CYTEEN
tomlinson
1. When I was about seventeen (a crucial age in CYTEEN ;) I read
Orson Card's ENDER'S GAME and thought it brilliant. Central to
that novel were the actions of three young characters, whom we see
at various ages from about six or so to early adolescence.
Having read CYTEEN, Card's accomplishment now seems to me a lesser
one. I'd sensed before that Card had not really written believable
children--Ender, Peter, and Valentine (and the supporting characters)
seem to think in much the same way, however old they are. They're
less like children, more like scaled-down adults; that these kids
are supposed to be preternaturally brilliant is, I guess, meant to
excuse this. But then, Ari, Florian, and Catlin are all brilliant
as well, and yet come across _convincingly_ as young children growing
slowly to maturity. (I'm carefully saying "convincing" and not
"realistic".)
2. Parents and their children...Jane Strassen muses at one point at
her failure in raising her own wastrel daughter, Julia. The name
reminded me irresistibly of the daughter of Augustus. Both Julias
are exiled--coincidence? Yanni Schwartz has trouble with his own
daughter, Jenna. CYTEEN is shot through with this obsession to
create the perfect offspring, and frustration at children who
by chance or design do not conform to their parents' plans for
them. We're led to believe that Jordan Warrick's arrogance with
regard to "bestowing his heredity" led him to duplicate himself
in the person of his son, Justin--although it turns out that Justin
is less Jordan's son than Ariane Emory's.
Let me not forget that peripheral character, Benjamin Rubin. He
seemed to me at first a MacGuffin in the classic sense, but
Rubin's part of the same thread, too. Grant speculates that Rubin
Maior's brilliance never would have been, had not Rubin been under
the thumb of his mother. Rubin Minor, not subject to that pressure,
is bright but not brilliant. Thus, perhaps, Justin and his
"parents"?
3. Space for an observation which didn't pan out into anything
coherent. I'll confine myself to posing an essay question: compare
and contrast the following pairs of humans and azi. Jane Strassen
and Ollie. Ari Minor and Florian. Amy Carnath and Quentin.
Jordan Warrick and Paul. Justin Warrick and Grant.
4. Specials. Ari Maior and eventually Ari Minor are Specials;
Jordan Warrick is a Special; Giraud Nye is not one, despite his
title. Two men, Justin Warrick and Denys Nye, are Special without
having the title. Leaving aside Ari Minor for the moment, these
leaves four Specials, two of whom come across as relatively normal,
Jordan and Justin; Ari Minor and, as it turns out, Denys Nye are
dangerously removed from common humanity.
Ari Minor reflects upon the "lack of checks, lack of boundaries,
that floating-in-black-space problem, that meant no minds to bounce
off, no walls to return the echo." Ari Maior and Denys both think
in enormously broad-scale terms, brooding over the fate of all Union
and all mankind even (qq. v. Ari's notes and meditations, Denys's
vast storehouse of unfinished notes and writings which Ari finds.)
It's clear that Ari Maior eventually comes to think of herself as
the only mortal capable of steering Union away from the brink of
disaster, and although Denys Nye remains inscrutable, it's not too
much to conjecture that he feels exactly the same way. No wonder
Ari Minor and Denys Nye end up mortal enemies.
5. If CYTEEN ends with any disquieting issue left unresolved, it's
the eventual fate of Ari Minor. The end of the novel finds her
desperately alone. Her final scene is one of desolation and
isolation, unable from fear to speak to Florian, and looking
out on the ruins of the Wing. "She had known that place since
childhood. It did not look real to her." Justin and Grant, at
any rate, survive the novel still together and able to extract
some feeling of peace, or at least of relief, at the return of
his father and Paul.
-tomlinson
--
"I'm not sure George is wrong about automobiles. With all their speed
forward, they may be a step backward in civilization. It may be that
they won't add to the beauty of the world or the life of men's souls.
I'm not sure. But automobiles have come, and almost all outward things
are going to be different because of what they bring."
Mary K. Kuhner
tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>Ari Minor reflects upon the "lack of checks, lack of boundaries,
>that floating-in-black-space problem, that meant no minds to bounce
>off, no walls to return the echo."
Cherryh tackles this theme at short-novel length in _Wave Without
a Shore_. If you haven't read that, I'll strongly recommend it.
It's stylistically unlike anything else she's done: if it were
labelled as being by MA Foster I'd find that totally convincing.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
Graydon
>5. If CYTEEN ends with any disquieting issue left unresolved, it's
>the eventual fate of Ari Minor. The end of the novel finds her
>desperately alone. Her final scene is one of desolation and
>isolation, unable from fear to speak to Florian, and looking
>out on the ruins of the Wing. "She had known that place since
>childhood. It did not look real to her." Justin and Grant, at
>any rate, survive the novel still together and able to extract
>some feeling of peace, or at least of relief, at the return of
>his father and Paul.
I think you might profit from a re-read; Jordan isn't going to trust
Justin -- on whom, to the best of his knowledge, _both_ Ari instances
have run interventions -- ever again, and Ari II and Justin have come
to an agreement that looks a lot like getting married without (yet)
the messy sexual bits. Justin's Ari II's echo, another voice who can
see where the edges of the dark go off to.
--
graydon@ | Twenty hundred years of teaching, give to each his legacy:
lara.on.ca | Plato, Buddha, Christ, or Lenin -- twenty tons of TNT.
-- Flanders and Swann, "Twenty Tons of TNT"
tomlinson
:
The
words
I
spoke
to
the
unfortunate
stranger
were:
"You
are
far
from
being
a
bad
man.
Go,
and
reform."
:
: I think you might profit from a re-read; Jordan isn't going to trust
: Justin -- on whom, to the best of his knowledge, _both_ Ari instances
: have run interventions -- ever again, and Ari II and Justin have come
: to an agreement that looks a lot like getting married without (yet)
: the messy sexual bits. Justin's Ari II's echo, another voice who can
: see where the edges of the dark go off to.
I appreciate this. Ari Minor, in any case, reminds Justin that Jordan
Warrick cannot entirely trust his son.
But...I'm not expressing this well...the novel has to end someplace, and
in a certain manner. I'm going to try to illustrate a serious point with
a frivolous example. William Goldman's THE PRINCESS BRIDE ends three
times. It first ends just as the romances Goldman is parodying might
end: Buttercup, Wesley, Inigo, and Fezzik escape from their pursuers.
The second ending undoes all that: Wesley relapses, Inigo's wound
reopens, Fezzik runs the wrong way, and Buttercup's horse throws a
shoe. The third ending is given in Goldman's auctorial voice: they
get away, but the heroes all succumb to age and mischance eventually.
Because Life Isn't Fair.
The point is, all of these endings are valid, none conflict with the
rest of the story. You pick and choose your ending depending on your
temperament, romantic or cynical. Thus the ending of CYTEEN. Cherryh
could _easily_ have reminded us in that last scene of what lurks in
future for Jordan and Justin, _but she does not_. She saves the
disturbing images and troubled feelings for Ari. Everything you say...
is true, but it's less to do with the way that CYTEEN ends and more to
do with how a sequel (if there were one--for all I know, there is one)
would begin.
If nothing else the ending reminds us that Justin has at least one point
of stability in his life, one person who he loves and trusts, Grant.
Ari has no one at all.
Tony Zbaraschuk
tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>
>If nothing else the ending reminds us that Justin has at least one point
>of stability in his life, one person who he loves and trusts, Grant.
>Ari has no one at all.
She has Florian and Catlin, but that's not quite the same thing.
She trusts them, certainly, but I'm not so sure about love.
(Ari II seems to be more capable of that, at least on an inter-personal
scale, than Ari I. But I don't think that she has anyone, yet, who
means as much to her as Grant to Justin.)
Tony Z
--
Over the altar, flame of anatomized fire,
the High Prince stood, gyre in burning gyre;
day level before him, night massed behind;
the Table ascended; the glories intertwined -- Charles Williams
Jo Walton
In article <78tfat$8kn$1...@hole.sdsu.edu>
etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu "tomlinson" writes:
> I finished CYTEEN a few days ago.
>
> 1. When I was about seventeen (a crucial age in CYTEEN ;) I read
Cherryh seems to have an obsession with the age 17, it's an age many
of her protagonists have terribly significant experiences. People
have wondered if this has any significance, and whether it relates
to the reason all Brust's books have 17 chapters and all haiku have
17 syllables. One suspects not. :]
> Orson Card's ENDER'S GAME and thought it brilliant. Central to
> that novel were the actions of three young characters, whom we see
> at various ages from about six or so to early adolescence.
>
> Having read CYTEEN, Card's accomplishment now seems to me a lesser
> one. I'd sensed before that Card had not really written believable
> children--Ender, Peter, and Valentine (and the supporting characters)
> seem to think in much the same way, however old they are. They're
> less like children, more like scaled-down adults; that these kids
> are supposed to be preternaturally brilliant is, I guess, meant to
> excuse this. But then, Ari, Florian, and Catlin are all brilliant
> as well, and yet come across _convincingly_ as young children growing
> slowly to maturity. (I'm carefully saying "convincing" and not
> "realistic".)
I'll agree with all that. (Well, I was 20 when I read EG.) They're
very convincing children. Their vocabulary feels right.
> 2. Parents and their children...Jane Strassen muses at one point at
> her failure in raising her own wastrel daughter, Julia. The name
> reminded me irresistibly of the daughter of Augustus. Both Julias
> are exiled--coincidence?
This thought has crossed my mind, the constant stream of lovers,
the inadequacy - Cherryh's got to be aware of the parallel at
some level.
Yanni Schwartz has trouble with his own
> daughter, Jenna. CYTEEN is shot through with this obsession to
> create the perfect offspring, and frustration at children who
> by chance or design do not conform to their parents' plans for
> them. We're led to believe that Jordan Warrick's arrogance with
> regard to "bestowing his heredity" led him to duplicate himself
> in the person of his son, Justin--although it turns out that Justin
> is less Jordan's son than Ariane Emory's.
>
> Let me not forget that peripheral character, Benjamin Rubin. He
> seemed to me at first a MacGuffin in the classic sense, but
> Rubin's part of the same thread, too. Grant speculates that Rubin
> Maior's brilliance never would have been, had not Rubin been under
> the thumb of his mother. Rubin Minor, not subject to that pressure,
> is bright but not brilliant. Thus, perhaps, Justin and his
> "parents"?
"Ari knew what she wanted out of that geneset and she got it" - that's
poor Justin. There's also Amy, who that's said to, Amy's ralationship
with her mother, Julia Carnath, is also strained, and also an attempt
(though not I don't _think_ by cloning) to get a child to live her
life again. Jane Strassen does fairly badly with her own daughter,
but not by making that mistake that's apparently obsessing the whole
of the rest of Reseune. Victoria Strassen is _right_ in Giraud's
funeral, and if producing psycho-genetic replicates becomes the norm
it's not going to be a good thing for Union down the line, I don't
think.
> 3. Space for an observation which didn't pan out into anything
> coherent. I'll confine myself to posing an essay question: compare
> and contrast the following pairs of humans and azi. Jane Strassen
> and Ollie. Ari Minor and Florian. Amy Carnath and Quentin.
> Jordan Warrick and Paul. Justin Warrick and Grant.
Oh yes.
Note also (Lesley Grant's point originally) that azi are all by definition
minors under the law, what Jordan said to young Grant about sex with
people without an alpha license and that Justin says to Yanni that he
and Grant are fitting into the pattern they were brought up to.
Unless you meant "Guess the odd one out" in which case it's Ari and
Florian - because there is also Caitlin.
> 5. If CYTEEN ends with any disquieting issue left unresolved, it's
> the eventual fate of Ari Minor. The end of the novel finds her
> desperately alone. Her final scene is one of desolation and
> isolation, unable from fear to speak to Florian, and looking
> out on the ruins of the Wing. "She had known that place since
> childhood. It did not look real to her." Justin and Grant, at
> any rate, survive the novel still together and able to extract
> some feeling of peace, or at least of relief, at the return of
> his father and Paul.
What Graydon said. All being well, she has Justin, who has accepted he
needs her, as well as her azi. I don't think it's a wonderful happy
ending for her, but she'll get by and be human, I think, she isn't
her predecessor even though she's prepared to do what she did.
The thing that completely threw me at the end is that Ari II is
prepared to do to another potential instance of herself what has been
done to her. She's come round to believing she's essential to the
universe, and she's forgiving Giraud and Denys _even as she attacks
Denys_ over that mad she's been keeping for ten years over them sending
her maman away. What she says to Justin is really quite chilling - and
that's why I said the theme was Ari's (both Aris') hubris in thinking
she is that essential.
You posted that you hated Ari I, when you were near the beginning. By
the end of the book had you come around to different feelings about
her?
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
First NorAm Public Appearance: Imperiums to Order, Kitchener, March 20th
Freshly UPDATED web-page http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Interstichia;
RASFW FAQ, Reviews, Fanzine, Momentum Guidelines, Blood of Kings Poetry
Ernest Tomlinson
the best...)
On Sat, 30 Jan 99 19:28:52 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)
wrote:
>SPOILERS
>Cherryh seems to have an obsession with the age 17, it's an age many
>of her protagonists have terribly significant experiences. People
>have wondered if this has any significance, and whether it relates
>to the reason all Brust's books have 17 chapters and all haiku have
>17 syllables. One suspects not. :]
How universal is the...special status of the age of _eighteen_? If
eighteen is the magic age of adulthood, then seventeen would be the
dangerous "almost adult" age, when one is old enough to get into
trouble but still too young to get back out of it. (Not that such
things observe precise time lines, but you get the idea.) I suspect
that a lot of coming-of-age stories feature seventeen-year-old
protagonists. Certainly STALKING DARKNESS does; and it occurs to
me that, in a weird conincidence, Frodo departs for Rivendell
seventeen years (exactly!) from his thirty-third birthday. But
I'll bet I could find the number seventeen in anything if I looked
hard enough. (Where is seventeen in THE MALTESE FALCON? The
"Aeneid"? Bjarne Stroustrup's THE C++ LANGUAGE? :)
>I'll agree with all that. (Well, I was 20 when I read EG.) They're
>very convincing children. Their vocabulary feels right.
I also felt at the time--although now I'm less convinced--that Cherryh
carefully "aged" Justin as well. Justin at eighteen or nineteen (how
old is he exactly in CYTEEN 4.iii?) is different from Justin at
seventeen. But there are other forces at work there...
>This thought has crossed my mind, the constant stream of lovers,
>the inadequacy - Cherryh's got to be aware of the parallel at
>some level.
Watch for it: my brilliant critical essay, "C. J. Cherryh's Julio-
Claudian 'Family'." Seriously, the hothouse atmosphere of the Family
is strongly reminiscent of the Augustan clan--as written by Robert
Graves, at any rate.
>"Ari knew what she wanted out of that geneset and she got it" - that's
>poor Justin. There's also Amy, who that's said to, Amy's ralationship
>with her mother, Julia Carnath, is also strained, and also an attempt
>(though not I don't _think_ by cloning) to get a child to live her
>life again. Jane Strassen does fairly badly with her own daughter,
>but not by making that mistake that's apparently obsessing the whole
>of the rest of Reseune. Victoria Strassen is _right_ in Giraud's
>funeral, and if producing psycho-genetic replicates becomes the norm
>it's not going to be a good thing for Union down the line, I don't
>think.
It's hard not to sympathize with Victoria Strassen and her angry
outburst--and tempting for me not to conclude that Victoria is
speaking with the force of Cherryh's auctorial voice. But Ari offers
a different perspective, earlier on, when she says at some point after
learning something of the truth of her birth, that she was
nevertheless glad she was born. (I can't find this passage--did I
dream it up?)
We hear a lot of what are ostensibly Ariane Emory's genuine thoughts,
in the recordings she leaves for young Ari in "Base One". (Yet Ariane
is so impenetrable and subtle, one wonders--are even these an act, and
not the real Ari?) It occurs to me that, although she has much to say
about growing up, and sex, and conducting business, she says nothing
about parenthood. One can imagine Ariane, a little disgusted maybe at
the failures of "real" parents such as Yanni or Jane, and deciding
that she can produce her own "children", young Ari and Justin,
according to her own rules.
>Note also (Lesley Grant's point originally) that azi are all by definition
>minors under the law, what Jordan said to young Grant about sex with
>people without an alpha license and that Justin says to Yanni that he
>and Grant are fitting into the pattern they were brought up to.
I can't quite remember that...where is that?
I took me a long while, I should say, to be convinced that Justin and
Grant _were_ in fact lovers. Cherryh is so damnably circumspect about
it that I told myself, when the possibility crossed my mind, that I
was joining the ranks of those who read homosexuality into the
slightest gesture of affection between two men. "They're just
brothers," I told myself. Well, I had to discard that notion
eventually. Justin himself doesn't help matters:
JW: "...I can't get my brother a visit with his father!"
YS: "Your brother. Grant's a whole lot of things with you. Isn't
he?"
JW: "Go to hell!" (CYTEEN 10.vii)
All of which begs the question, why all the pretense.
>Unless you meant "Guess the odd one out" in which case it's Ari and
>Florian - because there is also Caitlin.
The reason I didn't expand on what I was thinking, and left it open,
was because I had originally thought just this, that Ari and Florian
were the "odd ones out"--but I decided that was oversimplifying.
There's a scene between Jane Strassen and Ollie which bothered me a
little when I read it; Jane says to Ollie something like, "Distract
me", and Ollie distracts as hard as he can. I was reminded of a short
story I read once, called "Pairpuppets" I think. Same thing, I
thought--made-to-measure sex partners. Amy comes right out and says
it: "You know what I want? I want exactly what you've got with
Florian. No fuss. No petty spats. No jealousy." (And Ari promises
to give her a list of who's available.)
But the rest of that scene between Jane and Ollie plays out in just
such a way as dispel the notion that Ollie is for Jane merely a
"pairpuppet". Maybe Jane started out as another Amy Carnath, but
something like love intervened, complicating the neat relationship
between azi and supervisor. Apparently Jordan Warrick "requisitioned"
Paul, presumably in the same fashion and with the same object.
>What Graydon said. All being well, she has Justin, who has accepted he
>needs her, as well as her azi. I don't think it's a wonderful happy
>ending for her, but she'll get by and be human, I think, she isn't
>her predecessor even though she's prepared to do what she did.
Maybe you've read my response to Graydon by now: I agree with his
point, and yours, but find the tone of the ending significant. It's
bleaker than it could have been, just as Justin's final scene is more
positive than it could have been.
And I don't think she really does have her azi. The elder Ari warns
her, "I have hurt Florian," and young Ari is fearful of that. Nor can
Florian really...satisfy her. Oh, she tries: that scene between Jane
and Ollie which I mentioned above has its later counterpart; Ari,
thrown into turmoil by Giraud's message to her in CYTEEN 13.xi, begs
of Florian to "Do something, will you?" But Ari herself admits that
"Florian doesn't touch the lonely feeling."
>The thing that completely threw me at the end is that Ari II is
>prepared to do to another potential instance of herself what has been
>done to her. She's come round to believing she's essential to the
>universe, and she's forgiving Giraud and Denys _even as she attacks
>Denys_ over that mad she's been keeping for ten years over them sending
>her maman away.
I didn't see real forgiveness there. Well, scratch that. I think Ari
has already forgiven Giraud; he and not Denys bestows the only real
moment of affection, the gift of the topaz pin, "something that's only
yours." Perhaps Giraud, himself manipulated by his brother, is
hinting that he feels sorry for Ari (even as Justin does), for having
been manipulated as she has? In any case, when Ari says to Denys at
the end that she doesn't think Giraud was behind the assassination
attempt, I think that's truth. But hell if she forgives Denys; she's
just playing with him. Of course she doesn't want to kill him unless
necessary, but she's enjoying her revenge.
>that's why I said the theme was Ari's (both Aris') hubris in thinking
>she is that essential.
An only natural feeling, I suppose, in one who feels herself so
completely isolated; she consoles herself with the conviction that her
isolation gives her a perspective no other man has.
>You posted that you hated Ari I, when you were near the beginning. By
>the end of the book had you come around to different feelings about
>her?
Yes, with reservations. The infuriating thing about Ariane Emory is
that it's not ever possible to be sure she's being honest, with
herself nor with anyone else. The closest we have in CYTEEN to a
window into her thoughts are those "Base One" recordings for young
Ari. The Ari revealed there is willing, within bounds, to admit to
error and to warn her younger self against making the same sorts of
hurtful mistakes in her personal life and elsewhere.
And there's always that chance--could it be that, when Ari is
convinced that only she can save mankind from destruction...she's
_right_?
-tomlinson
Graydon
>
>words
>
>I
>
>spoke
>
>to
>
>the
>
>unfortunate
>
>stranger
>
>were:
>
>"You
>
>are
>
>far
>
>from
>
>being
>
>a
>
>bad
>
>man.
>
>Go,
>
>and
>
>reform."
>
>in a certain manner. I'm going to try to illustrate a serious point with
>a frivolous example. William Goldman's THE PRINCESS BRIDE ends three
>times. It first ends just as the romances Goldman is parodying might
>end: Buttercup, Wesley, Inigo, and Fezzik escape from their pursuers.
>The second ending undoes all that: Wesley relapses, Inigo's wound
>reopens, Fezzik runs the wrong way, and Buttercup's horse throws a
>shoe. The third ending is given in Goldman's auctorial voice: they
>get away, but the heroes all succumb to age and mischance eventually.
>Because Life Isn't Fair.
>
>The point is, all of these endings are valid, none conflict with the
>rest of the story. You pick and choose your ending depending on your
>temperament, romantic or cynical. Thus the ending of CYTEEN. Cherryh
>could _easily_ have reminded us in that last scene of what lurks in
>future for Jordan and Justin, _but she does not_. She saves the
She instead leaves that reunion very ambiguous; they haven't actually
met again when the novel ends. I think the way she does that is a
reminder, particularly the emphasis on the distance Jordan's plane has
traveled, and several kinds of conceptual distance, too.
It's a Cherryh novel; there is no way the optimistic
everything-is-back-to-normal view Justin has is anything like
accurate. Especially not when such a point is made of no one in
Reseune knowing what normal _is_, just at that point in time.
>disturbing images and troubled feelings for Ari. Everything you say...
>is true, but it's less to do with the way that CYTEEN ends and more to
>do with how a sequel (if there were one--for all I know, there is one)
>would begin.
There is rumoured to be one writing.
>If nothing else the ending reminds us that Justin has at least one point
>of stability in his life, one person who he loves and trusts, Grant.
>Ari has no one at all.
Ari has Ari I; Caitlin; Florian; Justin. In that order, about a lot
of things. She's also got Amy.
The next interesting thing in that relationship is presumably Justin
and Ari I switching places in Ari's view of things.
Graydon
Ernest Tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>(Trying to use something other than "tin" for a change. Hoping for
>the best...)
Whatever you used doesn't seem to have committed any attrocities.
>On Sat, 30 Jan 99 19:28:52 GMT, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton)
>wrote:
>>"Ari knew what she wanted out of that geneset and she got it" - that's
>>poor Justin. There's also Amy, who that's said to, Amy's ralationship
>>with her mother, Julia Carnath, is also strained, and also an attempt
>>(though not I don't _think_ by cloning) to get a child to live her
>>life again. Jane Strassen does fairly badly with her own daughter,
>>but not by making that mistake that's apparently obsessing the whole
>>of the rest of Reseune. Victoria Strassen is _right_ in Giraud's
>>funeral, and if producing psycho-genetic replicates becomes the norm
>>it's not going to be a good thing for Union down the line, I don't
>>think.
