From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (whorl) Zany Outsider clear
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 97 17:11:00 GMT


[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

Reply:  Item #1385914 from WHORL@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#

Dave W,

(You sure you want "newt"?  A politico chosen by the prosimians?)

As I see it, it still boils down to the source/power/base of any god
not in Mainframe.  If you want to have a backup god that is identical
in mechanics to the Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality gods of
Mainframe, but you want said backup god to exist outside Mainframe,
then I suppose you should posit the existence of "Miniframe."  If,
OTOH, you want to have a backup god that is biological in nature (an
Abaia, a Tzadkiel, a Severian the Sleeper), then you should consider
those provisions--a sleeper tube, etc.--but as I suggested before, it
would seem strange to me that a more powerful biological god (of love
and kindness) would be held in reserve against the possibility of
disaster.

The Pas fragments we know of are hidden in unsuspecting bios, aren't
they?  I'm wondering how the Outsider could manifest from a bunch of
isolated and unaware individuals.

Then again, if Typhon as Pas is playing the Outsider as well as
Osiris, I guess that means his redemption is just that much sooner!
(Remember--devils don't usually play as gods because by doing so they
will become infected with god-ness.  Or so says Incus.)

Re: your receptacles of the gods, I wrote about that on Mar 7 "cold
'uns & hot"--I call them god mounts.  I wondered online (later, I think)
if the talking animals could also be the same sort of artifacts.  And
I've been considering Silk as a literal biological son of Typhon and Kypris
for some long time now (but this is one of the least popular notions).

=mantis=