From: Derek Bell <dbell@maths.tcd.ie>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v009.n005
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 21:10:20 +0000

In message <199811021653.IAA28654@lists1.best.com>, Alex David Groce writes:
>	Yes.  Clearly the whole system has been designed by Typhon to keep
>useful technology out of the cargo's hands--not that Typhon did such a hot
>job...

	I think Typhon had more than one motive for giving the cargo
lower tech - control is the obvious one, but it might also give them
an advantage if things go badly on the destination planet. A lot of
knowledge and skills that were relatively common a century or two ago
(horseriding, blacksmithing) are scarcer now. They still exist, but if
some emergency occured that wiped out the infrastructure (a large, protracted
non-nuclear war), it would take longer to get back to the level of
technology than if the skills hadn't been cultivated.

	Put it another way, the Amish *may* be Y2K insurance policy! :-)

>It's easy to imagine a program that the Chems can run but can't
>consciously access--they can "do it", but are made so they can't
>figure out how they do it.

	Put it another way - describe how to walk - in detail. Now try
to build a two-legged robot that walks like a human.

>I mean, people can have kids, but for most of history, if you'd taken
>two people aside and said--"When you have sex and out comes a kid,
>how does that work?  I'm thinking of using hearts for power packs on
>my new catapults," well you get the picture.

	;-) I have this image of sex manuals for chems - or would that
be in firmware?

	Tercel

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