>
>It's hard not to sympathize with Victoria Strassen and her angry
>outburst--and tempting for me not to conclude that Victoria is
>speaking with the force of Cherryh's auctorial voice. But Ari offers
>a different perspective, earlier on, when she says at some point after
>learning something of the truth of her birth, that she was
>nevertheless glad she was born. (I can't find this passage--did I
>dream it up?)
I remember it as well.
Ari II doesn't hate herself; she could hardly want to have not
been born.
>We hear a lot of what are ostensibly Ariane Emory's genuine thoughts,
>in the recordings she leaves for young Ari in "Base One". (Yet Ariane
>is so impenetrable and subtle, one wonders--are even these an act, and
>not the real Ari?) It occurs to me that, although she has much to say
>about growing up, and sex, and conducting business, she says nothing
>about parenthood. One can imagine Ariane, a little disgusted maybe at
>the failures of "real" parents such as Yanni or Jane, and deciding
>that she can produce her own "children", young Ari and Justin,
>according to her own rules.
I don't think Ari thinks the normal form of parenting is sensible _in
principle_.
>>Note also (Lesley Grant's point originally) that azi are all by definition
>>minors under the law, what Jordan said to young Grant about sex with
>>people without an alpha license and that Justin says to Yanni that he
>>and Grant are fitting into the pattern they were brought up to.
>
>I can't quite remember that...where is that?
When Grant's leaving Reseune and thinking about his history there.
>I took me a long while, I should say, to be convinced that Justin and
>Grant _were_ in fact lovers. Cherryh is so damnably circumspect about
>it that I told myself, when the possibility crossed my mind, that I
>was joining the ranks of those who read homosexuality into the
>slightest gesture of affection between two men. "They're just
>brothers," I told myself. Well, I had to discard that notion
>eventually. Justin himself doesn't help matters:
>
>JW: "...I can't get my brother a visit with his father!"
>YS: "Your brother. Grant's a whole lot of things with you. Isn't
>he?"
>JW: "Go to hell!" (CYTEEN 10.vii)
>
>All of which begs the question, why all the pretense.
Because sleeping with your Azi is somewhat declasse, so far as I can
tell, if it's perceived that you actually in love with them.
>>Unless you meant "Guess the odd one out" in which case it's Ari and
>>Florian - because there is also Caitlin.
>
>The reason I didn't expand on what I was thinking, and left it open,
>was because I had originally thought just this, that Ari and Florian
>were the "odd ones out"--but I decided that was oversimplifying.
>There's a scene between Jane Strassen and Ollie which bothered me a
>little when I read it; Jane says to Ollie something like, "Distract
>me", and Ollie distracts as hard as he can. I was reminded of a short
>story I read once, called "Pairpuppets" I think. Same thing, I
>thought--made-to-measure sex partners. Amy comes right out and says
>it: "You know what I want? I want exactly what you've got with
>Florian. No fuss. No petty spats. No jealousy." (And Ari promises
>to give her a list of who's available.)
>
>But the rest of that scene between Jane and Ollie plays out in just
>such a way as dispel the notion that Ollie is for Jane merely a
>"pairpuppet". Maybe Jane started out as another Amy Carnath, but
>something like love intervened, complicating the neat relationship
>between azi and supervisor. Apparently Jordan Warrick "requisitioned"
>Paul, presumably in the same fashion and with the same object.
It's not that simple. Much of the point of :Cyteen: is attached to
the idea of improving people; this includes human relations, and an
attempt to make them more rational.
>And I don't think she really does have her azi. The elder Ari warns
>her, "I have hurt Florian," and young Ari is fearful of that. Nor can
>Florian really...satisfy her. Oh, she tries: that scene between Jane
>and Ollie which I mentioned above has its later counterpart; Ari,
>thrown into turmoil by Giraud's message to her in CYTEEN 13.xi, begs
>of Florian to "Do something, will you?" But Ari herself admits that
>"Florian doesn't touch the lonely feeling."
But Justin does.
What she gets from Florian and Caitlin is utter trust; she can trust
them with anything, becuase they would, actually and specifically, cut
their own throats before hurting her.
>>The thing that completely threw me at the end is that Ari II is
>>prepared to do to another potential instance of herself what has been
>>done to her. She's come round to believing she's essential to the
>>universe, and she's forgiving Giraud and Denys _even as she attacks
>>Denys_ over that mad she's been keeping for ten years over them sending
>>her maman away.
>
>I didn't see real forgiveness there. Well, scratch that. I think Ari
>has already forgiven Giraud; he and not Denys bestows the only real
>moment of affection, the gift of the topaz pin, "something that's only
>yours." Perhaps Giraud, himself manipulated by his brother, is
>hinting that he feels sorry for Ari (even as Justin does), for having
>been manipulated as she has? In any case, when Ari says to Denys at
>the end that she doesn't think Giraud was behind the assassination
>attempt, I think that's truth. But hell if she forgives Denys; she's
>just playing with him. Of course she doesn't want to kill him unless
>necessary, but she's enjoying her revenge.
I don't think she forgave Giraud; I don't think Ari's good at
forgiveness. (Ari I was terribly bad at it; Ari II might be capable of
it.) I think Ari II shifts, almost without authorial flagging, into a
mode of presence where she isn't being open with anyone but her inner
circle and isn't giving any of _them_ the full story.
>>that's why I said the theme was Ari's (both Aris') hubris in thinking
>>she is that essential.
>
>An only natural feeling, I suppose, in one who feels herself so
>completely isolated; she consoles herself with the conviction that her
>isolation gives her a perspective no other man has.
She's right.
She's still wrong in the larger conclusion; they've got survival and
the absence of social change confused. (very plausible in the case of
a spacer-descended culture.)
>>You posted that you hated Ari I, when you were near the beginning. By
>>the end of the book had you come around to different feelings about
>>her?
>
>Yes, with reservations. The infuriating thing about Ariane Emory is
>that it's not ever possible to be sure she's being honest, with
>herself nor with anyone else.
Do you think Ariane Emory can answer that question for herself?
>And there's always that chance--could it be that, when Ari is
>convinced that only she can save mankind from destruction...she's
>_right_?
Have you read :Tripoint:?
Keith Rickert
>In article <36b3c318...@news-server.san.rr.com>,
>Ernest Tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>>(Trying to use something other than "tin" for a change. Hoping for
>>the best...)
>>And there's always that chance--could it be that, when Ari is
>>convinced that only she can save mankind from destruction...she's
>>_right_?
>Have you read :Tripoint:?
Having just finished it, I'm still not entirely sure what you're getting
at here.
Keith
--
Keith Rickert | "Imprisoned for a crime I didn't commit.
ke...@eve.cchem.berkeley.edu | Attempted murder. Now honestly, what is that?
rick...@netcom.com | Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted
ke...@imppig.caltech.edu | chemistry?" Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons
Graydon
Keith Rickert <ke...@eve.cchem.berkeley.edu> wrote:
[spoiler the size of Bill Gates' bank account for the Union/Alliance
universe stories of CJ Cherryh]
>In <792oub$o1v$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) writes:
>>In article <36b3c318...@news-server.san.rr.com>,
>>Ernest Tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>>>(Trying to use something other than "tin" for a change. Hoping for
>>>the best...)
>
>>>And there's always that chance--could it be that, when Ari is
>>>convinced that only she can save mankind from destruction...she's
>>>_right_?
>
>>Have you read :Tripoint:?
>
>Having just finished it, I'm still not entirely sure what you're getting
>at here.
Ari -- neither Ari -- knows about the Fleet colony.
Her thesis is that mankind is at risk of self-destructing, due
to small populations, isolation, and extremely rapid social change
produced by a and b, and that the only fix is to produce -- by design
-- a society which won't come unstuck, which is why there are the
interesting surprises in the azi tapesets wirto how they raise their
kids and why Ari is so secretive about the existence of the concept of
sociogenisis.
All her calculations assume she knows where everybody is. She's
wrong; whatever Ari I has designed to be stable, it's not.
tomlinson
:
:
: I don't think Ari thinks the normal form of parenting is sensible _in
: principle_.
But where does she say that? Nowhere. The closest she comes to saying
anything on the subject is when she's persuading Jordan to order a
replicate of himself, and she says something like "I'm not suited to
raising my own."
: Because sleeping with your Azi is somewhat declasse, so far as I can
: tell, if it's perceived that you actually in love with them.
Amy Carnath makes a great show of dancing with her azi Quentin, and
the comment is made that Olders would simply have to accept it--in
any case, one doesn't get the impression that Amy is doing anything
especially inappropriate or socially unacceptable.
: It's not that simple. Much of the point of :Cyteen: is attached to
: the idea of improving people; this includes human relations, and an
: attempt to make them more rational.
Not that the attempt works, if the turbulent personal lives and
politics on display in CYTEEN are any judge. Unless...unless the
goal is to put all individual human relations on the same sort of
footing as the azi-to-supervisor relationship, where one person
"holds the keys" to another, just as Ari eventually "holds the keys"
to Justin.
: I don't think she forgave Giraud; I don't think Ari's good at
: forgiveness. (Ari I was terribly bad at it; Ari II might be capable of
: it.)
Ari is at least able momentarily to think of Giraud and Denys neither
as Enemies nor as people to be "Worked". She remembers the "something
that's only yours" gesture. And there's also that moment where Ari
has been "Working" Denys and suddenly realizes that he's a tired,
frightened old man. It's not quite forgiveness, but it's sympathy.
I think Ari II shifts, almost without authorial flagging, into a
: mode of presence where she isn't being open with anyone but her inner
: circle and isn't giving any of _them_ the full story.
I couldn't quite parse that. When does she make this shift?
: She's right.
We don't know that; we're not privy to the reams of notes and
messages and meditations of any other character other than Ari's.
The big question mark is Denys, who we can only guess has invested
at least as much thought and inquiry into the future of Union as
Ari has. I guess Cherryh made Denys Nye enigmatic for a reason, but
I found that a little frustrating--all we learn by the end is that
he's got plans, and that these plans aren't healthy for Ari.
: Do you think Ariane Emory can answer that question for herself?
She never gets a chance. Aside from a grand total of two scenes,
we're _never_ inside the mind of the elder Ariane Emory. She's
always seen from outside--from the perspective of her enemies,
from the perspective of complete outsiders (the interview),
or through the notes which we must remember she left _with an
eye to shaping the destiny of her successor_. There's hardly
a moment in CYTEEN where Ari isn't playing to an audience of
some sort.
The effect is a lot like that of CITIZEN KANE: you get to the
end, having been given a lot of inside stuff on Kane (Ari), but
none of it from his own perspective. Kane remains a mystery.
: Have you read :Tripoint:?
No. C'mon, haven't I said before that CYTEEN is the first work
of Cherryh's I've ever read?
Graydon
tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>Graydon (gra...@lara.on.ca) wrote:
>
>:
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
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>:
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>: I don't think Ari thinks the normal form of parenting is sensible _in
>: principle_.
>
>But where does she say that? Nowhere. The closest she comes to saying
Ari doesn't explicitly say that the political process cannot be
trusted to select the correct course of social development, either.
>anything on the subject is when she's persuading Jordan to order a
>replicate of himself, and she says something like "I'm not suited to
>raising my own."
There is mention of just how much she fiddles the azi tapesets wirto
their childrearing habits; I don't think it's proven, but I think the
thread of this is there.
>: Because sleeping with your Azi is somewhat declasse, so far as I can
>: tell, if it's perceived that you actually in love with them.
>
>Amy Carnath makes a great show of dancing with her azi Quentin, and
>the comment is made that Olders would simply have to accept it--in
The shocked and in some cases distressed Olders.
That incident is blurred by Justin's rashness, in the midst of a party
that's a naked challenge to the Reseune establishment.
>any case, one doesn't get the impression that Amy is doing anything
>especially inappropriate or socially unacceptable.
In what sense? In my specific personal judgement, no.
As an ongoing social trend? Yeuch.
In terms of the mores within Reseune? She's doing something _very_
avant guard, at the very least, and certain enough to make various
persons mutter, since we do in fact see Amy's reaction to them
muttering.
>: It's not that simple. Much of the point of :Cyteen: is attached to
>: the idea of improving people; this includes human relations, and an
>: attempt to make them more rational.
>
>Not that the attempt works, if the turbulent personal lives and
>politics on display in CYTEEN are any judge. Unless...unless the
>goal is to put all individual human relations on the same sort of
>footing as the azi-to-supervisor relationship, where one person
>"holds the keys" to another, just as Ari eventually "holds the keys"
>to Justin.
I don't think that's the _concious_ goal.
:Cyteen: has, as one of its immense sweeping subthemes, a discussion
of the interaction of concious and unconcious desires.
>: I don't think she forgave Giraud; I don't think Ari's good at
>: forgiveness. (Ari I was terribly bad at it; Ari II might be capable of
>: it.)
>
>Ari is at least able momentarily to think of Giraud and Denys neither
>as Enemies nor as people to be "Worked".
Surely. This is empathy, not forgiveness.
>She remembers the "something that's only yours" gesture. And there's
>also that moment where Ari has been "Working" Denys and suddenly
>realizes that he's a tired, frightened old man. It's not quite
>forgiveness, but it's sympathy.
I don't think the two things intersect in any way, myself.
> I think Ari II shifts, almost without authorial flagging, into a
>: mode of presence where she isn't being open with anyone but her inner
>: circle and isn't giving any of _them_ the full story.
>
>I couldn't quite parse that. When does she make this shift?
Just after Justin dances with her at that party, or she elects to
allow Justin to do so, or however you wish to put it. When she
decides to take power.
>: She's right.
>
>We don't know that; we're not privy to the reams of notes and
>messages and meditations of any other character other than Ari's.
Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
>The big question mark is Denys, who we can only guess has invested
>at least as much thought and inquiry into the future of Union as
>Ari has. I guess Cherryh made Denys Nye enigmatic for a reason, but
>I found that a little frustrating--all we learn by the end is that
>he's got plans, and that these plans aren't healthy for Ari.
Denys has never been outside but once in his adult life. I think that
tells you something about his attitude to change.
>: Do you think Ariane Emory can answer that question for herself?
>
>She never gets a chance. Aside from a grand total of two scenes,
>we're _never_ inside the mind of the elder Ariane Emory. She's
>always seen from outside--from the perspective of her enemies,
>from the perspective of complete outsiders (the interview),
>or through the notes which we must remember she left _with an
>eye to shaping the destiny of her successor_. There's hardly
>a moment in CYTEEN where Ari isn't playing to an audience of
>some sort.
As Hamlet is his own fool, Ariane Emory is her own audience.
The defining, essential character of her genius is her fear of her own
madness, a fear that the elder example never loses through a long,
long life. (this relates to what Ari II says about her personality
cloning almost being botched, but I'm not sure how.)
>The effect is a lot like that of CITIZEN KANE: you get to the
>end, having been given a lot of inside stuff on Kane (Ari), but
>none of it from his own perspective. Kane remains a mystery.
I think we read via a very different process.
>: Have you read :Tripoint:?
>
>No. C'mon, haven't I said before that CYTEEN is the first work
>of Cherryh's I've ever read?
You may very well have, but I'm not that good at keeping track of who
says what about the extent of their Cherryh reading.
Do you want a thematic but not plot spoiler for :Tripoint:?
Jo Walton
> In article <7952uc$frr$1...@hole.sdsu.edu>,
> tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
> >Graydon (gra...@lara.on.ca) wrote:
> >
> >:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >:
> >
> > I think Ari II shifts, almost without authorial flagging, into a
> >: mode of presence where she isn't being open with anyone but her inner
> >: circle and isn't giving any of _them_ the full story.
> >
> >I couldn't quite parse that. When does she make this shift?
>
> Just after Justin dances with her at that party, or she elects to
> allow Justin to do so, or however you wish to put it. When she
> decides to take power.
Note that after that there's very little from her POV, and what there
is is focused entirely outward. There's also two years in there,
between doing that intervention/whatever on Justin and Giraud dying,
two years we really don't see at all.
(I would like to know what vices Giraud gave up for her.)
> >: She's right.
> >
> >We don't know that; we're not privy to the reams of notes and
> >messages and meditations of any other character other than Ari's.
>
> Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
Have you read :40,000 in Gehenna:? In what sense "worked". I think
it didn't work. Also the written-earlier/set-later books in that
universe (the Mri books, and possibly :Serpent's Reach:) strongly
suggest to me that Ari's plan didn't work and humanity did fall
into war and predation. The :Tripoint: urm, you know, also implies
the latter. (Well, by my theory it definitely _states_ the latter.)
> >The big question mark is Denys, who we can only guess has invested
> >at least as much thought and inquiry into the future of Union as
> >Ari has. I guess Cherryh made Denys Nye enigmatic for a reason, but
> >I found that a little frustrating--all we learn by the end is that
> >he's got plans, and that these plans aren't healthy for Ari.
>
> Denys has never been outside but once in his adult life. I think that
> tells you something about his attitude to change.
He hasn't dared to publish his work either. Ari did. She hoped someone
else could put it together. She wasn't afraid of Justin, she saw
something in what he was doing that could help and also that he could
understand.
Denys though, Denys was afraid of being supplanted. I'd like to have
known more of what was going on inside his head.
> >: Do you think Ariane Emory can answer that question for herself?
> >
> >She never gets a chance. Aside from a grand total of two scenes,
> >we're _never_ inside the mind of the elder Ariane Emory. She's
> >always seen from outside--from the perspective of her enemies,
> >from the perspective of complete outsiders (the interview),
> >or through the notes which we must remember she left _with an
> >eye to shaping the destiny of her successor_. There's hardly
> >a moment in CYTEEN where Ari isn't playing to an audience of
> >some sort.
>
> As Hamlet is his own fool, Ariane Emory is her own audience.
>
> The defining, essential character of her genius is her fear of her own
> madness, a fear that the elder example never loses through a long,
> long life. (this relates to what Ari II says about her personality
> cloning almost being botched, but I'm not sure how.)
To go mad? I don't know what she means specifically but what I
think is that there was a lot of pressure on her pushing her to
become brighter to become focused and near-term _because of the
Project_. Because people were Disappearing, because she was
looking at all that What's Unusual. That was the Project, and that
was different for Ari I, who was as a child just a bright child.
I don't know if Ari I intended the pressure of the Project to
replace the pressure in her life of the sexual molestation by
Geoffrey Carnath. I'm fairly sure Denys and Giraud didn't so
intend. But it was there. "Came close to a real bad mistake"
could be a number of things, and that's a possible one.
> >: Have you read :Tripoint:?
> >
> >No. C'mon, haven't I said before that CYTEEN is the first work
> >of Cherryh's I've ever read?
>
> You may very well have, but I'm not that good at keeping track of who
> says what about the extent of their Cherryh reading.
>
> Do you want a thematic but not plot spoiler for :Tripoint:?
Don't do it! Don't. It isn't just :Tripoint: that's a spoiler for, you
need to have read :Downbelow Station: and preferably :Rimrunners: for
that fact to have anything like the proper import as to the working of
the universe. :Cyteen: is all Union and nothing in space, the others
are mostly out there in Alliance space. You need a feel for that.
EdLincoln
men who are manipulated by forces beyond their control and who never seem to
have any idea what is going on?
(eg the protagonist of "Cuckoo's Egg", the protagonist of "Foreignor", the
young sending in that recent fantasy novel)
On the other hand, when Cherryh writes about a strong character who knows what
is going on, it is generally a ruthless and manipulayive old women who destroys
the young men she sleeps with.
(The best examples are that necromancer lady from Thieve's World, and Old Ari
from Cyteen. The wizard from that recent fantasy novel and the women who
closes the gates almost fit the pattern )
Matthew Malthouse
} In article <797gmk$vgg$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
}
} > tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
} > >Graydon (gra...@lara.on.ca) wrote:
} > >
} > >:
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >
} > >:
} > >
} > >: mode of presence where she isn't being open with anyone but her inner
} > >: circle and isn't giving any of _them_ the full story.
} > >
} > >I couldn't quite parse that. When does she make this shift?
} >
} > Just after Justin dances with her at that party, or she elects to
} > allow Justin to do so, or however you wish to put it. When she
} > decides to take power.
}
} is is focused entirely outward. There's also two years in there,
} between doing that intervention/whatever on Justin and Giraud dying,
} two years we really don't see at all.
}
} (I would like to know what vices Giraud gave up for her.)
}
} > >
} > >We don't know that; we're not privy to the reams of notes and
} > >messages and meditations of any other character other than Ari's.
} >
} > Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
}
} it didn't work. Also the written-earlier/set-later books in that
} universe (the Mri books, and possibly :Serpent's Reach:) strongly
} suggest to me that Ari's plan didn't work and humanity did fall
} into war and predation. The :Tripoint: urm, you know, also implies
} the latter. (Well, by my theory it definitely _states_ the latter.)
Ari I was to put the 'protect the base' idea into the mindstes
of the Azi population at the behest of the military.
She modified this acording to her own ideas, playing fast and loose
with the military's idea of what constituted base or home. She
widened the 'base' idea enough to encompass the whole planet and
'protect' into nuture.
I don't think that Ari could have anticipated what developed
because she didn't have enough (any?) information about the
Calibans. But in general terms the mindset that she planted there
did take hold and survived the loss of Cits and technology. That
far it seems to me to have been a success.
You're implying that "Ari's plan" was for far more than Gehenna. I
can't see how? What makes you think this?
Matthew
--
"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."
http://www.calmeilles.demon.co.uk
aRJay
>In article <797gmk$vgg$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>
>> In article <7952uc$frr$1...@hole.sdsu.edu>,
>> tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>> >Graydon (gra...@lara.on.ca) wrote:
>> >
>> >:
>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >:
>
>> >
>> > I think Ari II shifts, almost without authorial flagging, into a
>> >: mode of presence where she isn't being open with anyone but her inner
>> >: circle and isn't giving any of _them_ the full story.
>> >
>> >I couldn't quite parse that. When does she make this shift?
>>
>> Just after Justin dances with her at that party, or she elects to
>> allow Justin to do so, or however you wish to put it. When she
>> decides to take power.
>
>Note that after that there's very little from her POV, and what there
>is is focused entirely outward. There's also two years in there,
>between doing that intervention/whatever on Justin and Giraud dying,
>two years we really don't see at all.
>
>(I would like to know what vices Giraud gave up for her.)
>
>> >: She's right.
>> >
>> >We don't know that; we're not privy to the reams of notes and
>> >messages and meditations of any other character other than Ari's.
>>
>> Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
>
>Have you read :40,000 in Gehenna:? In what sense "worked". I think
>it didn't work. Also the written-earlier/set-later books in that
>universe (the Mri books, and possibly :Serpent's Reach:) strongly
>suggest to me that Ari's plan didn't work and humanity did fall
>into war and predation. The :Tripoint: urm, you know, also implies
>the latter. (Well, by my theory it definitely _states_ the latter.)
>
I thought worked in the sense that there were sane(ish) Azi descended
people on Gehenna despite the fact that something totally unexpected had
shown up, the Cits didn't handle it at all well.
--
aRJay
casp...@my-dejanews.com
> Has anyone noticed how many of C.J. Cherryh's character's are clueless young
> men who are manipulated by forces beyond their control and who never seem to
> have any idea what is going on?
