From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Why the Whorl left early
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 11:24:36 

On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, Adam Stephanides wrote:

> Also, given the level of technology on Blue, it will be a generation at
> minimum before the colonists there are capable of powering and maintaining
> Mainframe.  If it were to come down now, they might not even be able to
> preserve its physical integrity, since they can't stop the landers from
> being looted and rendered inoperable.
> 
> In fact, I'm not at all sure what Horn means when he says that Mainframe
> will come to Blue.  We don't know, either, on what grounds he says this;
> it's not in his conversation with the surgeon.

I read this as metonymy (like when Jews refer to G-d as "Heaven"); he
means that the gods of Mainframe will come to Blue, presumably by
posessing humans or animals, not that some (big?) physical computer will
be brought to Blue.

And based on Horn's comments about the possibility of getting a sacred
window working on Blue, at least one of us (Horn or me) drastically
misunderstands how the things work.  That *would* require bringing
Mainframe itself to Blue.

-Rostrum


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