From: "James Wynn" 
Subject: RE: (urth) Those chems
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 10:27:53 -0500

A response and a question.....

Roy C. Lackey said:
Then Lemur pitched a fit and fired the azoth. (LS2, 12) He didn't want to
admit that he was a chem because he was aware of the prejudice, and even
seems to have shared it

Crush responds:
Hmmm. I thought it upset him because it would mean he was dead - a ghost
like the gods at which he sneered. While the *real* Urth of Typhon viewed
robots as non-persons, in the Whorl where everything is artificial (except
for an ignorant minority) they are as real as anything else. Thus, in Viron
chems have full rights. Marble seems to face no barriers as a sibyl.

But I could be wrong about the extent of the general prejudice. Silk's
statement "I'm not one of those ignorant and prejudiced bios who consider
themselves superior to chems" is subtexted by the fact that he himself is an
"artificial" and "engineered" person, only one constructed of flesh. And IMO
while Silk is not a bio-supremist, he is a bio-separatist to an extent that
he must soon face.

Roy C. Lackey said:
But, no, Jonas wasn't a chem, at least not one like those on the _Whorl_.
Jonas was very light weight, as Sev noticed when he picked him up in the
Antechamber. Male chems are _much_ heavier than humans. Even female chems
are heavier than same-sized humans.

Crush asks:
Is anyone aware of any textual evidence that non-military chems are not
light-weight? I know Sand was five-hundred weight, but that was useful for
his function.

-- Crush




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