>
> (eg the protagonist of "Cuckoo's Egg", the protagonist of "Foreignor", the
> young sending in that recent fantasy novel)
Oh, yes. The "clueless" I like. Telling the story through that poor clueless
person gives the story a lot of its tension. Also, the story of some poor
powerless bastard succeeding or at least surviving against overwhelming odds
in one that Cherryh masters. As for the "young" part, in Finity's End that
was getting a little tired. ("What", I thougt when I began reading it,
"teenagers. Again?!")
> On the other hand, when Cherryh writes about a strong character who knows what
> is going on, it is generally a ruthless and manipulayive old women who destroys
> the young men she sleeps with.
> (The best examples are that necromancer lady from Thieve's World, and Old Ari
> from Cyteen. The wizard from that recent fantasy novel and the women who
> closes the gates almost fit the pattern )
>
I guess that woman is Morgaine? Yes, to every body else who doesn't know what
she knows, she is a cruel, evil and arrogant bitch that means death and
misery whereever she turns up and who have to be stopped. But knowing what
she knows, she is tragic hero on a quest that either goes on forever or ends
in her death - she constantly sacrificing everything so that the rest may
live - get a chance to exist, even.
I haven't read Thieve's World, so I don't know about "that necromancer lady".
As for some of the other seemingly bad gals and guys in Cherryh's books, it
more often that not depends upon the eyes that see and what the person behind
them thinks or knows (more importantly what he/she doesn't know) about the
motivation of the seemingly evil person and the grounds for her actions.
---------------------------------------------
"He couldn't remember when he hadn't been
able to remember but sometimes he almost
could." -- What book?
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Ernest Tomlinson
>(eg the protagonist of "Cuckoo's Egg", the protagonist of "Foreignor", the
>young sending in that recent fantasy novel)
Aside: it's unfortunate that one of the books I should have read in
my youth was this dull account of Cliff Stoll's, THE CUCKOO'S EGG,
about his efforts to track down a second-rate computer hacker. Now I
firmly associate the phrase with that book; not a happy association.
>On the other hand, when Cherryh writes about a strong character who knows what
>is going on, it is generally a ruthless and manipulayive old women who destroys
>the young men she sleeps with.
As always, I have to know, how far back does this character
(archetype?) go. Ruthless, sexual voracious older woman entraps young
men--at least as far back as the "Golden Ass", anyway. But he would
just have been working up older tales.
-tomlinson
--
"Have you read the Bible, Pete?"
"Holy Bible?"
"Yeah."
"I think so. Anyway, I've heard about it." (from BARTON FINK)
Dorothy J Heydt
Ernest Tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>On 6 Feb 1999 00:36:07 GMT, edli...@aol.com (EdLincoln) wrote:
>
>Aside: it's unfortunate that one of the books I should have read in
>my youth was this dull account of Cliff Stoll's, THE CUCKOO'S EGG,
>about his efforts to track down a second-rate computer hacker. Now I
>firmly associate the phrase with that book; not a happy association.
It is true what they say, YMMV. I *love* the Stoll book, I
reread it about once a year. In fact, I have it out in the
living room with the science fiction, rather than in the third
bedroom with most of the noncurrent computer stuff, so I can get
at it when I want it.
How young were you? I observe it came out in 1989, so it's been
a while.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
_A Point of Honor_ is out....
EdLincoln
etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu (Ernest Tomlinson)
posted on : Sat, Feb 6, 1999 3:08 PM
<<<<"As always, I have to know, how far back does this character
(archetype?) go. Ruthless, sexual voracious older woman entraps young
men--at least as far back as the "Golden Ass", anyway. But he would
just have been working up older tales.">>>>
The ruthless swomen in C.J. Cherryh's books are not the standard seductresses.
The seductresses power comes from her sexuality. The C.J. Cherryh character's
power is unconnected with her sexuality. If anything, they use mystical or
political power to get sex. They are closer to the "black wiodow" archetype or
perhaps female equivalents of the standard male "sexual harrasser".
casp...@my-dejanews.com
wrote on Sat, Feb 6, 1999 3:00 PM
<<<<"Oh, yes. The "clueless" I like. Telling the story through that poor
clueless
person gives the story a lot of its tension.">>>
I HATE the clueless thing. It results in neither the protagonist or the reader
ever really knowing whatis going on. besides, I like characters who have
plans, rather than characters who are helplessly tossed about by fate. Thatis
why I like Ari in Cyteen. She makes things happen.
<<<"I guess that woman is Morgaine?">>>>
Yup. It is Morgaine.
<<<<" Yes, to every body else who doesn't know what
she knows, she is a cruel, evil and arrogant bitch that means death and
misery whereever she turns up and who have to be stopped. But knowing what
she knows, she is tragic hero on a quest that either goes on forever or ends
in her death - she constantly sacrificing everything so that the rest may
live - get a chance to exist, even.">>>>
<<<<"I haven't read Thieve's World, so I don't know about "that necromancer
lady".">>>>
She is a powerful necromancer who is the victim of a curse who makes anyone she
has sex with die. Unfortunately, she has a taste for young men.
<<<<"As for some of the other seemingly bad gals and guys in Cherryh's books,
it
more often that not depends upon the eyes that see and what the person behind
them thinks or knows (more importantly what he/she doesn't know) about the
motivation of the seemingly evil person and the grounds for her actions.">>>
I am not claiming the "bad gals" are evil. Merely that they are ruthless.
Ruthless means "willing to do things that hurt people or are usually
considered "bad" to achieve your goals. If the goals are good, the
Ruthlessness may serve the greater good.
casp...@my-dejanews.com
<snip>
> <<<<"Oh, yes. The "clueless" I like. Telling the story through that poor
> clueless
> person gives the story a lot of its tension.">>>
>
> I HATE the clueless thing. It results in neither the protagonist or the reader
> ever really knowing whatis going on. besides, I like characters who have
> plans, rather than characters who are helplessly tossed about by fate. Thatis
> why I like Ari in Cyteen. She makes things happen.
Well, usually her characters become less clueless as the story unfolds and
they get to act on that and actually have an influence on what happens
instead of it just being the opposite way around.
I fully agree with you when it comes to Foreigner, though. Bren Cameron was
nothing but an observer the whole book through. He didn't have a clue, he was
tossed around, and he didn't seem to actively influence events at all.
However, this does change in Invader and Inheritor. Now I see the three books
as one story and Foreigner as Act 1, and it doesn't trouble me as much as it
did when first I read it.
Also, someone pointed out to me that had I read Foreigner as a spy book, my
experience of it might have been a lot different (meaning "better"). I'm open
to that.
> <<<"I guess that woman is Morgaine?">>>>
>
> Yup. It is Morgaine.
>
> <<<<" Yes, to every body else who doesn't know what
> she knows, she is a cruel, evil and arrogant bitch that means death and
> misery whereever she turns up and who have to be stopped. But knowing what
> she knows, she is tragic hero on a quest that either goes on forever or ends
> in her death - she constantly sacrificing everything so that the rest may
> live - get a chance to exist, even.">>>>
>
> <<<<"I haven't read Thieve's World, so I don't know about "that necromancer
> lady".">>>>
>
> She is a powerful necromancer who is the victim of a curse who makes anyone she
> has sex with die. Unfortunately, she has a taste for young men.
That one way of getting old I'd rather avoid. Is this Thieve's World one of
Cherryh's collaborations with other writers, with her just having created the
world or written the plotline, or is it her own thing completely?
Publisher?
> <<<<"As for some of the other seemingly bad gals and guys in Cherryh's books,
> it
> more often that not depends upon the eyes that see and what the person behind
> them thinks or knows (more importantly what he/she doesn't know) about the
> motivation of the seemingly evil person and the grounds for her actions.">>>
>
> I am not claiming the "bad gals" are evil. Merely that they are ruthless.
Okay, I see your point.
> Ruthless means "willing to do things that hurt people or are usually
> considered "bad" to achieve your goals. If the goals are good, the
> Ruthlessness may serve the greater good.
>
Also, there are degrees in ruthlessness. Knowing what Morgaine knows it would
probably be even more ruthless of her to _not_ do what she does. That being
her curse.
As for the others, yes, some of them are bloody ruthless.
Peter H. Granzeau
>> <<<<" Yes, to every body else who doesn't know what
>> she knows, she is a cruel, evil and arrogant bitch that means death and
>> misery whereever she turns up and who have to be stopped. But knowing what
>> she knows, she is tragic hero on a quest that either goes on forever or ends
>> in her death - she constantly sacrificing everything so that the rest may
>> live - get a chance to exist, even.">>>>
>>
>> <<<<"I haven't read Thieve's World, so I don't know about "that necromancer
>> lady".">>>>
>>
>> She is a powerful necromancer who is the victim of a curse who makes anyone she
>> has sex with die. Unfortunately, she has a taste for young men.
>
>That one way of getting old I'd rather avoid. Is this Thieve's World one of
>Cherryh's collaborations with other writers, with her just having created the
>world or written the plotline, or is it her own thing completely?
The "Thieve's World" books are probably all out of print by now. It
was one of the first of the "shared world" anthologies, Robert
Asprin/Lynn Abbey (I think) as editors, and lasted twelve numbers (to
the surprise of the authors, who expected it to last 13, and had to
scramble to tie up loose ends).
[spoiler space]
[that enough?]
Cherryh gave way to some really quirky humor with her character, I
thought (and so did some other authors). For instance, how does a
lady who is cursed to kill every man with whom she makes love cure the
problem of having nothing by one night stands? By going to Hell and
bringing a lover back from the dead, of course. Since he's already
dead, he can't die again.
Or there's the instance where the necromancer and Tempus, Janet
Morris' soldier whose curse is that he can't die, decide to try an
attempt at sex. The two curses interact explosively (and
hilariously).
Regards, PHG
(To reply by mail, send to my initials at the same site)
EdLincoln
casp...@my-dejanews.com
wrote on Sun, Feb 7, 1999 3:53 PM
<<<<"That one way of getting old I'd rather avoid. Is this Thieve's World one
of
Cherryh's collaborations with other writers, with her just having created the
world or written the plotline, or is it her own thing completely?
Publisher?">>>>
Thieve's World is the name of a fantasy series. Most books in this series are
anthologies with short stories written by many different authors, including C.
J. Cheeryh. Apparently a bunch of authors sit areound and make decisions about
the universe by committee. Some pretty big names in science fiction and
fantasy have been involved in it. Many of the stories are great.
Unfortunately, it is a great example of "too many cooks spolining the broth".
Thew authors tend to contradict each other. I think the necromancer was
created by C. J. Cherryh. It falls under the category of "serieses I used to
love but came to hate". Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey are the masterminds
behind the project, I think.
Joe Mason
>
>That one way of getting old I'd rather avoid. Is this Thieve's World one of
>Cherryh's collaborations with other writers, with her just having created the
>world or written the plotline, or is it her own thing completely?
>
>Publisher?
Thieves' World was a shared-world fantasy series created by (IIRC) Robert
Asprin. He created a setting, social background, etc. and got other authors
to write stories set there. The rule was that the writers would create
their characters first, and share them with everyone else in the project
so that they could use them as minor characters in their own stories.
I only read the first one, which was pretty good, and a couple of the later
ones, which weren't. There were some really cool characters created - I'd
definitely recommend tracking down the first one for curiosity value.
I can't remember Cherryh's contribution at all - in fact, the only authors
I remember from the first book were Mercedes Lackey and Asprin himself. Oh,
and Lynn Abbey.
Joe
--
Congratulations, Canada, on preserving your national igloo.
-- Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas
Georgiana Gates
>
> etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu (Ernest Tomlinson)
> posted on : Sat, Feb 6, 1999 3:08 PM
>
> <<<<"As always, I have to know, how far back does this character
> (archetype?) go. Ruthless, sexual voracious older woman entraps young
> men--at least as far back as the "Golden Ass", anyway. But he would
> just have been working up older tales.">>>>
>
> The ruthless swomen in C.J. Cherryh's books are not the standard seductresses.
> The seductresses power comes from her sexuality. The C.J. Cherryh character's
> power is unconnected with her sexuality. If anything, they use mystical or
> political power to get sex. They are closer to the "black wiodow" archetype or
> perhaps female equivalents of the standard male "sexual harrasser".
>
certainly falls into that category.
Phil Fraering
>I fully agree with you when it comes to
>Foreigner, though. Bren Cameron was
>nothing but an observer the whole book through.
>He didn't have a clue, he was
>tossed around, and he didn't seem to
>actively influence events at all.
>However, this does change in Invader
>and Inheritor. Now I see the three books
>as one story and Foreigner as Act 1, and
>it doesn't trouble me as much as it
>did when first I read it.
Even _Foreigner_ is a bad example of Cameron being passive.
In that book, he does at least one significant act: under
real threat of physical harm, he refuses to incriminate
Tabini, and showed that humans have manchi or something
functionally equivalent. Or so Ilisidi thought.
This helped cause everything constructive Ilisidi did
in the succeeding books.
Imagine if such a powerful and determined person had
*not* been on the side of the angels, as it were...
Phil
--
Phil Fraering "It is also for adults, of course, except for those
p...@globalreach.net who think they do not want to see a film about
/Will work for *tape*/ anything so preposterous as a seal-woman, and
who will get what they deserve." - Roger Ebert
Jens Kilian
> Aside: it's unfortunate that one of the books I should have read in
> my youth was this dull account of Cliff Stoll's, THE CUCKOO'S EGG,
> about his efforts to track down a second-rate computer hacker. Now I
> firmly associate the phrase with that book; not a happy association.
Tastes vary - I liked Stoll's book a lot. And it contains a cookie recipe.
A book which contains a cookie recipe can't be all bad ;-)
Bye,
Jens.
--
mailto:j...@acm.org phone:+49-7031-14-7698 (HP TELNET 778-7698)
http://www.bawue.de/~jjk/ fax:+49-7031-14-7351
PGP: 06 04 1C 35 7B DC 1F 26 As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
0x555DA8B5 BB A2 F0 66 77 75 E1 08 so is contempt to the contemptible. [Blake]
Mark A Mandel
adjective EXACTLY wrong.
-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
Philological Busybody
a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
--
If you're reading this in a newsgroup: to reply by mail,
remove the obvious spam-blocker from my edress.
Ernest Tomlinson
>The ruthless swomen in C.J. Cherryh's books are not the standard seductresses.
>The seductresses power comes from her sexuality. The C.J. Cherryh character's
>power is unconnected with her sexuality. If anything, they use mystical or
>political power to get sex.
Certainly that's true of Ariane Emory.
>They are closer to the "black wiodow" archetype or
>perhaps female equivalents of the standard male "sexual harrasser".
Which would then be a much "younger" archetype; honestly, I can't
think of any example earlier than Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD
(1950), although doubtless there are earlier films along the same
lines. (In any case, SUNSET BOULEVARD is the first _film noir_ I can
think of where the _femme fatale_ isn't played by somebody like
Barbara Stanwyck or Rita Hayworth, but by an older actress.)
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <797gmk$vgg$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> Just after Justin dances with her at that party, or she elects to
>> allow Justin to do so, or however you wish to put it. When she
>> decides to take power.
>
>Note that after that there's very little from her POV, and what there
>is is focused entirely outward. There's also two years in there,
>between doing that intervention/whatever on Justin and Giraud dying,
>two years we really don't see at all.
Yup. I suspect those are going to form bits of surfacing backstory in
the eventual sequel.
>(I would like to know what vices Giraud gave up for her.)
I would, too. It's easy to imagine Giraud having vices in the
abstract, but very difficult in the specific.
>> Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
>
>Have you read :40,000 in Gehenna:? In what sense "worked". I think
They are a stable, resilient, hard-to-integrate, surviving culture
with a Union ethos.
>it didn't work. Also the written-earlier/set-later books in that
>universe (the Mri books, and possibly :Serpent's Reach:) strongly
>suggest to me that Ari's plan didn't work and humanity did fall
The long term plan clearly fails. Ari I didn't have the reach that
she thought she did.
I don't think there's any 'possibly' about :Serpent's Reach:, either;
it clearly states things about the political situation off planet that
indicate that Alliance has internal wars sufficent to collapse trade.
>into war and predation. The :Tripoint: urm, you know, also implies
>the latter. (Well, by my theory it definitely _states_ the latter.)
I am strongly sympathetic to that reading.
[Denys' attitude toward change/view of the State of Union]
>> Denys has never been outside but once in his adult life. I think that
>> tells you something about his attitude to change.
>
>He hasn't dared to publish his work either. Ari did. She hoped someone
>else could put it together. She wasn't afraid of Justin, she saw
>something in what he was doing that could help and also that he could
>understand.
Yes. Very different mind set.
There's a terrible, terrible something threaded through :Cyteen: about
'instrumentum vocale'.
>Denys though, Denys was afraid of being supplanted. I'd like to have
>known more of what was going on inside his head.
I would, too.
[Ari, both of her, playing to an audience]
>> As Hamlet is his own fool, Ariane Emory is her own audience.
>>
>> The defining, essential character of her genius is her fear of her own
>> madness, a fear that the elder example never loses through a long,
>> long life. (this relates to what Ari II says about her personality
>> cloning almost being botched, but I'm not sure how.)
>
>To go mad? I don't know what she means specifically but what I
>think is that there was a lot of pressure on her pushing her to
>become brighter to become focused and near-term _because of the
>Project_. Because people were Disappearing, because she was
>looking at all that What's Unusual. That was the Project, and that
>was different for Ari I, who was as a child just a bright child.
Yes, and they would not give her straight answers when she could see
-- when any turnip could see -- that something wierd was going on.
(I'm thinking of removing the kids from her company when she was
small. They wouldn't let her have any conflict in her life, and
nearly made her tendency to be mentally isolate pathological.)
>I don't know if Ari I intended the pressure of the Project to
>replace the pressure in her life of the sexual molestation by
>Geoffrey Carnath. I'm fairly sure Denys and Giraud didn't so
>intend. But it was there. "Came close to a real bad mistake"
>could be a number of things, and that's a possible one.
That's certainly possibly one. It's also very likely that Denys was
tweaking the project to get an Ari less able to exercise power, and
got the wrong parameters. Ari II _is_ less personally ruthless than
Ari I, but she also actually _trusts_ Catlin and Florian, and
vice-versa -- none of this 'knew when to be quiet' stuff -- and
they're _more_ ruthless than their predecessors. (and better molded,
_they_ got intellectual and emotional stimulation fast enough. Part
of the potential project screwup was pushing Ari _while at the same
time_ trying to insist that she had a 'normal' childhood.)
The result is an Ari better able to inspire personal loyalty, better
able to delegate and to trust, and with a more dispassionate -- if
external -- mechanism with which to exercise ruthlessness.
In other words, Denys blew it, badly.
>> Do you want a thematic but not plot spoiler for :Tripoint:?
>
>Don't do it! Don't. It isn't just :Tripoint: that's a spoiler for, you
>need to have read :Downbelow Station: and preferably :Rimrunners: for
>that fact to have anything like the proper import as to the working of
>the universe. :Cyteen: is all Union and nothing in space, the others
>are mostly out there in Alliance space. You need a feel for that.
Ok, good point, no teleporting please, I won't.
--
graydon@ | He either fears his fate too much,/Or his deserts are small,
lara.on.ca | That puts it not to the touch,/To win or lose it all.
-- James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose 1612-1650
Jo Walton
> In article <918158...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <797gmk$vgg$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> Just after Justin dances with her at that party, or she elects to
> >> allow Justin to do so, or however you wish to put it. When she
> >> decides to take power.
> >
> >Note that after that there's very little from her POV, and what there
> >is is focused entirely outward. There's also two years in there,
> >between doing that intervention/whatever on Justin and Giraud dying,
> >two years we really don't see at all.
>
> Yup. I suspect those are going to form bits of surfacing backstory in
> the eventual sequel.
That would be interesting. I think possibly we're going to find out a
lot more about Jordan and Paul in Planys from Jordan's POV.
> >(I would like to know what vices Giraud gave up for her.)
>
> I would, too. It's easy to imagine Giraud having vices in the
> abstract, but very difficult in the specific.
He's drinking alcohol with Abban while watching the Khalid election
results. Other than that, no indication at all.
> >> Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
> >
> >Have you read :40,000 in Gehenna:? In what sense "worked". I think
>
> They are a stable, resilient, hard-to-integrate, surviving culture
> with a Union ethos.
Stable? Resilient? Union ethos? Hard to integrate and surviving I'll
certainly agree but what's Union ethos about _that_? She didn't know
enough about the indigenous culture and not knowing about the calibans
was a real bad mistake.
> >it didn't work. Also the written-earlier/set-later books in that
> >universe (the Mri books, and possibly :Serpent's Reach:) strongly
> >suggest to me that Ari's plan didn't work and humanity did fall
>
> The long term plan clearly fails. Ari I didn't have the reach that
> she thought she did.
Field too large. But she kept on trying to work on that scale.
> I don't think there's any 'possibly' about :Serpent's Reach:, either;
> it clearly states things about the political situation off planet that
> indicate that Alliance has internal wars sufficent to collapse trade.
:Serpent's Reach: is an Alliance colony it doesn't really say much if
anything about Union. Alliance has _clearly_ gone to hell, no argument.
I'd be interested to read something set between :Cyteen: and then, in
Alliance gone-to-hell. You know I was initially very reluctant to read
:Cyteen: because I knew I hated Union and didn't want to read a book
from their side?
> [Denys' attitude toward change/view of the State of Union]
> >> Denys has never been outside but once in his adult life. I think that
> >> tells you something about his attitude to change.
> >
> >He hasn't dared to publish his work either. Ari did. She hoped someone
> >else could put it together. She wasn't afraid of Justin, she saw
> >something in what he was doing that could help and also that he could
> >understand.
>
> Yes. Very different mind set.
>
> There's a terrible, terrible something threaded through :Cyteen: about
> 'instrumentum vocale'.
Wirto Denys? Hmm.
> >Denys though, Denys was afraid of being supplanted. I'd like to have
> >known more of what was going on inside his head.
>
> I would, too.
Do you think they'll carry on running a new Giraud?
> [Ari, both of her, playing to an audience]
> >To go mad? I don't know what she means specifically but what I
> >think is that there was a lot of pressure on her pushing her to
> >become brighter to become focused and near-term _because of the
> >Project_. Because people were Disappearing, because she was
> >looking at all that What's Unusual. That was the Project, and that
> >was different for Ari I, who was as a child just a bright child.
>
> Yes, and they would not give her straight answers when she could see
> -- when any turnip could see -- that something wierd was going on.
> (I'm thinking of removing the kids from her company when she was
> small. They wouldn't let her have any conflict in her life, and
> nearly made her tendency to be mentally isolate pathological.)
They wouldn't let her have people to be close to, so she did that - with
Amy and Maddy and etc. - which wasn't at first building a power base
but was friendship and contact, without them knowing. Without that, without
those relationships to help her figure out human beings she'd have been a
lot worse off. Valery Schwartz was four years old and he had a red spaceship
with light on, what was the threat to the Project? Jane reads it as "Can't
have only one friend" but is it that? Anyway, they think the friend's
input will be upsetting the program but they _don't_ think what removing
the friend will do. Which is really dumb of them because they know perfectly
well what removing Jane will do and it's exactly the same.
The thing that doesn't fit really, the two things that give Ari II real
power at a very young age, are Florian and Catlin and Base 1. Now she
could have had Base 1 without the powers - just the program, not the
access to Security and that override, that override at the end! - and
it would still have done the personality stuff required. But the azi
wouldn't have been themselves if they weren't dangerous and they really
were a power base for her. I don't know if Denys didn't realise how much
- hard to see how he couldn't - or if there just wasn't a way around that.
