloodlines as possible, so he sets up these artificially
> segregated cities and preserves "ethnic purity" (or the cultural equivalent)
> by setting them all at each other's throats. (Helps keep the population down
> too--a lot like Yahweh, our Typhon.)

Isn't there a passage in the Long Sun books that all but says this
explicitly?  Maybe when Silk is talking to Sand about all the cities
having armies and being set against each other so they won't gang up and
storm Mainframe?

But yeah, it's Typhon's version of Babel.

-Rostrum


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