From: James Jordan <jbjordan4@home.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Pas, on disembarking: Howdy Neighbor
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 16:45:05 

At 12:14 PM 3/12/2001 -0600, Scratched Two-Headed Borski wrote:

>Gamemeister Maroney (Unplugged) having asked:
>
><Why would we believe that Pas is a Neighbor?>
>
>Well, as I've been arguing for some time now, I believe this notion answers
>more questions than it generates.

         I'll take the opposite view. More problems than answers.
         1. Typhon has a human wife and human children and a human lover, no?
         1a. They are wife/lover/children of his first body, therefore he's 
human.
         1b. They are wife/lover/children of his second, grafted body; so 
maybe he wasn't human to begin with.
         1c. This is not Wolfe but Star Trek, and humans intermarry with 
aliens all the time!!!!

         2. Typhon's original head is not said, from my memory, to have any 
unusual characteristics that might make us think it was a Neighbor head. 
Okay, Wolfe dreamed up the Neighbors later on, but in that case we'd expect 
Pas to be described as having one weird head. Don't recall any such thing.

         3. I cannot recall evidence that Neighbors have two heads. Neither 
Babbie nor any of the other indigenous lifeforms of Blue do, do they? Have 
I forgotten something here? Even if they do, my other arguments still stand 
(for me, today).
         3a. It's simpler, for me today, to think that Pas has two heads 
because by the time the Whorl was sent, Typhon's original body had died and 
he'd grafted his head onto the second human body.

         4. If Typhon wanted to Do Something About The Inhumi, why weren't 
the armies of taluses and chems the first ones on board of the landers? 
They'd be the Marines, sent in to clean up Green and Blue, not only because 
they are soldiers but also because they'd be immune to the inhumi. That 
does not happen, and remember that Pas is alive and well by the time the 
landers are sent to implement the Plan of Pas.
         4a. Okay, the Whorl arrives, and Pas learns that the Neighbors 
have gone. Well, all the more reason to send in the chems and taluses to 
clean up the inhumi before the human settlers arrive, or in tandem with them.
         4b. Okay, Pas did not realize the inhumi would prey on the humans, 
because he was asleep when they came aboard the Whorl and was not aware 
that they could. Well, he found out later on that the inhumi were preying 
on humans, if not before, then from Horn; but probably as soon as he 
resurrected and chatted with his sons and daughters. So why not send in the 
chems then?

         5. Well, maybe Typhon/Pas HATED the Neighbors, and the chems and 
taluses were to fight the Neighbors. When he learned they were gone, he 
kept the robot armies on the Whorl.
         5a. That means Typhon is either a Rogue Neighbor who hates the 
other Neighbors, or a human. I much favor the latter, for the reasons given 
above.

         Now, I'm game to the suggestion that Typhon knew about the 
Neighbor system, and sent the Whorl there first. Humans have been in space 
for a long time, and surely this system was known, in which case Typhon 
selected it for some reason. But given the presence of aliens on Urth, he 
could have done so for other reasons, perhaps:
         (a) He knew that the Neighbors were vacating these planets, and 
thus that they were ripe for colonists.
         (b) He had a deal with the Neighbors; but in that case, why not 
sent in the chems and taluses?
         (c) He hated the Neighbors and wanted to take over their homeworlds.
I favor (a).

         Well, in terms of (a), why didn't Pas send in the Robot Armies to 
wipe out the inhumi? That's a good question. At this point, I can only 
assume that the Plan of Pas means humans must fend for themselves. Which 
carries this corollary: That the robots are only for the Whorl, and the 
Whorl was planned all along to make more than one stop.

Patera One-headed Nutria


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