Base 1 of course was set like that by Ari I, who did have Ari II's best
interests in heart. ("You would not do well to believe that of those who
may have come to power since my death.")
> >I don't know if Ari I intended the pressure of the Project to
> >replace the pressure in her life of the sexual molestation by
> >Geoffrey Carnath. I'm fairly sure Denys and Giraud didn't so
> >intend. But it was there. "Came close to a real bad mistake"
> >could be a number of things, and that's a possible one.
>
> That's certainly possibly one. It's also very likely that Denys was
> tweaking the project to get an Ari less able to exercise power, and
> got the wrong parameters.
But he gave her the azi _early_. I think he wanted her controllable.
Why did he let her into his privacy and his apartment - why was he
the human tie she was allowed? Not to match Geoffrey Carnath, not
really, Giraud would have been a better match or Yanni, personality
wise. Denys wasn't like Geoffrey the way Jane was like Olga. Denys
wanted that direct input, wanted to shape her. And did have input.
Ari II _is_ less personally ruthless than
> Ari I, but she also actually _trusts_ Catlin and Florian, and
> vice-versa -- none of this 'knew when to be quiet' stuff -- and
> they're _more_ ruthless than their predecessors. (and better molded,
> _they_ got intellectual and emotional stimulation fast enough. Part
> of the potential project screwup was pushing Ari _while at the same
> time_ trying to insist that she had a 'normal' childhood.)
Not normal, just "the same"?
> The result is an Ari better able to inspire personal loyalty, better
> able to delegate and to trust, and with a more dispassionate -- if
> external -- mechanism with which to exercise ruthlessness.
>
> In other words, Denys blew it, badly.
If that was his intention. If he wasn't sabotaged from within by what
Ari I had done. She knew Denys, do you think not? Though getting rid
of Justin's input was also a bad mistake - more so if they'd done so
entirely. I wonder a lot about her being drawn to him. That was before
she'd ever had any tape, it couldn't be programmed.
> >> Do you want a thematic but not plot spoiler for :Tripoint:?
> >
> >Don't do it! Don't. It isn't just :Tripoint: that's a spoiler for, you
> >need to have read :Downbelow Station: and preferably :Rimrunners: for
> >that fact to have anything like the proper import as to the working of
> >the universe. :Cyteen: is all Union and nothing in space, the others
> >are mostly out there in Alliance space. You need a feel for that.
>
> Ok, good point, no teleporting please, I won't.
Words are usually sufficient. If I get the Literary Urgency Teleport
system working I'll be sure to announce it here first; probably by
appearing simultaneously in everyone's living room with an armload of
books.
EdLincoln
What is this about the Fleet colony and the Nightrunners? You needn't worry
about spoliers for me. I have trouble getting through Cherryh novels. I like
the background and universe better than the plots.
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <79r9si$nra$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> In article <918158...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In article <797gmk$vgg$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >> Just after Justin dances with her at that party, or she elects to
>> >> allow Justin to do so, or however you wish to put it. When she
>> >> decides to take power.
>> >
>> >Note that after that there's very little from her POV, and what there
>> >is is focused entirely outward. There's also two years in there,
>> >between doing that intervention/whatever on Justin and Giraud dying,
>> >two years we really don't see at all.
>>
>> Yup. I suspect those are going to form bits of surfacing backstory in
>> the eventual sequel.
>
>That would be interesting. I think possibly we're going to find out a
>lot more about Jordan and Paul in Planys from Jordan's POV.
That would be interesting. Jordan might have a very hard time getting
to sleep without knowing where the security monitor is.
>> >(I would like to know what vices Giraud gave up for her.)
>>
>> I would, too. It's easy to imagine Giraud having vices in the
>> abstract, but very difficult in the specific.
>
>He's drinking alcohol with Abban while watching the Khalid election
>results. Other than that, no indication at all.
And having one drink while watching the election results doesn't seem
to qualify as a vice, either.
>> >> Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
>> >
>> >Have you read :40,000 in Gehenna:? In what sense "worked". I think
>>
>> They are a stable, resilient, hard-to-integrate, surviving culture
>> with a Union ethos.
>
>Stable? Resilient? Union ethos? Hard to integrate and surviving I'll
>certainly agree but what's Union ethos about _that_? She didn't know
They have a bizarre consensus status matching form of government
between the humans and the calibans. Very Union, to my reading.
And when they _are_ in contact with the spacefarers again, they're
allowed there own customs, and don't seem to be suffering any sense of
inadequacy becuase they don't have spaceships. That seems both stable
and resilient.
>enough about the indigenous culture and not knowing about the calibans
>was a real bad mistake.
Oh, definately. But she didn't assume she knew what they were going
into; Ari I made that set very, very general indeed.
>> >it didn't work. Also the written-earlier/set-later books in that
>> >universe (the Mri books, and possibly :Serpent's Reach:) strongly
>> >suggest to me that Ari's plan didn't work and humanity did fall
>>
>> The long term plan clearly fails. Ari I didn't have the reach that
>> she thought she did.
>
>Field too large. But she kept on trying to work on that scale.
Yes. Which is a pity, she's making a very serious mistake, there.
Which is in some sense what you get for letting a psychologist at a
speciation problem.
>I'd be interested to read something set between :Cyteen: and then, in
>Alliance gone-to-hell. You know I was initially very reluctant to read
>:Cyteen: because I knew I hated Union and didn't want to read a book
>from their side?
I remember you mentioning that, yes.
I've never been much able to like any of the polities in the
Merchanter's universe; people, yes, but not polities.
>> [Denys' attitude toward change/view of the State of Union]
>> >> Denys has never been outside but once in his adult life. I think that
>> >> tells you something about his attitude to change.
>> >
>> >He hasn't dared to publish his work either. Ari did. She hoped someone
>> >else could put it together. She wasn't afraid of Justin, she saw
>> >something in what he was doing that could help and also that he could
>> >understand.
>>
>> Yes. Very different mind set.
>>
>> There's a terrible, terrible something threaded through :Cyteen: about
>> 'instrumentum vocale'.
>
>Wirto Denys? Hmm.
Wirto practically everyone, I think. Ari I doesn't think of CITs as
different from AZI, just a bit messier to manipulate.
They don't -- Deny's certainly doesn't -- see tools as distinct from
purposes, and that has the feel of a bad, bad mistake.
>> >Denys though, Denys was afraid of being supplanted. I'd like to have
>> >known more of what was going on inside his head.
>>
>> I would, too.
>
>Do you think they'll carry on running a new Giraud?
No. The Nyes were the other power faction; expect that during Ari
II's tenure, the Nyes will go extinct as a Reseune Family.
>> [Ari, both of her, playing to an audience]
>> >To go mad? I don't know what she means specifically but what I
>> >think is that there was a lot of pressure on her pushing her to
>> >become brighter to become focused and near-term _because of the
>> >Project_. Because people were Disappearing, because she was
>> >looking at all that What's Unusual. That was the Project, and that
>> >was different for Ari I, who was as a child just a bright child.
>>
>> Yes, and they would not give her straight answers when she could see
>> -- when any turnip could see -- that something weird was going on.
>> (I'm thinking of removing the kids from her company when she was
>> small. They wouldn't let her have any conflict in her life, and
>> nearly made her tendency to be mentally isolate pathological.)
>
>They wouldn't let her have people to be close to, so she did that - with
>Amy and Maddy and etc. - which wasn't at first building a power base
>but was friendship and contact, without them knowing. Without that, without
Yes. And I don't think they planned that and I don't think that the
full extent of that was known, either. The folks running the Project
don't really understand Azi capabilities; Denys and Giraud in
particular don't see even Alpha Azi as being capable of initiative.
>those relationships to help her figure out human beings she'd have been a
>lot worse off. Valery Schwartz was four years old and he had a red spaceship
>with light on, what was the threat to the Project? Jane reads it as "Can't
>have only one friend" but is it that? Anyway, they think the friend's
>input will be upsetting the program but they _don't_ think what removing
>the friend will do. Which is really dumb of them because they know perfectly
>well what removing Jane will do and it's exactly the same.
I think they thought they could compensate for the absence of input --
by providing specific inputs they approved of -- but couldn't stand to
have random significant events happening in her early life.
>The thing that doesn't fit really, the two things that give Ari II real
>power at a very young age, are Florian and Catlin and Base 1. Now she
>could have had Base 1 without the powers - just the program, not the
>access to Security and that override, that override at the end! - and
They hadn't any choice about that. That was Ari I's doing, and there
wasn't any getting around it, Denys as much as admits he doesn't dare
try to do anything to Base 1.
>it would still have done the personality stuff required. But the azi
>wouldn't have been themselves if they weren't dangerous and they really
>were a power base for her. I don't know if Denys didn't realise how much
>- hard to see how he couldn't - or if there just wasn't a way around that.
I really don't see how Denys or Giraud could see that, since both of
them have that huge blind spot about Azi initiative. They would
expect F&C to do what Ari II told them to do, and what she doesn't
know about she can hardly instruct them to do, sort of thing. That
F&C have _gobs_ of initiative, that their training is designed to
_produce_ initiative, and that Ari II encourages them by giving them
very general instructions and respecting their opinions, is something
Grant and Justin pick up immediately, but which Denys and Giraud never
seem to integrate at all.
>Base 1 of course was set like that by Ari I, who did have Ari II's best
>interests in heart. ("You would not do well to believe that of those who
>may have come to power since my death.")
Yes. One of a number of wonderfully dry things Ari I says in those
notes. (And Gods above, but she was well along in the planning
stages, wasnt' she?)
>> >I don't know if Ari I intended the pressure of the Project to
>> >replace the pressure in her life of the sexual molestation by
>> >Geoffrey Carnath. I'm fairly sure Denys and Giraud didn't so
>> >intend. But it was there. "Came close to a real bad mistake"
>> >could be a number of things, and that's a possible one.
>>
>> That's certainly possibly one. It's also very likely that Denys was
>> tweaking the project to get an Ari less able to exercise power, and
>> got the wrong parameters.
>
>But he gave her the azi _early_. I think he wanted her controllable.
Did he? Do we know just when Ari I got hers?
Controllable, yes; fairly close to what I was meaning by 'less able to
exercise power'.
>Why did he let her into his privacy and his apartment - why was he
>the human tie she was allowed? Not to match Geoffrey Carnath, not
>really, Giraud would have been a better match or Yanni, personality
>wise. Denys wasn't like Geoffrey the way Jane was like Olga. Denys
>wanted that direct input, wanted to shape her. And did have input.
Yes. Even if he didn't really have a clue what he was shaping.
(Or, really, that Catlin would kill him without direct orders. The
grand joke of :Cyteen: is that, argueably, everything decisive that
happens is done by an Azi.)
>> Ari II _is_ less personally ruthless than
>> Ari I, but she also actually _trusts_ Catlin and Florian, and
>> vice-versa -- none of this 'knew when to be quiet' stuff -- and
>> they're _more_ ruthless than their predecessors. (and better molded,
>> _they_ got intellectual and emotional stimulation fast enough. Part
>> of the potential project screwup was pushing Ari _while at the same
>> time_ trying to insist that she had a 'normal' childhood.)
>
>Not normal, just "the same"?
The wierd sort of normal childhood Olga wanted for Ari I, anyway,
yeah. Not precisely the same, but they pretty clearly wanted similar.
>> The result is an Ari better able to inspire personal loyalty, better
>> able to delegate and to trust, and with a more dispassionate -- if
>> external -- mechanism with which to exercise ruthlessness.
>>
>> In other words, Denys blew it, badly.
>
>If that was his intention. If he wasn't sabotaged from within by what
>Ari I had done. She knew Denys, do you think not? Though getting rid
I'm sure she did.
>of Justin's input was also a bad mistake - more so if they'd done so
>entirely. I wonder a lot about her being drawn to him. That was before
>she'd ever had any tape, it couldn't be programmed.
Sure it could.
'She knew what she wanted from that geneset, and she got it.'
Justin was _designed_ to be that echo.
Jo Walton
> In article <918652...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <79r9si$nra$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
> >> In article <918158...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
> >> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> >In article <797gmk$vgg$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >That would be interesting. I think possibly we're going to find out a
> >lot more about Jordan and Paul in Planys from Jordan's POV.
>
> That would be interesting. Jordan might have a very hard time getting
> to sleep without knowing where the security monitor is.
That's OK, there's plenty of security monitors in Reseune and I expect
he can find them or get azi who know how, if he's a free agent. Do we
happen to know what Paul's qualifications are at all?
[Giraud's vices]
> >He's drinking alcohol with Abban while watching the Khalid election
> >results. Other than that, no indication at all.
>
> And having one drink while watching the election results doesn't seem
> to qualify as a vice, either.
I wouldn't say so really, but I might mean that in the context he was
talking in. I think in the context of "I am giving up my vices to live
as long as possible" even another piece of pudding would count. But we
know it isn't another piece of pudding. That's _Denys'_ vice.
> >> >> Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
> >> >
> >> >Have you read :40,000 in Gehenna:? In what sense "worked". I think
> >>
> >> They are a stable, resilient, hard-to-integrate, surviving culture
> >> with a Union ethos.
> >
> >Stable? Resilient? Union ethos? Hard to integrate and surviving I'll
> >certainly agree but what's Union ethos about _that_? She didn't know
>
> They have a bizarre consensus status matching form of government
> between the humans and the calibans. Very Union, to my reading.
I suppose that's a good point, if a very weird one.
> And when they _are_ in contact with the spacefarers again, they're
> allowed there own customs, and don't seem to be suffering any sense of
> inadequacy becuase they don't have spaceships. That seems both stable
> and resilient.
They do feel inadequate. And their culture is changing - changes rapidly
because of the caliban input. It isn't the same from one generation to
the next that we see.
> >enough about the indigenous culture and not knowing about the calibans
> >was a real bad mistake.
>
> Oh, definately. But she didn't assume she knew what they were going
> into; Ari I made that set very, very general indeed.
She had to. She's the sort of person who really ought to be playing
Civilization or equivalent at TL, not playing that sort of game with
real people. Denys says to Justin that they're damn short of planets
to hand out for experiments, but that's what she did.
> >> >it didn't work. Also the written-earlier/set-later books in that
> >> >universe (the Mri books, and possibly :Serpent's Reach:) strongly
> >> >suggest to me that Ari's plan didn't work and humanity did fall
> >>
> >> The long term plan clearly fails. Ari I didn't have the reach that
> >> she thought she did.
> >
> >Field too large. But she kept on trying to work on that scale.
>
> Yes. Which is a pity, she's making a very serious mistake, there.
> Which is in some sense what you get for letting a psychologist at a
> speciation problem.
A speciation problem? How so?
> >I'd be interested to read something set between :Cyteen: and then, in
> >Alliance gone-to-hell. You know I was initially very reluctant to read
> >:Cyteen: because I knew I hated Union and didn't want to read a book
> >from their side?
>
> I remember you mentioning that, yes.
>
> I've never been much able to like any of the polities in the
> Merchanter's universe; people, yes, but not polities.
There's worse places to live than either Union (for a CIT) or Alliance.
I identified with the people of Pell.
> >> [Denys' attitude toward change/view of the State of Union]
> >> >> Denys has never been outside but once in his adult life. I think that
> >> >> tells you something about his attitude to change.
> >> >
> >> >He hasn't dared to publish his work either. Ari did. She hoped someone
> >> >else could put it together. She wasn't afraid of Justin, she saw
> >> >something in what he was doing that could help and also that he could
> >> >understand.
> >>
> >> Yes. Very different mind set.
> >>
> >> There's a terrible, terrible something threaded through :Cyteen: about
> >> 'instrumentum vocale'.
> >
> >Wirto Denys? Hmm.
>
> Wirto practically everyone, I think. Ari I doesn't think of CITs as
> different from AZI, just a bit messier to manipulate.
>
> They don't -- Denys certainly doesn't -- see tools as distinct from
> purposes, and that has the feel of a bad, bad mistake.
Dreadful. I think Ari does _in theory_ when she remembers but she's
inclined to elide the difference. Both Aris. Ari I's agoraphobia
is related to that I think - she trusts Novgorod in the abstract,
close up it makes her hands sweat because she knows they're people
individually and she's much happier with them statistically.
> >> >Denys though, Denys was afraid of being supplanted. I'd like to have
> >> >known more of what was going on inside his head.
> >>
> >> I would, too.
> >
> >Do you think they'll carry on running a new Giraud?
>
> No. The Nyes were the other power faction; expect that during Ari
> II's tenure, the Nyes will go extinct as a Reseune Family.
Amy, although Carnath by name, is a Nye. As a power-bloc, yes.
> >> [Ari, both of her, playing to an audience]
> >> >To go mad? I don't know what she means specifically but what I
> >> >think is that there was a lot of pressure on her pushing her to
> >> >become brighter to become focused and near-term _because of the
> >> >Project_. Because people were Disappearing, because she was
> >> >looking at all that What's Unusual. That was the Project, and that
> >> >was different for Ari I, who was as a child just a bright child.
> >>
> >> Yes, and they would not give her straight answers when she could see
> >> -- when any turnip could see -- that something weird was going on.
> >> (I'm thinking of removing the kids from her company when she was
> >> small. They wouldn't let her have any conflict in her life, and
> >> nearly made her tendency to be mentally isolate pathological.)
> >
> >They wouldn't let her have people to be close to, so she did that - with
> >Amy and Maddy and etc. - which wasn't at first building a power base
> >but was friendship and contact, without them knowing. Without that, without
>
> Yes. And I don't think they planned that and I don't think that the
> full extent of that was known, either.
I'm sure they didn't plan it - Ari II planned it herself and was able to
do it because she had Florian and Catlin. I think without that stolen
companionship she would have been too lonely to have a grip.
The folks running the Project
> don't really understand Azi capabilities; Denys and Giraud in
> particular don't see even Alpha Azi as being capable of initiative.
Oh the things they don't understand about azi could fill volumes.
I'm sure I mentioned before the implications of the rumours Grant has
heard whispered about getting to Krugers it you're very good. If the azi
are whispering then they're not perfectly programmed and happy, and the
programmers have no idea that they're whispering.
> >those relationships to help her figure out human beings she'd have been a
> >lot worse off. Valery Schwartz was four years old and he had a red spaceship
> >with light on, what was the threat to the Project? Jane reads it as "Can't
> >have only one friend" but is it that? Anyway, they think the friend's
> >input will be upsetting the program but they _don't_ think what removing
> >the friend will do. Which is really dumb of them because they know perfectly
> >well what removing Jane will do and it's exactly the same.
>
> I think they thought they could compensate for the absence of input --
> by providing specific inputs they approved of -- but couldn't stand to
> have random significant events happening in her early life.
Yes, they thought of it in terms of "absence of input" and didn't think
that "input specifically withdrawn at our orders" is in itself an input
that's going to start standing out in large glowing letters after a
while. When Denys says "Do you still remember Valery?" what he's
probably thinking is "We should have sent him away _earlier_."
> >The thing that doesn't fit really, the two things that give Ari II real
> >power at a very young age, are Florian and Catlin and Base 1. Now she
> >could have had Base 1 without the powers - just the program, not the
> >access to Security and that override, that override at the end! - and
>
> They hadn't any choice about that. That was Ari I's doing, and there
> wasn't any getting around it, Denys as much as admits he doesn't dare
> try to do anything to Base 1.
He says that, and it appears it's true. This doesn't actually seem
likely when you think about it - the whole of Reseune and they can't
in seven years get through one person's comp security?
> >it would still have done the personality stuff required. But the azi
> >wouldn't have been themselves if they weren't dangerous and they really
> >were a power base for her. I don't know if Denys didn't realise how much
> >- hard to see how he couldn't - or if there just wasn't a way around that.
>
> I really don't see how Denys or Giraud could see that, since both of
> them have that huge blind spot about Azi initiative. They would
> expect F&C to do what Ari II told them to do, and what she doesn't
> know about she can hardly instruct them to do, sort of thing. That
> F&C have _gobs_ of initiative, that their training is designed to
> _produce_ initiative, and that Ari II encourages them by giving them
> very general instructions and respecting their opinions, is something
> Grant and Justin pick up immediately, but which Denys and Giraud never
> seem to integrate at all.
If your Abban theory is right, that would imply that Giraud at least
(and probably Denys) didn't ever know. Because that would be acting
on initiative.
> >Base 1 of course was set like that by Ari I, who did have Ari II's best
> >interests in heart. ("You would not do well to believe that of those who
> >may have come to power since my death.")
>
> Yes. One of a number of wonderfully dry things Ari I says in those
> notes. (And Gods above, but she was well along in the planning
> stages, wasnt' she?)
She was.
She thought she had six months to two ywars left, and what she was planning
to do in that time was write her book and start the actual biochemistry of
the Rubin project. She'd probably have learned a lot from it. The notes
were probably a priority.
I wonder what she didn't have time to get to in them.
> >> >I don't know if Ari I intended the pressure of the Project to
> >> >replace the pressure in her life of the sexual molestation by
> >> >Geoffrey Carnath. I'm fairly sure Denys and Giraud didn't so
> >> >intend. But it was there. "Came close to a real bad mistake"
> >> >could be a number of things, and that's a possible one.
> >>
> >> That's certainly possibly one. It's also very likely that Denys was
> >> tweaking the project to get an Ari less able to exercise power, and
> >> got the wrong parameters.
> >
> >But he gave her the azi _early_. I think he wanted her controllable.
>
> Did he? Do we know just when Ari I got hers?
No, we don't precisely, though we know she got them as children. What
we do know is that F&C were ordered to hospital in the evening instead
at a normal kind of time, disturbing their routine and the hospital's
routine. They were rushing giving her the azi because of the birthday
party is my reading of it. Something, _anything_, to distract her from
Justin.
> Controllable, yes; fairly close to what I was meaning by 'less able to
> exercise power'.
Justin and Grant see it early on as the Nyes not wanting a brilliant
child but wanting Ari I back to give them direction. That might be
a certain ambivalence. I think Giraud probably did want that. Denys
wanted Ari fixed, I think.
> >Why did he let her into his privacy and his apartment - why was he
> >the human tie she was allowed? Not to match Geoffrey Carnath, not
> >really, Giraud would have been a better match or Yanni, personality
> >wise. Denys wasn't like Geoffrey the way Jane was like Olga. Denys
> >wanted that direct input, wanted to shape her. And did have input.
>
> Yes. Even if he didn't really have a clue what he was shaping.
>
> (Or, really, that Catlin would kill him without direct orders. The
> grand joke of :Cyteen: is that, argueably, everything decisive that
> happens is done by an Azi.)
I like that thought.
Yes.
> >> Ari II _is_ less personally ruthless than
> >> Ari I, but she also actually _trusts_ Catlin and Florian, and
> >> vice-versa -- none of this 'knew when to be quiet' stuff -- and
> >> they're _more_ ruthless than their predecessors. (and better molded,
> >> _they_ got intellectual and emotional stimulation fast enough. Part
> >> of the potential project screwup was pushing Ari _while at the same
> >> time_ trying to insist that she had a 'normal' childhood.)
> >
> >Not normal, just "the same"?
>
> The wierd sort of normal childhood Olga wanted for Ari I, anyway,
> yeah. Not precisely the same, but they pretty clearly wanted similar.
As close as they could get. They didn't know what was essential. Ari I
knew, maybe that's what she hadn't got to yet.
> >> The result is an Ari better able to inspire personal loyalty, better
> >> able to delegate and to trust, and with a more dispassionate -- if
> >> external -- mechanism with which to exercise ruthlessness.
