From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy@siebel.com>
Subject: RE: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 12:45:47 

I'll reply to a couple of specific points, but, Robert, it seems to 
me that this (like much discussion on this list) is a flagrant 
violation of Ockham's principle, multiplying entities (in this 
case unsupported hypotheses) with no real need. Nothing you've
brought up is inconsistent with Typhon being pretty much what he
appears to be in tBotNS.

Specific points:

> For starters, it explains why the Blue-Green system was targeted
> by the Whorl. 

Because it had to target _some_ system. 

There is no particular reason to suppose that Ty-Pas knew the 
Neighbors and/or inhumi existed. Nor is there any particular 
reason to believe that there were other star systems, nearer 
to Urth, that would serve Typhon's purposes. Note 
    (1) The timescale; we're talking about a future distant enough
        that the "neighborhood" _will_ have changed.
    (2) We don't entirely know what Typhon's purposes _are_.
    (3) Given (2), we can't say for certain what would serve 
        them -- for example, he may have wanted a certain minimum
        distance from Urth (because, e.g., nearer stars were already
        colonized, or were being monitored by Hierodules and the 
        like to prevent human "infection").
Finally, there is no real reason to assume that Typhon himself
actually picked the target! He's a tyrant; he wouldn't do something
like this for himself. He'd say "I want a system with these 
characteristics," and tell someone else to find it. (We know he
had _some_ boffins he trusted, or he'd never have submitted to the 
Incredible Two-Headed Man surgery.)

[deletia]

> Pas and the Neighbors both have two heads. Coincidence or plot
> point? 

Or maybe just Wolfean obsession. He likes multiple heads.
Cerberus and all that, neh?

--Dan'l


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