> >>
> >> In other words, Denys blew it, badly.
> >
> >If that was his intention. If he wasn't sabotaged from within by what
> >Ari I had done. She knew Denys, do you think not? Though getting rid
>
> I'm sure she did.
>
> >of Justin's input was also a bad mistake - more so if they'd done so
> >entirely. I wonder a lot about her being drawn to him. That was before
> >she'd ever had any tape, it couldn't be programmed.
>
> Sure it could.
>
> 'She knew what she wanted from that geneset, and she got it.'
>
> Justin was _designed_ to be that echo.
To be someone who was going to be there and who the young Ari couldn't
read and who would hence fascinate her? That does mean she'd be planning
for her death 17 (almost 18) years before. But that's possible, she knew
she'd die sometime in the next 40 years, and Justin would still have been
there.
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <79vafs$r7f$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>
>> In article <918652...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In article <79r9si$nra$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> >> In article <918158...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>> >> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >> >In article <797gmk$vgg$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >That would be interesting. I think possibly we're going to find out a
>> >lot more about Jordan and Paul in Planys from Jordan's POV.
>>
>> That would be interesting. Jordan might have a very hard time getting
>> to sleep without knowing where the security monitor is.
>
>That's OK, there's plenty of security monitors in Reseune and I expect
>he can find them or get azi who know how, if he's a free agent. Do we
>happen to know what Paul's qualifications are at all?
I don't recall any mention of them; he seems mostly there to keep
Jordan from going round the twist; he's presumably socially real --
unlike Aban or Seely -- but not in the same category of presumed
competence as Grant or Catlin and Florian's second instances.
>[Giraud's vices]
>> >He's drinking alcohol with Abban while watching the Khalid election
>> >results. Other than that, no indication at all.
>>
>> And having one drink while watching the election results doesn't seem
>> to qualify as a vice, either.
>
>I wouldn't say so really, but I might mean that in the context he was
>talking in. I think in the context of "I am giving up my vices to live
>as long as possible" even another piece of pudding would count. But we
>know it isn't another piece of pudding. That's _Denys'_ vice.
*laugh*
Yup. There is, in a way, an interesting classification of CIT
characters based on food-vices, strong-drink-vices, and sex-with-Azi
vices. Ari -- both instances -- have all three; the other CITs don't
seem to have more than two.
>> >> >> Gehenna _worked_. Ari I is right about sociogenisis.
>> >> >
>> >> >Have you read :40,000 in Gehenna:? In what sense "worked". I think
>> >>
>> >> They are a stable, resilient, hard-to-integrate, surviving culture
>> >> with a Union ethos.
>> >
>> >Stable? Resilient? Union ethos? Hard to integrate and surviving I'll
>> >certainly agree but what's Union ethos about _that_? She didn't know
>>
>> They have a bizarre consensus status matching form of government
>> between the humans and the calibans. Very Union, to my reading.
>
>I suppose that's a good point, if a very weird one.
My impression from :Cyteen: is that Ms. Cherryh has been going to some
lengths to keep the casual reader from noticing just how wierd Union's
form of government is to 20th century expectations.
>> And when they _are_ in contact with the spacefarers again, they're
>> allowed there own customs, and don't seem to be suffering any sense of
>> inadequacy becuase they don't have spaceships. That seems both stable
>> and resilient.
>
>They do feel inadequate. And their culture is changing - changes rapidly
>because of the caliban input. It isn't the same from one generation to
>the next that we see.
By the time of the :Gehenna: epilog, it looks to be stable. The first
generation surely did feel inadequate, but that fellow in the epilog
doesn't, to the best of my recollection.
>> Oh, definately. But she didn't assume she knew what they were going
>> into; Ari I made that set very, very general indeed.
>
>She had to. She's the sort of person who really ought to be playing
>Civilization or equivalent at TL, not playing that sort of game with
>real people. Denys says to Justin that they're damn short of planets
>to hand out for experiments, but that's what she did.
Well, yes; when was she going to get another chance? (And playing
Civilization wouldn't do, she wants to know that it would really
work.)
It's amazing how few people catch the implicative possibilities of
what Ari did, there, even when the scandal comes out.
>> >> The long term plan clearly fails. Ari I didn't have the reach that
>> >> she thought she did.
>> >
>> >Field too large. But she kept on trying to work on that scale.
>>
>> Yes. Which is a pity, she's making a very serious mistake, there.
>> Which is in some sense what you get for letting a psychologist at a
>> speciation problem.
>
>A speciation problem? How so?
She's concerned that there are going to be a number of reproductively
isolate human populations that are going to culturally (and possibly
physically, eg the Qhal theory) speciate and lose the capacity to talk
to one another, resulting in communication solely by warfare. Never
mind that this didn't happen in the neolithic(and every habitable
portion of the earth was settled by people at no more than neolithic
tech levels.) -- the distances and scales _have_ changed, the
constraints on population growth are different, and the ability is
there to _choose_ to speciate.
Ari's response includes setting up those genetic material repositories
in space, but the main thrust of it is to try to constrain social
development into a communicating _and absorbing_ pattern -- hardwired
xenophilia. (Why do you think the intro ends with that line about
common interests and trade being more powerful than all the warships
ever built?)
Someone with a more biologist background would have seen the problem
with that more readily. (Speciation pressure, if it's there, is real,
and sucks up energy to fight. So does trying to demand everyone uses
the same social form. It _has_ to collapse, given sufficent time, as
conditions mutate out from under it. Doing it dynamically is well
beyond known or plausible art, and Ari I keeps trying anyway.)
>> I've never been much able to like any of the polities in the
>> Merchanter's universe; people, yes, but not polities.
>
>There's worse places to live than either Union (for a CIT) or Alliance.
>I identified with the people of Pell.
Oh, arbitarily many.
Remember, I'm the fellow who isn't best pleased with the last forty
years of the government of Canada; I've got some pretty fininicky
standards for governments.
>> >> [Denys' attitude toward change/view of the State of Union]
>> >> There's a terrible, terrible something threaded through :Cyteen: about
>> >> 'instrumentum vocale'.
>> >
>> >Wirto Denys? Hmm.
>>
>> Wirto practically everyone, I think. Ari I doesn't think of CITs as
>> different from AZI, just a bit messier to manipulate.
>>
>> They don't -- Denys certainly doesn't -- see tools as distinct from
>> purposes, and that has the feel of a bad, bad mistake.
>
>Dreadful. I think Ari does _in theory_ when she remembers but she's
>inclined to elide the difference. Both Aris.
Yes. The shrieking frustration with people who will not understand no
matter how well something is explained.
>Ari I's agoraphobia is related to that I think - she trusts Novgorod
>in the abstract, close up it makes her hands sweat because she knows
>they're people individually and she's much happier with them
>statistically.
Yeah. They're easier to manipulate statistically, too.
>> No. The Nyes were the other power faction; expect that during Ari
>> II's tenure, the Nyes will go extinct as a Reseune Family.
>
>Amy, although Carnath by name, is a Nye. As a power-bloc, yes.
Who is Amy going to have kids with? Not Quentin, not yet, I don't
think.
And yes, I did mean as a Family/power bloc, not 'down to the least and
the last'.
>> >> [Ari, both of her, playing to an audience]
>> >They wouldn't let her have people to be close to, so she did that - with
>> >Amy and Maddy and etc. - which wasn't at first building a power base
>> >but was friendship and contact, without them knowing. Without that, without
>>
>> Yes. And I don't think they planned that and I don't think that the
>> full extent of that was known, either.
>
>I'm sure they didn't plan it - Ari II planned it herself and was able to
>do it because she had Florian and Catlin. I think without that stolen
>companionship she would have been too lonely to have a grip.
That seems very plausible.
There is an interesting sense in which they've clearly been trying to
_retard_ Ari II's development; the track she _could_ have been on,
intllectually, is much faster than the one she did take. (Assuming
she's about as smart as F&C, anyway.)
> The folks running the Project
>> don't really understand Azi capabilities; Denys and Giraud in
>> particular don't see even Alpha Azi as being capable of initiative.
>
>Oh the things they don't understand about azi could fill volumes.
Yup. They've got a terrible blind spot about simplicity of world view
producing simplicity of response, and that isn't right at all.
>I'm sure I mentioned before the implications of the rumours Grant has
>heard whispered about getting to Krugers it you're very good. If the azi
>are whispering then they're not perfectly programmed and happy, and the
>programmers have no idea that they're whispering.
I doubt very much that Giraud doesn't know that they're whispering,
and much of what it is. I do not think that he has the slightest idea
of _why_ they are whispering.
>> >those relationships to help her figure out human beings she'd have been a
>> >lot worse off. Valery Schwartz was four years old and he had a red spaceship
>> >with light on, what was the threat to the Project? Jane reads it as "Can't
>> >have only one friend" but is it that? Anyway, they think the friend's
>> >input will be upsetting the program but they _don't_ think what removing
>> >the friend will do. Which is really dumb of them because they know perfectly
>> >well what removing Jane will do and it's exactly the same.
>>
>> I think they thought they could compensate for the absence of input --
>> by providing specific inputs they approved of -- but couldn't stand to
>> have random significant events happening in her early life.
>
>Yes, they thought of it in terms of "absence of input" and didn't think
>that "input specifically withdrawn at our orders" is in itself an input
Which is a strange thing for them not to notice. Terror at the
Project not working being about all I can use to explain that.
>that's going to start standing out in large glowing letters after a
>while. When Denys says "Do you still remember Valery?" what he's
>probably thinking is "We should have sent him away _earlier_."
Yup.
Inept control freaks with real power being more or less the worst kind
to have to deal with, under most any circumstances at all.
>> They hadn't any choice about that. That was Ari I's doing, and there
>> wasn't any getting around it, Denys as much as admits he doesn't dare
>> try to do anything to Base 1.
>
>He says that, and it appears it's true. This doesn't actually seem
>likely when you think about it - the whole of Reseune and they can't
>in seven years get through one person's comp security?
It's not a single machine; it's a bunch of arbitrary overides in an
organic system -- meaning complex and not well understood -- plus
whatever Florian I has hiding in the walls. I wouldn't put nukes on
automated dead-base -- can't really call them deadman -- switches past
Ari I, and I very much doubt Denys would, either.
The _risk_ -- just from Ari's carefully secreted, triple-blind, cold
drop blackmail material -- is so high that going anywhere near that
machine just isn't worth it.
>> >it would still have done the personality stuff required. But the azi
>> >wouldn't have been themselves if they weren't dangerous and they really
>> >were a power base for her. I don't know if Denys didn't realise how much
>> >- hard to see how he couldn't - or if there just wasn't a way around that.
>>
>> I really don't see how Denys or Giraud could see that, since both of
>> them have that huge blind spot about Azi initiative. They would
>> expect F&C to do what Ari II told them to do, and what she doesn't
>> know about she can hardly instruct them to do, sort of thing. That
>> F&C have _gobs_ of initiative, that their training is designed to
>> _produce_ initiative, and that Ari II encourages them by giving them
>> very general instructions and respecting their opinions, is something
>> Grant and Justin pick up immediately, but which Denys and Giraud never
>> seem to integrate at all.
>
>If your Abban theory is right, that would imply that Giraud at least
>(and probably Denys) didn't ever know. Because that would be acting
>on initiative.
I am very much convinced that Denys didn't know, at the end, and had
no idea _why_ Ari II was returning in that state, and believed that
she'd gone unstable and the Project had failed when he died, because
he _had_ to think that Catlin was acting on very specific orders.
I think this is marvelously ironic.
>> >Base 1 of course was set like that by Ari I, who did have Ari II's best
>> >interests in heart. ("You would not do well to believe that of those who
>> >may have come to power since my death.")
>>
>> Yes. One of a number of wonderfully dry things Ari I says in those
>> notes. (And Gods above, but she was well along in the planning
>> stages, wasnt' she?)
>
>She was.
>
>She thought she had six months to two ywars left, and what she was planning
>to do in that time was write her book and start the actual biochemistry of
>the Rubin project. She'd probably have learned a lot from it. The notes
>were probably a priority.
I think that very likely, yes.
The confidence that they'd try to replicate her isn't really
surprising, under the circumstances, it only seems so when it happens.
By the time one gets to the end of the book, one realizes just how
psychologically dependent on her the Nyes really were.
>I wonder what she didn't have time to get to in them.
Heh. Bet that thought keeps Ari II awake at night, sometimes.
>> >But he gave her the azi _early_. I think he wanted her controllable.
>>
>> Did he? Do we know just when Ari I got hers?
>
>No, we don't precisely, though we know she got them as children. What
>we do know is that F&C were ordered to hospital in the evening instead
>at a normal kind of time, disturbing their routine and the hospital's
>routine. They were rushing giving her the azi because of the birthday
>party is my reading of it. Something, _anything_, to distract her from
>Justin.
Which would just reinforce Justin, but never mind.
That's a plausible reading. I was thinking that it was _meant_ not to
be a normal thing, to make it stand out for the Azi.
>> Controllable, yes; fairly close to what I was meaning by 'less able to
>> exercise power'.
>
>Justin and Grant see it early on as the Nyes not wanting a brilliant
>child but wanting Ari I back to give them direction. That might be
>a certain ambivalence. I think Giraud probably did want that. Denys
>wanted Ari fixed, I think.
Very ambivalent, yeah.
It'd be interesting to have a clearer sense of how Denys thought that
Ari was broken.
>> >of Justin's input was also a bad mistake - more so if they'd done so
>> >entirely. I wonder a lot about her being drawn to him. That was before
>> >she'd ever had any tape, it couldn't be programmed.
>>
>> Sure it could.
>>
>> 'She knew what she wanted from that geneset, and she got it.'
>>
>> Justin was _designed_ to be that echo.
>
>To be someone who was going to be there and who the young Ari couldn't
>read and who would hence fascinate her? That does mean she'd be planning
>for her death 17 (almost 18) years before. But that's possible, she knew
>she'd die sometime in the next 40 years, and Justin would still have been
>there.
Later would even have been better; Justin would, by that time, have
been in a position of considerable power.
I expect that Ari II is going to push him into running for Science,
and that this is going to give a large number of folks the equivalent
of heart attacks.
Dan Goodman
Hong Kong and Ireland are both partially set up that way.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
Graydon
Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>In article <918998...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>In article <79vafs$r7f$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>Ari I's tapeset for Gehenna didn't include Union at all; it focused on
>"world". I suppose Ari might not have anticipated that the calibans
>would be such a major focus--when Gehenna was founded, had humans run
>into any aliens besides Downers yet? -- but it seems more likely that
>she knew they'd be major, just not how.
I'm not sure she knew they were _there_, never mind knowing that they
were sentinent.
'Union' is a high order abstraction; it doesn't go into tape sets very
well, and doesn't go into cultural transmission of tape sets at all.
What _does_ go is a set of attitudes to problems, and I think Ari II's
claims of great simplicity on behalf of Ari I are a bit disingenious.
Simple, yes, but a very, very careful simple.
>One of the things I like best about =Cyteen= is the way it refracts all
>the other Union/Alliance books--=Gehenna= obviously, but in the last
>read I actually got the biggest chill from the throwaway line about
>Giraud spending the war turning out sabeteurs like Jon in =Downbelow
>Station=.
Yeah. Helps to have some other basis to know just what a nasty fellow
Giraud really is.
>That's going to be a problem for them, down the line. I do wonder how
>the terraforming project actually turns out, and if Cyteen ever gets
>anyone but azi out in the wild.
That's a good question, and I have no idea how it turns out, and I
wouldn't care to bet that Ms. Cherryh does, either.
>>Dreadful. I think Ari does _in theory_ when she remembers but she's
>>inclined to elide the difference. Both Aris. Ari I's agoraphobia
>>is related to that I think - she trusts Novgorod in the abstract,
>>close up it makes her hands sweat because she knows they're people
>>individually and she's much happier with them statistically.
>
>I see Ari I and Denys as very similar in this actually, they're both
>very aggressive and very prone to controlling their environments; it's
>just that Ari's sure that she can control things that Denys isn't sure
>he can.
I think there is actually a difference there which goes beyond this;
Ari is sure she can manipulate actual _people_, and Denys is much,
much less confident of this, he is a manipulator par excellence but
doesn't believe his skills generalize outside of Reseune. Ari pretty
clearly _does_ think her skills generalize.
>I don't think either Ari ever really gets the notion of competition;
>they're both sure of being the biggest shark in the ocean.
While hating that, bitterly, becuase no one will argue with them.
>There seems to be an odd generation-gap in the power-blocs. There's the
>Ari I/Denys/Julia Strassen generation, then Yanni/Jordan/Ari II's
>doctors, then ... Justin. Then Ari II. What happened to Justin's
>cohorts? There's Yanni's daughter and Julia Strassen's, neither of whom
>seem to be much good at managing anything. Ari II mentions that
>Reseuners aren't good at raising children to be Specials; even she only
>manages it after she's dead. No wonder she was worried about the next
>few generations down the line.
They don't want to pull themselves out of their work far enough to
raise kids, is how I read that, and the social imperative to do so has
been weakening over time.
Plus, the side effect of the prolong is that promotion to department
head takes _90 years_; the young don't often get anywhere near the
corridors of power. (Remember Justin's throwaway comment about not
knowing that the resources Ari II used for one of her projects existed
when he was that age?)
>>I'm sure they didn't plan it - Ari II planned it herself and was able to
>>do it because she had Florian and Catlin. I think without that stolen
>>companionship she would have been too lonely to have a grip.
>
>The Ollie-Jane relationship was a change too; at least nobody mentions
>Olga having a companion after James Carnath died. Ari I didn't have a
>close example of adult companionship (sexual and emotional) nearby; she
>had Olga, and then Geoffrey. I'm not sure what Ollie's presence did;
>maybe made her more likely to give Florian and Catlin their
>independence?
Ooh. Good point.
>Ari II'd already seen a near-CIT responsible Alpha at an
>age when Ari I'd only seen azis turned out for the war-machine. When
>did they start with the Alphas? I get the feeling that they're all
>considered fairly experimental, and tricky to get right. Would there
>have been any, when Ari I was very little?
Not reliable of result, certainly, which is why Alpha-supervisor is a
special and seperate qualification. (And note how carefully the
Reseune propaganda focuses on 'for the benefit of the Azi' and ignores
the point that Azi aren't arbitrarily stable and Alphas much less so.)
Florian and Catlin are Alpha genesets, and Ari I got them when she was
little, so it seems likely, but probably new, very new.
>>He says that, and it appears it's true. This doesn't actually seem
>>likely when you think about it - the whole of Reseune and they can't
>>in seven years get through one person's comp security?
>
>I do think this is mostly Cherryh's blindness to computer tech, or
>deliberately ignoring it to focus on biology and social engineering,
>take your pick; but I also wonder how much Denys and Giraud wanted to
>break the security? They both had a lot of emotional investment in
>Ari I's near-omniscience. Which she undoubtedly encouraged.
There's that, but there's also the huge, howling risk.
It's not just a computer, in the box-on-a-desk sense; it's got an
amazing amount of control overides. Get Base I into panic mode and it
is quite capable of pumping your office full of exterior air. It
_could_ be disarmed, but the resources necessary to achieve some sort
of certainty might not be available and are damn hard to explain the
need for even if they ware available.
>>If your Abban theory is right, that would imply that Giraud at least
>>(and probably Denys) didn't ever know. Because that would be acting
>>on initiative.
>
>What's Graydon's Abban theory? I missed that.
It was from awhile back.
Abban -- and Seely -- are Alphas; high end geniuses, tape programed to
be utterly loyal. Giraud and Denys treat them like furniture, or like
a laptop, anyway, and don't talk to them like they're people.
A short thought experiment involving trying to picture Catlin's mental
state if she didn't have Florian or at the very least sera to talk to
suffices to demonstrate that both Abban and Seely are likely to be
bugfuck nuts by now. 'Sane', in the strict, tapesets in parameters,
sense of the term, but not well attached to anything like the
consensus reality.
I think Abban killed Ari I, becuase Giraud was in love with her, she'd
spurned him for Jordan, and then she was repeating the (very painful
for Giraud) pattern with Justin, and Giraud (and thus Abban) knew all
about it in his capacity as Head of Security. All Abban cares about
is making Giraud happy; if Ari causes him pain, she's got to go.
He's more than competent enough to make it the highly ambiguous even
that it was, and a combination of being unhinged with grief and just
plain being unhinged and thinking it's all Ari's fault -- since Giraud
did work very hard and give up his vices and suchlike for her; lots of
Ari-caused pain for Giraud, there -- goes a long way to explain what
Abban got up to after Giraud died, too.
(Ari understands that Azi are human in both iterations but much, much
better in the second one, which is why I think your point about Ollie
is such a very good one.)
>>No, we don't precisely, though we know she got them as children. What
>>we do know is that F&C were ordered to hospital in the evening instead
>>at a normal kind of time, disturbing their routine and the hospital's
>>routine. They were rushing giving her the azi because of the birthday
>>party is my reading of it. Something, _anything_, to distract her from
>>Justin.
>
>But I can also see Geoffrey giving them to her to distract her from the
>simultaneous loss of Nelly. I wonder what was going on at Reseune then
>that he thought Ari I needed two security azi; it certainly didn't turn
>out well for him.
My best guess is that Florian and Catlin were a high-end experiement
with making azi stable through pair bonds and the conclusion was that
it was too delicate for general production.
>Even if you don't think azi are capable of independent action, giving a
>child two people to be responsible for is an odd way of curbing her
>ability to exercise power.
Only if you think Azi are people, and not organic machinery.
I think Giraud thinks of them as organic machinery; especially if he
was manufacturing sabateurs, that would be a very sensibly self-image
protecting thing for him to think.
>>As close as they could get. They didn't know what was essential. Ari I
>>knew, maybe that's what she hadn't got to yet.
>
>Do you think Ari I wanted continuation rather than improvement?
She almost had to want improvement, she didn't like herself all that
much, or at least so I read a lot of her notes to Ari II.
>At the party scene she found Justin mildly interesting, and then
>everyone reacted to that, and she found him *very* interesting. I go
>back and forth between thinking the attraction was coded into *both* of
>them, and thinking that Ari I's death messed up her plans for this
>entirely. But then Ari was really good at fixing the macro-scale and
>letting the details sort themselves out; so maybe she planned it after
>all.
I think it was the later; Justin is, visibly, a special, and etee
enough to look like an Azi to a lot of CITs. Ari II can see that.
>I think--or hope, anyway--that the sequel will have a lot more about the
>interventions Ari I wanted to run on Justin, and things that went wrong
>with them. A lot went right, obviously: he seems to be really good for
>Ari II in general, and he's the Special she wanted, focusing on the
>areas she wanted; but *she didn't get to finish.* She knew she was
>dying, but she didn't expect to die just yet; and she certainly didn't
>expect that Jordan would be booted completely out of power that soon and
>that fast and that Giraud would run brutal interventions on both Justin
>and Grant and that Justin would go underground for years instead of
>becoming a power in his own right.
Yes.
This is what convinces me that no way, no how, was it suicide; too
many free variables.
She might not have known just how vengeful Giraud would be, out of his
hopeless love for her, but she would certainly have been aware of the
possibility.
>I got the impression that Ari I meant Justin to be in charge of the
>psychogenesis project, not Denys; and she left him with a powerful lot
>of sexual hostility for her, which she might or might not have cleaned
>up later, and something left him with a powerful lot of empathy for
>other people's pain, but I'm not sure whether that was there early, or
>as a result of Ari's half-done intervention, or as a result of Giraud's
>probes.
I suspect the intention was to leave him with a hopeless fascination
for the next iteration and the gut-deep belief that he can't win a
fight with her -- that he _does_ have -- so he'd be sure not to be a
competitor, rather than a co-belligerent. Ari I used sex for
that becuase it was more fun for her, not becuase it was the only
thing that would work.
>If Ari I hadn't died so precipitately, she might among other things
>have turned Justin into a fairly good psych-match for Geoffrey Carnath
>for Ari II.
>
>That really scares me.
I don't think she meant to, becuase Geoffry Carnath wasn't essential
and Ari I would have known that.
I agree that the overall point was to produce a politically powerful
and publicly acknowledge Special in Justin.
Phil Fraering
>
>
>Florian and Catlin are Alpha genesets, and Ari I got them when she was
>little, so it seems likely, but probably new, very new.
[snip]
>Abban -- and Seely -- are Alphas; high end geniuses, tape programed to
>be utterly loyal. Giraud and Denys treat them like furniture, or like
>a laptop, anyway, and don't talk to them like they're people.
>A short thought experiment involving trying to picture Catlin's mental
>state if she didn't have Florian or at the very least sera to talk to
>suffices to demonstrate that both Abban and Seely are likely to be
>bugfuck nuts by now. 'Sane', in the strict, tapesets in parameters,
>sense of the term, but not well attached to anything like the
>consensus reality.
[snip!]
>My best guess is that Florian and Catlin were a high-end experiement
>with making azi stable through pair bonds and the conclusion was that
>it was too delicate for general production.
I guess you could say that it's one of the big mysteries of
_Cyteen_: just what ARE Florian and Catlin? In the context of
the book, it seems like they combine alpha-level intelligence,
beta-level social interaction, and delta-level survival skills
(at least I think it was delta that Ari I said had the best
survival skills if you were dumped on a hostile planet or
something), and the ability to go into a combat environment and
improvise, i.e. not be dependent on what's in the tapes.
Hypothesis: maybe Florian and Catlin received "Final Tape"
at a very young age, and act like Azi/Cit hybrids?
Tony Zbaraschuk
>In article <918998...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<insert spoiler tape here>
>My impression from :Cyteen: is that Ms. Cherryh has been going to some
>lengths to keep the casual reader from noticing just how wierd Union's
>form of government is to 20th century expectations.
Union government is... interesting, and even with the oh-so-helpful
tapes, it's hard to analyze. I'm not sure it's long-term stable.
It's polarized around two factions, but that's not a necessary
consequence (and I suspect that the founders didn't intend it,
any more than the founders of the U.S. Constitution intended the
development of Democrats and Republicans).
And just how democratic is it? Not at all, for the azi, obviously,
but what about CITs? Plus, I suspect that secession pressure will
turn out to be overwhelming. What happens if a station or colony
or _something_ wants to go its own way?
>>She had to. She's the sort of person who really ought to be playing
>>Civilization or equivalent at TL, not playing that sort of game with
>>real people. Denys says to Justin that they're damn short of planets
>>to hand out for experiments, but that's what she did.
>
>Well, yes; when was she going to get another chance? (And playing
>Civilization wouldn't do, she wants to know that it would really
>work.)
It's more than an experiment -- and it's not entirely Ari I's idea,
remember: Defense wanted Gehenna planted, and would have planted it.
She just did the psych-sets... and tried several things. Remember
her private notes to Ari II: Gehenna has a shorter generation time
than Union, and it's "the alarm system", presumably to see if
Union memes will self-destruct or have a worm in them.
Interesting, too, that she didn't really realize how close the
Novgorod situation was to exploding: it was third on her list of
possible trouble spots for Ari II to monitor.
>There is an interesting sense in which they've clearly been trying to
>_retard_ Ari II's development; the track she _could_ have been on,
>intllectually, is much faster than the one she did take. (Assuming
>she's about as smart as F&C, anyway.)
I'm not sure that this is deliberate. Justin sees what they don't
(that Ari II needs _stress_ to force her to max out her abilities,
not just getting fed with the knowledge), but they're simply trying
to replicate Ari I's education.
>>Oh the things they don't understand about azi could fill volumes.
>
>Yup. They've got a terrible blind spot about simplicity of world view
>producing simplicity of response, and that isn't right at all.
Note how most of Denys' work is on economics, where mass statistics
work a lot: he doesn't seem to be doing micro-economic choices.
And Giraud does a lot of one-on-one work (his War programming, which
we probably saw in DOWNBELOW STATION; he's the one that interrogates
Justin a lot). But neither of them seem really good at integrating
the two, at extrapolating one-on-one to the mass, or vice-versa.
Justin and Ari II both span that stretch: Justin's good at, but torn
up by, individual work. Ari I preferred statistical analysis but
_could_ do good individual work. And Justin's little development
of built-in rewards is an attempt to span that gap: to make it work
for the individual _and_ society. That's what Ari I needs him
for: to teach synthesis to Ari II. We see this when they're
discussing the faux-Gehenna setup. "What does 'base' mean?"
>I doubt very much that Giraud doesn't know that they're whispering,
>and much of what it is. I do not think that he has the slightest idea
>of _why_ they are whispering.
Or just _what_ it means. Giraud can't extrapolate from small to
large; Denys can't come down from large to small.
Tony Z
--
"The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
His fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stays will die for naught, and home there's no returning."
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.
Graydon
>gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) writes:
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>>Florian and Catlin are Alpha genesets, and Ari I got them when she was
>>little, so it seems likely, but probably new, very new.
>
>>Abban -- and Seely -- are Alphas; high end geniuses, tape programed to
>>be utterly loyal. Giraud and Denys treat them like furniture, or like
>>a laptop, anyway, and don't talk to them like they're people.
>
>>A short thought experiment involving trying to picture Catlin's mental
>>state if she didn't have Florian or at the very least sera to talk to
>>suffices to demonstrate that both Abban and Seely are likely to be
>>bugfuck nuts by now. 'Sane', in the strict, tapesets in parameters,
>>sense of the term, but not well attached to anything like the
>>consensus reality.
>
>
>>My best guess is that Florian and Catlin were a high-end experiement
>>with making azi stable through pair bonds and the conclusion was that
>>it was too delicate for general production.
>
>_Cyteen_: just what ARE Florian and Catlin? In the context of
We know that, from Ari I's brain right at the start -- the best
security design Reseune can put out.
>the book, it seems like they combine alpha-level intelligence,
>beta-level social interaction, and delta-level survival skills
>(at least I think it was delta that Ari I said had the best
>survival skills if you were dumped on a hostile planet or
>something), and the ability to go into a combat environment and
>improvise, i.e. not be dependent on what's in the tapes.
All the military Azi can improvise, or the Mazianni would have
walloped them.
They're Alphas; they're extremely high end Alphas. Sexual social
intraction with their Supervisor -- never mind all the other social
interaction -- isn't stressful to them. There's a certain amount of
parameter adjustment but it's utterly minor compared to most early
teens in that situation.
>Hypothesis: maybe Florian and Catlin received "Final Tape"
>at a very young age, and act like Azi/Cit hybrids?
That's, in effect, Grant, who hasn't taken tape in ages.
Florian and Catlin _do_ act like Azi; they're very dependent on Ari
for their general objectives, and don't have much initiative about
those (if any at all.)
What makes them the best design Reseune can put out is that they're
a)inherently social -- they need each other, as well as sera, and they
need social interaction beyond each other to be at their best; that
three cornered setup is six times as complex as a binary
supervisor-azi relationship, so they've got complex sets, and b)they
can take full tactical responsibility for things, meaning they can
take a general objective (picking objectives is strategy) and break
that down into its component objectives -- yes, that's strategy, too,
but not 'grand strategy', they can't, in the absence of any
objectives, come up with one themselves; those are all from tape or
sera -- before breaking those down into specific ways and means.
They're intended to do this, too, becuase we see them doing it from a
very young age, more or less as soon as they start training together.
I suspect that they couldn't be mass produced, and that it takes an
Alpha intelligence CIT as a sole-focus supervisor to make that tapeset
come out stable, becuase they're too smart to trust blindly in
comfort, no matter what the tape tells them. (This being the general
problem with a lot of Alphas, as is generally hinted at.)
Graydon
Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>In article <7ac8g2$h9l$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
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>>My impression from :Cyteen: is that Ms. Cherryh has been going to some
>>lengths to keep the casual reader from noticing just how wierd Union's
>>form of government is to 20th century expectations.
>
>tapes, it's hard to analyze. I'm not sure it's long-term stable.
I will cheerfully assert that no known form of government is
metastable.
I don't think Union is an exception.
>It's polarized around two factions, but that's not a necessary
>consequence (and I suspect that the founders didn't intend it,
>any more than the founders of the U.S. Constitution intended the
>development of Democrats and Republicans).
I think that's a side effect of the culture having the same two basic
human reactions to fear that every human culture has got -- avoid the
scary thing, or find out more about it.
>And just how democratic is it? Not at all, for the azi, obviously,
>but what about CITs? Plus, I suspect that secession pressure will
>turn out to be overwhelming. What happens if a station or colony
>or _something_ wants to go its own way?
CITs all have a vote. It's a weighted by seniority vote, and it's by
class and profession. It reminds of me of Republican Roman votes for
tribues (I think it was tribunes) -- one tribe, one vote.
>>>She had to. She's the sort of person who really ought to be playing
>>>Civilization or equivalent at TL, not playing that sort of game with
>>>real people. Denys says to Justin that they're damn short of planets
>>>to hand out for experiments, but that's what she did.
>>
>>Well, yes; when was she going to get another chance? (And playing
>>Civilization wouldn't do, she wants to know that it would really
>>work.)
>
>It's more than an experiment -- and it's not entirely Ari I's idea,
>remember: Defense wanted Gehenna planted, and would have planted it.
>She just did the psych-sets... and tried several things. Remember
>her private notes to Ari II: Gehenna has a shorter generation time
>than Union, and it's "the alarm system", presumably to see if
>Union memes will self-destruct or have a worm in them.
Sure.
She wasn't under any obligation to help them be stupid, nor was she
compelled to exploit their stupidity in the way that she did, though.
>Interesting, too, that she didn't really realize how close the
>Novgorod situation was to exploding: it was third on her list of
>possible trouble spots for Ari II to monitor.
That list is ranked in potential-significance-of-consequence order, I
think. Plus there's the nasty consequences of it being a statistical
threat abstraction when it comes to trying to predict when the lid
comes off.
>>There is an interesting sense in which they've clearly been trying to
>>_retard_ Ari II's development; the track she _could_ have been on,
>>intllectually, is much faster than the one she did take. (Assuming
>>she's about as smart as F&C, anyway.)
>
>I'm not sure that this is deliberate. Justin sees what they don't
>(that Ari II needs _stress_ to force her to max out her abilities,
>not just getting fed with the knowledge), but they're simply trying
>to replicate Ari I's education.
Which they do get a clue about, eventually, yeah. Amazing how much of
a thread of considering Ari the ideal result the older generations
have, really, she seems to have awed people far more than she annoyed
them, which is saying a great deal.
>>>Oh the things they don't understand about azi could fill volumes.
>>
>>Yup. They've got a terrible blind spot about simplicity of world view
>>producing simplicity of response, and that isn't right at all.
>
>Note how most of Denys' work is on economics, where mass statistics
>work a lot: he doesn't seem to be doing micro-economic choices.
>And Giraud does a lot of one-on-one work (his War programming, which
>we probably saw in DOWNBELOW STATION; he's the one that interrogates
>Justin a lot). But neither of them seem really good at integrating
>the two, at extrapolating one-on-one to the mass, or vice-versa.
This is an excellent, excellent point.
>Justin and Ari II both span that stretch: Justin's good at, but torn
>up by, individual work. Ari I preferred statistical analysis but
>_could_ do good individual work. And Justin's little development
>of built-in rewards is an attempt to span that gap: to make it work
>for the individual _and_ society. That's what Ari I needs him
>for: to teach synthesis to Ari II. We see this when they're
>discussing the faux-Gehenna setup. "What does 'base' mean?"
So is this.
>>I doubt very much that Giraud doesn't know that they're whispering,
>>and much of what it is. I do not think that he has the slightest idea
>>of _why_ they are whispering.
>
>Or just _what_ it means. Giraud can't extrapolate from small to
>large; Denys can't come down from large to small.
Yeah. So long as it's not actively treasonous, Giraud doesn't care.
Tony Zbaraschuk
>In article <7ad6f4$ecs$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com>,
>Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>In article <7ac8g2$h9l$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>>>In article <918998...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>>>Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>><insert spoiler tape here>
>>
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>>consequence (and I suspect that the founders didn't intend it,
>>any more than the founders of the U.S. Constitution intended the
>>development of Democrats and Republicans).
>
>I think that's a side effect of the culture having the same two basic
>human reactions to fear that every human culture has got -- avoid the
>scary thing, or find out more about it.
Probably, but there are other emotions than fear, and other possible
reaction sets (convert, avoid, defend against, destroy -- just for
starters -- in the case of fear alone.) Why the two-way polarization
here?
>>And just how democratic is it? Not at all, for the azi, obviously,
>>but what about CITs? Plus, I suspect that secession pressure will
>>turn out to be overwhelming. What happens if a station or colony
>>or _something_ wants to go its own way?
>
>CITs all have a vote. It's a weighted by seniority vote, and it's by
>class and profession. It reminds of me of Republican Roman votes for
>tribues (I think it was tribunes) -- one tribe, one vote.
It would be interesting to see where the power actually lies when
you start analyzing votes and voting patterns. Of course, the
Nine can do just about anything they want to, but they _are_
removable by their electorates -- so how, in turn, do _they_ work?
(Insufficient Data in CYTEEN to really answer that; it's not what
the novel is about. But it's an interesting question.)
>>Note how most of Denys' work is on economics, where mass statistics
>>work a lot: he doesn't seem to be doing micro-economic choices.
>>And Giraud does a lot of one-on-one work (his War programming, which
>>we probably saw in DOWNBELOW STATION; he's the one that interrogates
>>Justin a lot). But neither of them seem really good at integrating
>>the two, at extrapolating one-on-one to the mass, or vice-versa.
>
>This is an excellent, excellent point.
Thanks for the compliment.
>>Justin and Ari II both span that stretch: Justin's good at, but torn
>
>So is this.
Thanks again.
Tony Z
--
"The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
His fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stays will die for naught, and home there's no returning."
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.--A.E. Housman
Graydon
Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>In article <7aeqbt$8ug$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>>In article <7ad6f4$ecs$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com>,
>>Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>>In article <7ac8g2$h9l$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>>>>In article <918998...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>>>>Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>><insert spoiler tape here>
>>>
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>>>consequence (and I suspect that the founders didn't intend it,
>>>any more than the founders of the U.S. Constitution intended the
>>>development of Democrats and Republicans).
>>
>>I think that's a side effect of the culture having the same two basic
>>human reactions to fear that every human culture has got -- avoid the
>>scary thing, or find out more about it.
>
>reaction sets (convert, avoid, defend against, destroy -- just for
>starters -- in the case of fear alone.) Why the two-way polarization
>here?
Becuase that's basic choice. Avoid is to avoid contact; to have
contact is to have the learning experience, will or no, and have the
options of all your more active examples.
>>>And just how democratic is it? Not at all, for the azi, obviously,
>>>but what about CITs? Plus, I suspect that secession pressure will
>>>turn out to be overwhelming. What happens if a station or colony
>>>or _something_ wants to go its own way?
>>
>>CITs all have a vote. It's a weighted by seniority vote, and it's by
>>class and profession. It reminds of me of Republican Roman votes for
>>tribues (I think it was tribunes) -- one tribe, one vote.
>
>It would be interesting to see where the power actually lies when
>you start analyzing votes and voting patterns. Of course, the
>Nine can do just about anything they want to, but they _are_
>removable by their electorates -- so how, in turn, do _they_ work?
They seem to vote by ships in the Navy...
It's complex, and weighted, and it's a good thing they have computers
is all I can say.
>(Insufficient Data in CYTEEN to really answer that; it's not what
>the novel is about. But it's an interesting question.)
I think it is, yes. It's not clear if the navy ships that voted to
ellect a councellor to the nine also have delegates to the Chamber.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
| -- Beorhtwold, "The Battle of Maldon"
Damien R. Sullivan
>In article <7ac8g2$h9l$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
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>And just how democratic is it? Not at all, for the azi, obviously,
>but what about CITs? Plus, I suspect that secession pressure will
>turn out to be overwhelming. What happens if a station or colony
>or _something_ wants to go its own way?
On the surface it seems as democratic as the US with its Senate.
Secession pressure, though... secede from what? At one point I remember
thinking that the Bureau of Information had strong censorship powers, or ran
the press, but it's been a long time since I read _Cyteen_. But other text,
perhaps the _Angel_ timeline, indicates that there's not much to secede from.
Union coercively provides a free trade and common defense framework; much of
the other cohesion is social. There's definitely a line about Union polities
having a very large degree of self-determination, and Union caring more about
what passed the borders than what happened inside. Like a literal reading of
the Constitution, or perhaps the Articles of Confederation with more oomph.
There could still be interest in escaping the trade/defense net, but less than
in escaping a more micromanaged society, and less give from Union; it won't be
tolerant of what amounts to a desire to impose tariffs or go to war.
-xx- Damien Raphael Sullivan X-)
sud...@staff.juno.com
gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
> In article <7a7oho$g3u$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
> >In article <918998...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> >>In article <79vafs$r7f$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>
> >Ari I's tapeset for Gehenna didn't include Union at all; it focused on
> >"world". I suppose Ari might not have anticipated that the calibans
> >would be such a major focus--when Gehenna was founded, had humans run
> >into any aliens besides Downers yet? -- but it seems more likely that
> >she knew they'd be major, just not how.
>
> I'm not sure she knew they were _there_, never mind knowing that they
> were sentinent.
That hadn't occurred to me. I'll keep a look-out on the next re-read.
> 'Union' is a high order abstraction; it doesn't go into tape sets very
> well, and doesn't go into cultural transmission of tape sets at all.
> What _does_ go is a set of attitudes to problems, and I think Ari II's
> claims of great simplicity on behalf of Ari I are a bit disingenious.
>
> Simple, yes, but a very, very careful simple.
I never took "simple" to be "careless" or "weak".
What seemed to go into the Gehenna tapes most was a definition of "problem",
even more than "attitudes towards problemsolving". There are possible
objectives besides "Defend your world", especially for Union, whose attitudes
to worlds are extremely ambivalent.
> >>Dreadful. I think Ari does _in theory_ when she remembers but she's
> >>inclined to elide the difference. Both Aris. Ari I's agoraphobia
> >>is related to that I think - she trusts Novgorod in the abstract,
> >>close up it makes her hands sweat because she knows they're people
> >>individually and she's much happier with them statistically.
> >
> >I see Ari I and Denys as very similar in this actually, they're both
> >very aggressive and very prone to controlling their environments; it's
> >just that Ari's sure that she can control things that Denys isn't sure
> >he can.
>
> I think there is actually a difference there which goes beyond this;
> Ari is sure she can manipulate actual _people_, and Denys is much,
> much less confident of this, he is a manipulator par excellence but
> doesn't believe his skills generalize outside of Reseune. Ari pretty
> clearly _does_ think her skills generalize.
I was thinking of their environment *as* people. The physical setup of Cyteen
encourages this (everything's man-made; I think it's significant that Ari I
worries about this), and the obsessions of Reseune pretty much enforce it.
> >I don't think either Ari ever really gets the notion of competition;
> >they're both sure of being the biggest shark in the ocean.
>
> While hating that, bitterly, becuase no one will argue with them.
Yes. Have you read =Wave Without A Shore=?
> >There seems to be an odd generation-gap in the power-blocs. There's the
> >Ari I/Denys/Julia Strassen generation, then Yanni/Jordan/Ari II's
> >doctors, then ... Justin. Then Ari II. What happened to Justin's
> >cohorts? There's Yanni's daughter and Julia Strassen's, neither of whom
> >seem to be much good at managing anything. Ari II mentions that
> >Reseuners aren't good at raising children to be Specials; even she only
> >manages it after she's dead. No wonder she was worried about the next
> >few generations down the line.
>
> They don't want to pull themselves out of their work far enough to
> raise kids, is how I read that, and the social imperative to do so has
> been weakening over time.
It's not just that. Julia Strassen and Jordan Warrick at least both spend
lots of time on their kids; they just do exactly the wrong things to bring
them up as independent people. They're a generation of dominants dominating
their own children. Nobody trains kids to use power; and everybody trains
them to see Reseune as the center of the universe. Sensible kids would just
get the hell *out*, but that's not really thinkable for them.
> Plus, the side effect of the prolong is that promotion to department
> head takes _90 years_; the young don't often get anywhere near the
> corridors of power. (Remember Justin's throwaway comment about not
> knowing that the resources Ari II used for one of her projects existed
> when he was that age?)
The rejuve is a good point.
That's ... really interesting. My instinct is to disagree, but I need to
think about it more, in slower-than-Usenet time. :)
I can't think of many people besides Cherryh who would have the nerve to
start off a 700-page novel with a murder and never tell you who done it.
Although, of course, *she* may think the solution's perfectly clear ...
> >>No, we don't precisely, though we know she got them as children. What
> >>we do know is that F&C were ordered to hospital in the evening instead
> >>at a normal kind of time, disturbing their routine and the hospital's
> >>routine. They were rushing giving her the azi because of the birthday
> >>party is my reading of it. Something, _anything_, to distract her from
> >>Justin.
> >
> >But I can also see Geoffrey giving them to her to distract her from the
> >simultaneous loss of Nelly. I wonder what was going on at Reseune then
> >that he thought Ari I needed two security azi; it certainly didn't turn
> >out well for him.
>
> My best guess is that Florian and Catlin were a high-end experiement
> with making azi stable through pair bonds and the conclusion was that
> it was too delicate for general production.
That still doesn't explain why security azi, though. Possibly during the War
that was the type they were most familiar with producing, and that they had
the most baseline data on.
> >Even if you don't think azi are capable of independent action, giving a
> >child two people to be responsible for is an odd way of curbing her
> >ability to exercise power.
>
> Only if you think Azi are people, and not organic machinery.
>
> I think Giraud thinks of them as organic machinery; especially if he
> was manufacturing sabateurs, that would be a very sensibly self-image
> protecting thing for him to think.
That still doesn't make sense, though. You don't give someone very powerful
tools to curb her exercise of power, either.
> >>As close as they could get. They didn't know what was essential. Ari I
> >>knew, maybe that's what she hadn't got to yet.
> >
> >Do you think Ari I wanted continuation rather than improvement?
>
> She almost had to want improvement, she didn't like herself all that
> much, or at least so I read a lot of her notes to Ari II.
Really? The sense I got was that she thought she'd done about as well as
anyone could, under the circumstances.
What makes you think Ari I knew what was essential?
> >I think--or hope, anyway--that the sequel will have a lot more about the
> >interventions Ari I wanted to run on Justin, and things that went wrong
> >with them. A lot went right, obviously: he seems to be really good for
> >Ari II in general, and he's the Special she wanted, focusing on the
> >areas she wanted; but *she didn't get to finish.* She knew she was
> >dying, but she didn't expect to die just yet; and she certainly didn't
> >expect that Jordan would be booted completely out of power that soon and
> >that fast and that Giraud would run brutal interventions on both Justin
> >and Grant and that Justin would go underground for years instead of
> >becoming a power in his own right.
>
> Yes.
>
> This is what convinces me that no way, no how, was it suicide; too
> many free variables.
>
> She might not have known just how vengeful Giraud would be, out of his
> hopeless love for her, but she would certainly have been aware of the
> possibility.
Suicide never struck me as particularly like Ari in any event. And it's not
just Giraud who was a loose screw at that point; she was in delicate external
negotiations just then, too.
> >If Ari I hadn't died so precipitately, she might among other things
> >have turned Justin into a fairly good psych-match for Geoffrey Carnath
> >for Ari II.
> >
> >That really scares me.
>
> I don't think she meant to, becuase Geoffry Carnath wasn't essential
> and Ari I would have known that.
What makes you think that? I got the impression from Denys that he and Giraud
violated her directions by not replicating Geoffrey Carnath.
--m.
Graydon
>In article <7ac9t0$hjh$1...@lara.on.ca>,
> gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>> In article <7a7oho$g3u$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>> >In article <918998...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>> >>In article <79vafs$r7f$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> >Ari I's tapeset for Gehenna didn't include Union at all; it focused on
>> >"world". I suppose Ari might not have anticipated that the calibans
>> >would be such a major focus--when Gehenna was founded, had humans run
>> >into any aliens besides Downers yet? -- but it seems more likely that
>> >she knew they'd be major, just not how.
>>
>> I'm not sure she knew they were _there_, never mind knowing that they
>> were sentinent.
>
>That hadn't occurred to me. I'll keep a look-out on the next re-read.
Ari's notes give the impression of near-complete ignorance, and given
the way all humans in space seem to agree about sophont life on
planets, if they had figured out about the Calibans by the time the
political ruccus about the colony hits the Union government, I don't
think it would have gone as well for Ari as it did.
>What seemed to go into the Gehenna tapes most was a definition of "problem",
>even more than "attitudes towards problemsolving". There are possible
>objectives besides "Defend your world", especially for Union, whose attitudes
>to worlds are extremely ambivalent.
Only if 'world' is 'planetary body, roughly earth-sized'.
If it's 'place of habitation', they don't seem to have any ambiguity
around the idea at all.
>> >I see Ari I and Denys as very similar in this actually, they're both
>> >very aggressive and very prone to controlling their environments; it's
>> >just that Ari's sure that she can control things that Denys isn't sure
>> >he can.
>>
>> I think there is actually a difference there which goes beyond this;
>> Ari is sure she can manipulate actual _people_, and Denys is much,
>> much less confident of this, he is a manipulator par excellence but
>> doesn't believe his skills generalize outside of Reseune. Ari pretty
>> clearly _does_ think her skills generalize.
>
>I was thinking of their environment *as* people. The physical setup of Cyteen
I think people are a component of their environment, but Ari II
doesn't think of going outside as something that will kill her, and
Denys surely does.
>encourages this (everything's man-made; I think it's significant that Ari I
>worries about this), and the obsessions of Reseune pretty much enforce it.
If social order collapses, all die. That's very much in the back of
everyone's heads, certainly.
>> >I don't think either Ari ever really gets the notion of competition;
>> >they're both sure of being the biggest shark in the ocean.
>>
>> While hating that, bitterly, becuase no one will argue with them.
>
>Yes. Have you read =Wave Without A Shore=?
I don't think so. I may have bounced off it a long while ago when I
wasn't up to reading it.
This is what Justin was for, in part; someone who would provide an
echo but who wouldn't be a threat, so Ari II could have a peer she
wouldn't feel compelled to destroy.
>> They don't want to pull themselves out of their work far enough to
>> raise kids, is how I read that, and the social imperative to do so has
>> been weakening over time.
>
>It's not just that. Julia Strassen and Jordan Warrick at least both spend
>lots of time on their kids; they just do exactly the wrong things to bring
>them up as independent people. They're a generation of dominants dominating
>their own children. Nobody trains kids to use power; and everybody trains
Well... there's a generation of educators whose conceptual default in
education is azi.
>them to see Reseune as the center of the universe. Sensible kids would just
>get the hell *out*, but that's not really thinkable for them.
Even if they could think it, they wouldn't be allowed to do it. Being
born into Reseune as a CIT is the equivalent of being born with Top
Secret or higher clearance; you _can't_ leave, you know too much. And
Reseune is a sovereign planet as a legal entity.
>> >>If your Abban theory is right, that would imply that Giraud at least
>> >>(and probably Denys) didn't ever know. Because that would be acting
>> >>on initiative.
>> >
>> >What's Graydon's Abban theory? I missed that.
[Aban theory snipped]
>> (Ari understands that Azi are human in both iterations but much, much
>> better in the second one, which is why I think your point about Ollie
>> is such a very good one.)
>
>That's ... really interesting. My instinct is to disagree, but I need to
>think about it more, in slower-than-Usenet time. :)
Well, let me know when you reach any conclusions.
It's about the only way to explain Aban's behaviour at the end; he
isn't likely to have just lost it, hundred year old security azi with
really deep tape groves in their brain don't.
>I can't think of many people besides Cherryh who would have the nerve to
>start off a 700-page novel with a murder and never tell you who done it.
>Although, of course, *she* may think the solution's perfectly clear ...
Not from what I recall of reports of conversations; there was a period
of time in which Sera Cherryh was apparently of the opinion that she
didn't know herself if it was a murder or not.
>> My best guess is that Florian and Catlin were a high-end experiement
>> with making azi stable through pair bonds and the conclusion was that
>> it was too delicate for general production.
>
>That still doesn't explain why security azi, though. Possibly during the War
For F&C I, security azi becuase the war was looming, and they didn't
know what was possible yet, and finding out was a priority; sticking
that pair with Ari gave them some equivalent Resner CIT peer
socialization, and 'why Ari' is probably contained in the shortage of
CITs that smart. (It would be very interesting to know where they got
Florian and Catlin's genes.)
Security because military leadership experiemental designs -- do we
know if F&C have an X on their cards? -- go into security, which in
the case of Reseune is the military of a sovereign territory.
>that was the type they were most familiar with producing, and that they had
>the most baseline data on.
Not when F&C I were created; She got them before the War started when
she was 17. They were probably an experiement to see just how far Azi
could go, in terms of stability and innitiative. We don't know that
they started off in security, just that they ended up there as Ari I
ended up with more and more need for security -- in part, to protect
her from Geoffrey Carnath. The first time around, I don't think their
adult roles were _planned_.
F&C II, well, Ari II certainly needs security, and they can't change
F&C much, they're an essential part of the program.
>> >Even if you don't think azi are capable of independent action, giving a
>> >child two people to be responsible for is an odd way of curbing her
>> >ability to exercise power.
>>
>> Only if you think Azi are people, and not organic machinery.
>>
>> I think Giraud thinks of them as organic machinery; especially if he
>> was manufacturing sabateurs, that would be a very sensibly self-image
>> protecting thing for him to think.
>
>That still doesn't make sense, though. You don't give someone very powerful
>tools to curb her exercise of power, either.
They _have_ to give Ari II _someone_ as security; deviating from the
program is a bad idea. Giraud is perfectly well able to think of it as
Florian and Catlin being _his_ tools. We don't know who did their set
design -- or what Ari I edited for the next mark of the design, either
-- but they only become a scary thing to give Ari II if you think they
can do what she wants, rather than what she's told them to do.
Giraud believes in hierarchical power structures, put it that way, and
Ari has a glimmer and Ari II has way more than a glimmer about the
collective exercise of power -- that major, major theme of
:Hellburner: -- and Giraud can't see that model, it's not in his
world. Denys doesn't consider them other than as a question of how
they affect the project to get Ari back.
Reseune was half-founded by spacers, and they used spacer authority
structures when they created it; the Nyes _aren't_ spacers, and they
use different authority structures, and it's possible to read :Cyteen:
as the resolution of the conflict between the two organizational
philosophies.
>> >>As close as they could get. They didn't know what was essential. Ari I
>> >>knew, maybe that's what she hadn't got to yet.
>> >
>> >Do you think Ari I wanted continuation rather than improvement?
>>
>> She almost had to want improvement, she didn't like herself all that
>> much, or at least so I read a lot of her notes to Ari II.
>
>Really? The sense I got was that she thought she'd done about as well as
>anyone could, under the circumstances.
Sure.
That doesn't mean she liked the constraints of those circumstances.
She's terribly, terribly afraid that she's a sociopath; she's afraid
her replacement will be, too.
>What makes you think Ari I knew what was essential?
Macrosets determine microsets. She was right about that. _Which_
stress, and which partial victory over her adult-dominated environment
at that age, that's not important. Beating Khalid in a PR war will do
just fine.
>> >If Ari I hadn't died so precipitately, she might among other things
>> >have turned Justin into a fairly good psych-match for Geoffrey Carnath
>> >for Ari II.
>> >
>> >That really scares me.
>>
>> I don't think she meant to, becuase Geoffry Carnath wasn't essential
>> and Ari I would have known that.
>
>What makes you think that? I got the impression from Denys that he and Giraud
>violated her directions by not replicating Geoffrey Carnath.
They were afraid that it would take Geoffrey Carnath's abuse; what it
appears to really take is adults she can't dominate and a partial
success as evidence that she can _hope_ to get control of her
environment if she works as hard as she can.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal ţe heardra, heorte ţe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal ţe mare ţe ure maegen lytlađ.
Tony Zbaraschuk
>In article <7aqlqr$52q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>Ari's notes give the impression of near-complete ignorance, and given
>the way all humans in space seem to agree about sophont life on
>planets, if they had figured out about the Calibans by the time the
>political ruccus about the colony hits the Union government, I don't
>think it would have gone as well for Ari as it did.
I'd have to check the timelines to be sure, but my impression is
that even by the end of _40K in Gehenna_ the Alliance observers (and
hence, probably, the Union folks looking over their shoulder) aren't
real sure that the calibans are sentient; it's only when the battle
is over that they've figured it out.
>>> My best guess is that Florian and Catlin were a high-end experiement
>>> with making azi stable through pair bonds and the conclusion was that
>>> it was too delicate for general production.
>>
>>That still doesn't explain why security azi, though. Possibly during the War
>
>For F&C I, security azi becuase the war was looming, and they didn't
>know what was possible yet, and finding out was a priority; sticking
>that pair with Ari gave them some equivalent Resner CIT peer
>socialization, and 'why Ari' is probably contained in the shortage of
>CITs that smart. (It would be very interesting to know where they got
>Florian and Catlin's genes.)
From Admiral Azov, maybe? Of course, it's probably impossible to tell,
especially given that they could have easily done some little bits and
pieces of body-work to make any resemblance very non-obvious (the
way Ari I did with Grant: some minor physical changes to Jordan
Warrick's geneset. I think.)
>Not when F&C I were created; She got them before the War started when
>she was 17.
I thought she had them earlier than that, as Geoffrey Carnath's abuse
took place when she was about 14, and F&C were around then. Or am
I missing something? Surely Giraud and Denys wouldn't have
messed up the replication experiment by giving Ari II her azi seven
years early.
>Reseune was half-founded by spacers, and they used spacer authority
>structures when they created it; the Nyes _aren't_ spacers, and they
>use different authority structures, and it's possible to read :Cyteen:
>as the resolution of the conflict between the two organizational
>philosophies.
Would you mind elaborating on that somewhat? My memories of
_Hellburner_ are rather vague.
>>> >If Ari I hadn't died so precipitately, she might among other things
>>> >have turned Justin into a fairly good psych-match for Geoffrey Carnath
>>> >for Ari II.
>>> >
>>> >That really scares me.
>>>
>>> I don't think she meant to, becuase Geoffry Carnath wasn't essential
>>> and Ari I would have known that.
>>
>>What makes you think that? I got the impression from Denys that he and Giraud
>>violated her directions by not replicating Geoffrey Carnath.
>
>They were afraid that it would take Geoffrey Carnath's abuse; what it
>appears to really take is adults she can't dominate and a partial
>success as evidence that she can _hope_ to get control of her
>environment if she works as hard as she can.
That makes sense.
But did Giraud and Denys _know_ what Geoffrey had done? I get the
impression that they weren't quite sure, being only children at the
time themselves. Of course, they may have been editing things down
for Ari II's ears, but the impression I got was that they didn't know
about the abuse (or they may have thought it was directed at Florian
instead of Ari) -- all they saw from the outside was the argument,
and a bit of hospitalization records, and all for an apparently
insignificant cause. Of course, they're fairly smart, and they might
have figured it out... but did they?
Micole Sudberg
>In article <7aqlqr$52q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>>In article <7ac9t0$hjh$1...@lara.on.ca>,
>> gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>>> In article <7a7oho$g3u$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>>> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>>> >In article <918998...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>> >>In article <79vafs$r7f$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>Still considerable spoilers for :Cyteen: and :40k in Gehenna:.
>
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>>> >I see Ari I and Denys as very similar in this actually, they're both
>>> >very aggressive and very prone to controlling their environments; it's
>>> >just that Ari's sure that she can control things that Denys isn't sure
>>> >he can.
>>>
>>> I think there is actually a difference there which goes beyond this;
>>> Ari is sure she can manipulate actual _people_, and Denys is much,
>>> much less confident of this, he is a manipulator par excellence but
>>> doesn't believe his skills generalize outside of Reseune. Ari pretty
>>> clearly _does_ think her skills generalize.
>>
>>I was thinking of their environment *as* people. The physical setup of Cyteen
>
>I think people are a component of their environment, but Ari II
>doesn't think of going outside as something that will kill her, and
>Denys surely does.
>
>>encourages this (everything's man-made; I think it's significant that Ari I
>>worries about this), and the obsessions of Reseune pretty much enforce it.
>
>If social order collapses, all die. That's very much in the back of
>everyone's heads, certainly.
That wasn't what I meant, exactly. I was thinking more of Ari's work on
Horse and plants and her concerns that humans in an environment of
nothing but other humans were missing something essential. Reseune is
an environment where the majority of living things are humans (even
plants seem to be relatively rare; and the Creators of Cyteen
apparently *weren't* tremendously fond of beetles), and it's a society
where most of the people in it spend their time thinking about creating
more people.
>>> >I don't think either Ari ever really gets the notion of competition;
>>> >they're both sure of being the biggest shark in the ocean.
>>>
>>> While hating that, bitterly, becuase no one will argue with them.
>>
>>Yes. Have you read =Wave Without A Shore=?
>
>I don't think so. I may have bounced off it a long while ago when I
>wasn't up to reading it.
I think it may be the first place where she sets up the wall/echo
analogy, and it's probably the most intense working out of it. It's
very clearly a thought-experiment done as a novel, and the amazing thing
is that both the experiment and the novel parts work.
It's probably the closest a Cherryh novel gets to Greg Egan.
>>> They don't want to pull themselves out of their work far enough to
>>> raise kids, is how I read that, and the social imperative to do so has
>>> been weakening over time.
>>
>>It's not just that. Julia Strassen and Jordan Warrick at least both spend
>>lots of time on their kids; they just do exactly the wrong things to bring
>>them up as independent people. They're a generation of dominants dominating
>>their own children. Nobody trains kids to use power; and everybody trains
>
>Well... there's a generation of educators whose conceptual default in
>education is azi.
Good point.
>>them to see Reseune as the center of the universe. Sensible kids would just
>>get the hell *out*, but that's not really thinkable for them.
>
>Even if they could think it, they wouldn't be allowed to do it. Being
>born into Reseune as a CIT is the equivalent of being born with Top
>Secret or higher clearance; you _can't_ leave, you know too much. And
>Reseune is a sovereign planet as a legal entity.
Are you sure? What kind of quarantine do they put Valery Schwartz and
Julia Strassen in when they send them out? I know Julia goes to another
experimental site, but I can't remember what they say about Valery.
>>> >>If your Abban theory is right, that would imply that Giraud at least
>>> >>(and probably Denys) didn't ever know. Because that would be acting
>>> >>on initiative.
>>> >
>>> >What's Graydon's Abban theory? I missed that.
>[Aban theory snipped]
>>> (Ari understands that Azi are human in both iterations but much, much
>>> better in the second one, which is why I think your point about Ollie
>>> is such a very good one.)
>>
>>That's ... really interesting. My instinct is to disagree, but I need to
>>think about it more, in slower-than-Usenet time. :)
>
>Well, let me know when you reach any conclusions.
I assure you that when I have something presentable I will post in
copious detail.
>>I can't think of many people besides Cherryh who would have the nerve to
>>start off a 700-page novel with a murder and never tell you who done it.
>>Although, of course, *she* may think the solution's perfectly clear ...
>
>Not from what I recall of reports of conversations; there was a period
>of time in which Sera Cherryh was apparently of the opinion that she
>didn't know herself if it was a murder or not.
Huh. And I never took the suicide theory seriously ...
>>> My best guess is that Florian and Catlin were a high-end experiement
>>> with making azi stable through pair bonds and the conclusion was that
>>> it was too delicate for general production.
>>
>>That still doesn't explain why security azi, though. Possibly during the War
>
>For F&C I, security azi becuase the war was looming, and they didn't
>know what was possible yet, and finding out was a priority; sticking
>that pair with Ari gave them some equivalent Resner CIT peer
>socialization, and 'why Ari' is probably contained in the shortage of
>CITs that smart. (It would be very interesting to know where they got
>Florian and Catlin's genes.)
>
>Security because military leadership experiemental designs -- do we
>know if F&C have an X on their cards? -- go into security, which in
>the case of Reseune is the military of a sovereign territory.
Where do regular experimental designs go? They report directly to the
Head of Reseune, right?--I thought that was the hold Ari had over Grant.
So X's would have reported to Geoffrey Carnath, and then to Denys;
except that an Alpha's supervision above his or her supervisor
seems to be largely a technicality.
>>that was the type they were most familiar with producing, and that they had
>>the most baseline data on.
>
>Not when F&C I were created; She got them before the War started when
>she was 17. They were probably an experiement to see just how far Azi
Thanks--I always get the interactions of personal timelines and
historical ones tangled.
>could go, in terms of stability and innitiative. We don't know that
>they started off in security, just that they ended up there as Ari I
>ended up with more and more need for security -- in part, to protect
>her from Geoffrey Carnath. The first time around, I don't think their
>adult roles were _planned_.
>F&C II, well, Ari II certainly needs security, and they can't change
>F&C much, they're an essential part of the program.
Precisely. The second time around, they were in security training for
months before their assignment to Ari II, at a point in the project
where Denys was trying to keep everything as much like its first
incidence as possible. I think F&C I have to have been in security
training before being assigned to Ari I, too.
<snip>
>They _have_ to give Ari II _someone_ as security; deviating from the
>program is a bad idea. Giraud is perfectly well able to think of it as
>Florian and Catlin being _his_ tools. We don't know who did their set
I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
afterward in some way.
>design -- or what Ari I edited for the next mark of the design, either
>-- but they only become a scary thing to give Ari II if you think they
>can do what she wants, rather than what she's told them to do.
Only if you don't think what she's told them to do is scary.
>Giraud believes in hierarchical power structures, put it that way, and
>Ari has a glimmer and Ari II has way more than a glimmer about the
>collective exercise of power -- that major, major theme of
>:Hellburner: -- and Giraud can't see that model, it's not in his
How do you see that playing out in =Hellburner=? I haven't read it in a
while, and I remember it as being mostly about the lack of power, not
the exercise of it.
>Reseune was half-founded by spacers, and they used spacer authority
>structures when they created it; the Nyes _aren't_ spacers, and they
>use different authority structures, and it's possible to read :Cyteen:
>as the resolution of the conflict between the two organizational
>philosophies.
"Resolution" seems overly optimistic.
>>What makes you think Ari I knew what was essential?
>
>Macrosets determine microsets. She was right about that. _Which_
>stress, and which partial victory over her adult-dominated environment
>at that age, that's not important. Beating Khalid in a PR war will do
>just fine.
Ari was right about the macrosets. That doesn't solve the problem of
figuring out what's *in* the macroset for any individual.
>>> >If Ari I hadn't died so precipitately, she might among other things
>>> >have turned Justin into a fairly good psych-match for Geoffrey Carnath
>>> >for Ari II.
>>> >
>>> >That really scares me.
>>>
>>> I don't think she meant to, becuase Geoffry Carnath wasn't essential
>>> and Ari I would have known that.
>>
>>What makes you think that? I got the impression from Denys that he and Giraud
>>violated her directions by not replicating Geoffrey Carnath.
>
>They were afraid that it would take Geoffrey Carnath's abuse; what it
>appears to really take is adults she can't dominate and a partial
>success as evidence that she can _hope_ to get control of her
>environment if she works as hard as she can.
Right--but if Denys and Giraud were afraid that it would take Geoffrey
in particular, either Ari I wasn't sure whether it would take Geoffrey's
abuse or simply the kind of stress you describe, or she didn't document
what it would take in any place Denys and Giraud could find. That's why
I don't think Ari I was sure what was essential, although I think she
had the concept down (that not all the events needed to be replicated in
detail). I'm not sure this is something that can be figured out before
the experiment's run; and I'm not sure how transferrable the results for
one psychset are to another.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Ruben II in the sequel.
--m.
***********************************
Micole Iris Sudberg
sud...@staff.juno.com
"Language rustles around her with many voices,
none of them hers, all of them hers."
--A. S. Byatt, _Babel Tower_
Micole Sudberg
>In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
spoilers for both =Cyteen= and =40,000 in Gehenna=
>>Ari's notes give the impression of near-complete ignorance, and given
>>the way all humans in space seem to agree about sophont life on
>>planets, if they had figured out about the Calibans by the time the
>>political ruccus about the colony hits the Union government, I don't
>>think it would have gone as well for Ari as it did.
>
>I'd have to check the timelines to be sure, but my impression is
>that even by the end of _40K in Gehenna_ the Alliance observers (and
>hence, probably, the Union folks looking over their shoulder) aren't
>real sure that the calibans are sentient; it's only when the battle
>is over that they've figured it out.
From the genealogies in =40K=, it looks like McGee came to Gehenna 10
generations in. Make it about 200 years from founding, unless the
generations should be shorter. I don't think that falls within the
=Cyteen= timespan, but I'm not absolutely sure.
<snip>
>>For F&C I, security azi becuase the war was looming, and they didn't
>>know what was possible yet, and finding out was a priority; sticking
>>that pair with Ari gave them some equivalent Resner CIT peer
>>socialization, and 'why Ari' is probably contained in the shortage of
>>CITs that smart. (It would be very interesting to know where they got
>>Florian and Catlin's genes.)
>
>From Admiral Azov, maybe? Of course, it's probably impossible to tell,
>especially given that they could have easily done some little bits and
>pieces of body-work to make any resemblance very non-obvious (the
>way Ari I did with Grant: some minor physical changes to Jordan
>Warrick's geneset. I think.)
This is a really persistent misconception about Grant, and I'm not sure
why people keep coming up with it. Cherryh is unusually straightforward
about his geneset: "another Special geneset, but, for certain legal
reasons, she had corrected a genetic fault, incidentally expressing a
few aesthetic recessives, to an extent that the legitimate descendants
of a certain slightly myopic, brown-haired, unathletic biologist with a
heart defect ... would find astounding." (Warner hc, p. 38)
Union has access to a lot of genesets, even from geniuses; it's not
reasonable that every character is directly related to other characters
we know about.
<stuff we all agree on snipped ;)>
>But did Giraud and Denys _know_ what Geoffrey had done? I get the
>impression that they weren't quite sure, being only children at the
>time themselves. Of course, they may have been editing things down
>for Ari II's ears, but the impression I got was that they didn't know
>about the abuse (or they may have thought it was directed at Florian
>instead of Ari) -- all they saw from the outside was the argument,
>and a bit of hospitalization records, and all for an apparently
>insignificant cause. Of course, they're fairly smart, and they might
>have figured it out... but did they?
They got it from Ari I's notes.
Tony Zbaraschuk
>>
>>especially given that they could have easily done some little bits and
>>pieces of body-work to make any resemblance very non-obvious (the
>>way Ari I did with Grant: some minor physical changes to Jordan
>>Warrick's geneset. I think.)
>
>This is a really persistent misconception about Grant, and I'm not sure
>why people keep coming up with it. Cherryh is unusually straightforward
>about his geneset: "another Special geneset, but, for certain legal
>reasons, she had corrected a genetic fault, incidentally expressing a
>few aesthetic recessives, to an extent that the legitimate descendants
>of a certain slightly myopic, brown-haired, unathletic biologist with a
>heart defect ... would find astounding." (Warner hc, p. 38)
Ah. For some reason I missed the key word, "biologist" -- I was
under the impression that Ari I was using Jordan's geneset so she'd
be able to compare the different experiences between azi-raised and
CIT-raised copies of the geneset.
>Union has access to a lot of genesets, even from geniuses; it's not
>reasonable that every character is directly related to other characters
>we know about.
Distinct point. I wonder if they're good enough to assemble a
geneset from scratch, or do they only do occasional modifications
here and there?
>>But did Giraud and Denys _know_ what Geoffrey had done? I get the
>
>They got it from Ari I's notes.
Which notes? They don't have access to her notes in Base One;
those are for Ari II. Admittedly, it's entirely possible that
Ari included it in her general notes on the Project, or that they
figured it out on their own, but my impression when they were
discussing Ari I with Ari II was that they didn't know everything
that had been going on back there.
I could be wrong, though. Any evidence that I overlooked?
PTCash...@ibm.net
>EdLincoln wrote:
>> The ruthless swomen in C.J. Cherryh's books are not the standard
seductresses.
>> The seductresses power comes from her sexuality. The C.J. Cherryh
character's
>> power is unconnected with her sexuality. If anything, they use mystical
or
archetype or
>> perhaps female equivalents of the standard male "sexual harrasser".
>>
>certainly falls into that category.
Ah, but IIRC, it turns out that Signy is the one who is "had" in that
"relationship". Wasn't Josh a bit more sophisticated than he let on?
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~
Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist. (Apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)
--PTCas...@ibm.net--Remove NOTHING to reply
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~
Graydon
Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
Who has finally got around to finishing a re-read of :Cyteen:...
>>In article <7aqlqr$52q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
><spoiler tape ahead>
Just plain old fashioned spoilers; spoiler _tape_, eww. I don't want
to experience what that is.
>I'd have to check the timelines to be sure, but my impression is
>that even by the end of _40K in Gehenna_ the Alliance observers (and
>hence, probably, the Union folks looking over their shoulder) aren't
>real sure that the calibans are sentient; it's only when the battle
>is over that they've figured it out.
Yup. So early in Ari II's tenure as Head of Security, there will be
another outbreak of panic and with any luck Defense will have just
elected Khalid and _he_ can take it on the chin.
>>>That still doesn't explain why security azi, though. Possibly during the War
>>
>>For F&C I, security azi becuase the war was looming, and they didn't
>>know what was possible yet, and finding out was a priority; sticking
>>that pair with Ari gave them some equivalent Resner CIT peer
>>socialization, and 'why Ari' is probably contained in the shortage of
>>CITs that smart. (It would be very interesting to know where they got
>>Florian and Catlin's genes.)
>
>From Admiral Azov, maybe? Of course, it's probably impossible to tell,
>especially given that they could have easily done some little bits and
>pieces of body-work to make any resemblance very non-obvious (the
>way Ari I did with Grant: some minor physical changes to Jordan
>Warrick's geneset. I think.)
I thought so to, but it's not, it's a brown haired, myopic, unathletic
biologist. No idea who that is, I don't think we know enough to tell.
>>Not when F&C I were created; She got them before the War started when
>>she was 17.
>
>I thought she had them earlier than that, as Geoffrey Carnath's abuse
>took place when she was about 14, and F&C were around then. Or am
Sorry, I was unclear.
Ari I got them before the War started; when the War started, she was 17.
>I missing something? Surely Giraud and Denys wouldn't have
>messed up the replication experiment by giving Ari II her azi seven
>years early.
Consider that they really and truly _did_ botch it, I am taking no
bets, but no, I think they arrived a little early but not _that_
early. Can't decide if Florian's reassignment to Catlin is supposed
to surprise him so the imprinting will take better or is evidence of
haste on the part of the Project.
>>Reseune was half-founded by spacers, and they used spacer authority
>>structures when they created it; the Nyes _aren't_ spacers, and they
>>use different authority structures, and it's possible to read :Cyteen:
>>as the resolution of the conflict between the two organizational
>>philosophies.
>
>Would you mind elaborating on that somewhat? My memories of
>_Hellburner_ are rather vague.
Ok.
This actually has two levels; Reseune is an independent entity,
politically. (Provided there is never a Centrist majority, anyway.)
What _really_ makes administrative decisions inside Reseune are Family
Meetings; that's merchant-spacer culture, right there. Map
'Administrator' onto 'Captain' and there you go, it's an adaptation of
spacer culture to running a research facility, right down to the
reverence for seniority.
The _other_ level, well, we see -- at the high end, folks who have
Alpha Licenses as a matter of course, rather than profession -- two
general splits in relationship pattern between the Reseune political
elite and their companion alpha azi.
There's Giraud and Denys, who relate to Abban and Seely very
'properly'; distantly, and without stopping to think that the
Supervisor role that works with child-azi doesn't work at all with
adult genius, _however_ they got their world view.
Then there's Jane Strassen and Ollie, who act a little bit like a
married couple but who are mostly, to borrow Florian and Catlin's
term, Partners; the two of them do one job, and it's a job no one
person could do even if that person had all the necessary skills.
Amy and Quentin are likely to likely to come out that way, too; this
is very much like the way the rider command teams are portrayed as
working in :Hellburner:; clear demarcation of responsibilities and a
great deal of ego subsumption.
Then we have the example of Grant and Justin, who were carefully set
up by Ari I as a test of _something_, something awfully close to one
person in some psych senses. Presumably in part a check to see if she
could duplicate F&C with a CIT as half of the pair.
Then we've got the difference between the first instance of Ari and
Catlin and Florian and the second; the first is somewhere between the
Nyes and Jane in how she treats her Azi; the second is somewhere
between how Jane and Ollie worked together and how Grant and Justin
are an entity.
This has a lot to do with how the replication botched; the first Ari's
major driving force was something close to rage, rage on a sexual
trigger.
Ari II _likes_ sex; if she hadn't had Ari I's expectations put into
her head with quite such comprehensive force, she'd have rather less
trouble with it than she does, and for a teenager under hellish social
pressure, one could conduct one's self much, much less well than Ari
II does. _)She(_ believes that her Maman loved her. What she wants
is to set things up so everyone can be happy, not so she is sure she's
safe, she's repeatedly taken chances with her safety to get a more
generally happy outcome. Ari I would never do that.
Since we can be fairly certain that Ari II and Justin were meant to
connect by Ari I, and since (one of) F&C remarks that it's very
natural that sera partners with Justin, and means partners in their
sense, it's not at all clear but what the intention was to provide
next-generation command crew for Reseune; Ari I had to make do with
Denys as the Administrator while she handled the politics, but that
was definately sub-optimal. Having Justin as the Admin would be
_much_ better for Ari II. (except of course it's been buggered up, and
is just as likely to come out some other way around, now.)
>>They were afraid that it would take Geoffrey Carnath's abuse; what it
>>appears to really take is adults she can't dominate and a partial
>>success as evidence that she can _hope_ to get control of her
>>environment if she works as hard as she can.
>
>That makes sense.
>
>But did Giraud and Denys _know_ what Geoffrey had done? I get the
Yes. Giraud had the security records, and while the only _complete_
record was in base 1, Giraud is no dummy, and had some folks to talk
to who had been alive at the time.
>impression that they weren't quite sure, being only children at the
>time themselves. Of course, they may have been editing things down
>for Ari II's ears, but the impression I got was that they didn't know
>about the abuse (or they may have thought it was directed at Florian
>instead of Ari) -- all they saw from the outside was the argument,
>and a bit of hospitalization records, and all for an apparently
>insignificant cause. Of course, they're fairly smart, and they might
>have figured it out... but did they?
I think so. Denys _says_ that they decided not to be abusive, in not
quite so many words, when Ari moves out.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
Graydon
Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
[Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
>>If social order collapses, all die. That's very much in the back of
>>everyone's heads, certainly.
>
>That wasn't what I meant, exactly. I was thinking more of Ari's work on
>Horse and plants and her concerns that humans in an environment of
>nothing but other humans were missing something essential. Reseune is
>an environment where the majority of living things are humans (even
>plants seem to be relatively rare; and the Creators of Cyteen
>apparently *weren't* tremendously fond of beetles), and it's a society
>where most of the people in it spend their time thinking about creating
>more people.
Ah, ok, yes, lack of social context for other forms of life.
They definately have that.
>>>> >I don't think either Ari ever really gets the notion of competition;
>>>> >they're both sure of being the biggest shark in the ocean.
>>>>
>>>> While hating that, bitterly, becuase no one will argue with them.
>>>
>>>Yes. Have you read =Wave Without A Shore=?
>>
>>I don't think so. I may have bounced off it a long while ago when I
>>wasn't up to reading it.
>
>I think it may be the first place where she sets up the wall/echo
>analogy, and it's probably the most intense working out of it. It's
>very clearly a thought-experiment done as a novel, and the amazing thing
>is that both the experiment and the novel parts work.
That's not the one where the ship gets lost in jump, is it?
>It's probably the closest a Cherryh novel gets to Greg Egan.
Heh. That sounds like a very odd description in a lot of ways.
>>>them to see Reseune as the center of the universe. Sensible kids would just
>>>get the hell *out*, but that's not really thinkable for them.
>>
>>Even if they could think it, they wouldn't be allowed to do it. Being
>>born into Reseune as a CIT is the equivalent of being born with Top
>>Secret or higher clearance; you _can't_ leave, you know too much. And
>>Reseune is a sovereign planet as a legal entity.
>
>Are you sure? What kind of quarantine do they put Valery Schwartz and
>Julia Strassen in when they send them out? I know Julia goes to another
The send them to Fargone; they stay inside Reseune controlled
territory -- so does Jordan, at Planys -- it's just far away from Ari.
>experimental site, but I can't remember what they say about Valery.
He got sent to Fargone station with his mother, didn't he?
[Abban theory snipped]
>>>That's ... really interesting. My instinct is to disagree, but I need to
>>>think about it more, in slower-than-Usenet time. :)
>>
>>Well, let me know when you reach any conclusions.
>
>I assure you that when I have something presentable I will post in
>copious detail.
Oh, good.
>>>I can't think of many people besides Cherryh who would have the nerve to
>>>start off a 700-page novel with a murder and never tell you who done it.
>>>Although, of course, *she* may think the solution's perfectly clear ...
>>
>>Not from what I recall of reports of conversations; there was a period
>>of time in which Sera Cherryh was apparently of the opinion that she
>>didn't know herself if it was a murder or not.
>
>Huh. And I never took the suicide theory seriously ...
I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
it; it could have been a real accident.
>>Security because military leadership experiemental designs -- do we
>>know if F&C have an X on their cards? -- go into security, which in
>>the case of Reseune is the military of a sovereign territory.
>
>Where do regular experimental designs go? They report directly to the
They all stay contracted to Reseune, but they could be assigned almost
anywhere, and must have to be from time to time.
>Head of Reseune, right?--I thought that was the hold Ari had over Grant.
The hold over Grant is that the Warwicks can't hold his contract;
Reseune does, so he can be reassigned as an administrative decision
within Reseune. It's interesting that the Nyes don't ever use that as
a serious threat against Justin; I suspect that the social
consequences of actually seperating a pair like that would be dire.
>So X's would have reported to Geoffrey Carnath, and then to Denys;
>except that an Alpha's supervision above his or her supervisor
>seems to be largely a technicality.
I don't think so; we don't see it in a lot of detail, but we get
repeated comments, particularly when Justin and Grant are arguing,
about how Alpha azi tend to go strange -- the tape sets aren't really
complicated enough to support the world view of someone that smart.
So either you socialize them, and they get more and more CIT-like over
time, or you don't, and they get stranger as they age.
It would appear to be very important to an alpha azi that they
socialize well.
>>>that was the type they were most familiar with producing, and that they had
>>>the most baseline data on.
>>
>>Not when F&C I were created; She got them before the War started when
>>she was 17. They were probably an experiement to see just how far Azi
>
>Thanks--I always get the interactions of personal timelines and
>historical ones tangled.
It's just _so much_ time. Hard to keep track of.
>>F&C II, well, Ari II certainly needs security, and they can't change
>>F&C much, they're an essential part of the program.
>
>Precisely. The second time around, they were in security training for
>months before their assignment to Ari II, at a point in the project
Catlin has never _not_ been in security training. It was just Florian
to whom it was a surprise.
>where Denys was trying to keep everything as much like its first
>incidence as possible. I think F&C I have to have been in security
>training before being assigned to Ari I, too.
I think that's very likely, but not the _same_ training; we get that
after the wall-blows-up incident, training is much better now than it
was then.
And, really, it does make sense; the Administrator of Reseune is a
sovereign head of state. Of course they've got bodyguards. Both Aris
were in the position of being the heir apparent when they were born,
so of course they'd get bodyguards, too.
><snip>
>>They _have_ to give Ari II _someone_ as security; deviating from the
>>program is a bad idea. Giraud is perfectly well able to think of it as
>>Florian and Catlin being _his_ tools. We don't know who did their set
>
>I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
>quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
>had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
>afterward in some way.
That really was an order from Ari, is my take on it. She absolutely
cannot afford to have them interogated under psych probe.
Giraud has some terrible blind spots about azi, he really does. I
don't think he understands the azi-cit partnership dynamics well at
all, he seems to see the Justin-Grant pairing as primarily sexual.
>>design -- or what Ari I edited for the next mark of the design, either
>>-- but they only become a scary thing to give Ari II if you think they
>>can do what she wants, rather than what she's told them to do.
>
>Only if you don't think what she's told them to do is scary.
Giraud wouldn't; he's in love with at least the idea of Ari, and he
knows she's smart and isn't going to try anything stupid.
>>Giraud believes in hierarchical power structures, put it that way, and
>>Ari has a glimmer and Ari II has way more than a glimmer about the
>>collective exercise of power -- that major, major theme of
>>:Hellburner: -- and Giraud can't see that model, it's not in his
>
>How do you see that playing out in =Hellburner=? I haven't read it in a
>while, and I remember it as being mostly about the lack of power, not
>the exercise of it.
The rider command structure needs five people to handle the
information flow and make the decisions, and they have to function as
a collective.
Something like that is there in Ari I's intended structure for Ari II
to inherit, also -- and I think coincidentally -- for five people.
{ [Grant,(Justin], <Ari II), [Florian, Catlin] > }
If you can stand the notation; it really wants colours.
I can't figure out precisely what Grant is for; the obvious answer is
necessary ruthlessness, but that makes me blink a bit. (He's _not_
there just to keep Justin happy; they're intellectually peers.) It's
hard to imagine Ari I setting things up so Grant was head of Security
-- Justin was pretty obviously intended to be administrator -- but
that does look a bit like where that was going.
Instead, at least for awhile, they're likely to get _Ari_ as Head of
Security and an interesting timing problem getting Justin's head fixed
-- Giraud sabotaged his ability to be political -- before he's
nominated for Special status. (Which Yanni is about to be in a
position to do, it's his real and long standing conviction, and it
just happens to be very handy for Reseune, politically.)
>>Reseune was half-founded by spacers, and they used spacer authority
>>structures when they created it; the Nyes _aren't_ spacers, and they
>>use different authority structures, and it's possible to read :Cyteen:
>>as the resolution of the conflict between the two organizational
>>philosophies.
>
>"Resolution" seems overly optimistic.
I don't think so; the Nyes, as a political faction, are toast. Yanni
isn't going to fight a distributed collective model.
>>>What makes you think Ari I knew what was essential?
>>
>>Macrosets determine microsets. She was right about that. _Which_
>>stress, and which partial victory over her adult-dominated environment
>>at that age, that's not important. Beating Khalid in a PR war will do
>>just fine.
>
>Ari was right about the macrosets. That doesn't solve the problem of
>figuring out what's *in* the macroset for any individual.
No, but if she could do to Justin what she did to Jordan only
different she's got a really good grasp of the general case.
_Her own_ sets, she botched a bit; she nearly did Ari some harm with
that little romance lecture.
>>>What makes you think that? I got the impression from Denys that he
>>>and Giraud violated her directions by not replicating Geoffrey
>>>Carnath.
>>
>>They were afraid that it would take Geoffrey Carnath's abuse; what
>>it appears to really take is adults she can't dominate and a partial
>>success as evidence that she can _hope_ to get control of her
>>environment if she works as hard as she can.
>
>Right--but if Denys and Giraud were afraid that it would take
>Geoffrey in particular, either Ari I wasn't sure whether it would
>take Geoffrey's abuse or simply the kind of stress you describe, or
>she didn't document what it would take in any place Denys and Giraud
>could find.
She hadn't had time, yet, is what I think. The stuff only she could
do -- the program in Base I for her successor -- had priority.
>That's why I don't think Ari I was sure what was essential, although
>I think she had the concept down (that not all the events needed to
>be replicated in detail). I'm not sure this is something that can be
>figured out before the experiment's run; and I'm not sure how
>transferrable the results for one psychset are to another.
Probably not immensely very transferable, but -- and there's a very
interesting question in this, I think -- they _didn't_ get Ari back.
They got someone with Ari's capabilities who has a very different
fundamental motivation, and it looks like Ari I planned that -- else
why create Justin? -- but she wasn't clear on whether or not the
replication could afford to leave out how _angry_ Ari I was about
everything.
Ari II got Jane Strassen's better anger utilization model, and a
desire to make people happy, rather than whatever Olga left her with
-- something sincerely repressive, I think -- and got positive initial
sexual experiences rather than Ari I's comprehensive abuse. That's
not the same person; Ari II is somewhat more self confident, and
that's going to start scaring people very badly in a little while.
>It'll be interesting to see what happens with Ruben II in the sequel.
That is likely to be interesting, yes.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
Mary K. Kuhner
[someone, attribution lost, wrote]
>>>>Have you read =Wave Without A Shore=?
>That's not the one where the ship gets lost in jump, is it?
The ship that gets lost in Jump is _Port Eternity_. (Arguably there
is another one in _Voyager in Night_.) _Wave Without a Shore_
is very loosely linked (via a reference to Gehenna, though Gehenna
is one of those ubiquitous planet names so this may not even be significant)
to the Union/Alliance continuity, but essentially stands alone. It is
a much odder book, probably the oddest thing Cherryh has ever written
(and she's a devilishly diverse author). It is specifically about the
need of a genius for peers or even opponents, something to bounce off:
that theme plays out on several different levels through the book.
It's almost magical realism, in an SF setting and without magic.
(And I sure hope no one asks me to unpack what I mean by that.)
If you took the author's name off it I would say without hesitation that
it was by the same hand as MA Foster's _The Gameplayers of Zan_ and
_The Morphodite_.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@genetics.washington.edu
labor
>
> In article <7auo9j$igm$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com>,
> Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>
> Who has finally got around to finishing a re-read of :Cyteen:...
<snip contents>
So perhaps you can offer some insight in the question that bugs me
since I have read it. Now, I have read Cyteen in german, so some terms
might sound queer in my reverse translation, but here it goes:
The azi we have seen (except sociolized alphas) display a quite
fragile psyche and need a positive reinforcement of the tape rather
often. On the other hand, they seem easier to deconstruct even to
their deep sets (brainwashed) than any civ and receptive to new
instructions.
Yet lots of them serve in the military and security. I can (barely)
imagine that it doesn't mean so much in the military - at least until
they get in really primitive conditions where they can't get their
tape no matter the stress or are captured. Although in captivity they
probably won't be able to keep much information back.
However it seems folly to employ them in security - if even one
security azi should be captured and secretely worked over by competent
psychs or if something was slipped into their tapes - as seemingly
happened with Abban - the whole system will be compromised.
So what are your thoughts?
Jo Walton
> In article <7auo9j$igm$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com>,
> Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>
> Who has finally got around to finishing a re-read of :Cyteen:...
>
> >>In article <7aqlqr$52q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:> ><spoiler tape ahead>
>
> Just plain old fashioned spoilers; spoiler _tape_, eww. I don't want
> to experience what that is.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
><snip>
> There's Giraud and Denys, who relate to Abban and Seely very
> 'properly'; distantly, and without stopping to think that the
> Supervisor role that works with child-azi doesn't work at all with
> adult genius, _however_ they got their world view.
>
> Then there's Jane Strassen and Ollie, who act a little bit like a
> married couple but who are mostly, to borrow Florian and Catlin's
> term, Partners; the two of them do one job, and it's a job no one
> person could do even if that person had all the necessary skills.
This is the model young Ari thinks she wants - she wants "an Ollie",
when she gets F&C who are partnered with each other and not with her
in that same way she thinks she would have picked just one instead of
two. It's F&C's togetherness that makes her careful of them when it
gets sexual too. I don't know if Ari I set it up like that. But Ollie's
early input made a huge difference I think, Ari II consistently thinks
about Ollie in a very positive and underlying way. Olga had some poor
sap - probably an admin assistant and sex toy, not at all the same.
> Amy and Quentin are likely to likely to come out that way, too; this
> is very much like the way the rider command teams are portrayed as
> working in :Hellburner:; clear demarcation of responsibilities and a
> great deal of ego subsumption.
>
> Then we have the example of Grant and Justin, who were carefully set
> up by Ari I as a test of _something_, something awfully close to one
> person in some psych senses. Presumably in part a check to see if she
> could duplicate F&C with a CIT as half of the pair.
This gives me a horrible thought - you know the rape/intervention? She
said she was going to use him for what she had been planning to use
Grant for. I'd assumed she was lying, but she wasn't lying about his
essay question or that she liked him, and assuming Ari (any value) is
lying rather than telling as much truth as possible is... naive.
> Then we've got the difference between the first instance of Ari and
> Catlin and Florian and the second; the first is somewhere between the
> Nyes and Jane in how she treats her Azi; the second is somewhere
> between how Jane and Ollie worked together and how Grant and Justin
> are an entity.
She hurt Florian (notes) and "they knew when to be afraid". That's
really quite a different pattern.
> This has a lot to do with how the replication botched; the first Ari's
> major driving force was something close to rage, rage on a sexual
> trigger.
>
> Ari II _likes_ sex; if she hadn't had Ari I's expectations put into
> her head with quite such comprehensive force, she'd have rather less
> trouble with it than she does, and for a teenager under hellish social
> pressure, one could conduct one's self much, much less well than Ari
> II does. _)She(_ believes that her Maman loved her. What she wants
She did. Jane wasn't that great a match for Olga, she didn't go into
parenting the second time with a huge ego involvement, she went into it
determind to do a good job for Reseune, and got caught emotionally.
> is to set things up so everyone can be happy, not so she is sure she's
> safe, she's repeatedly taken chances with her safety to get a more
> generally happy outcome. Ari I would never do that.
>
> Since we can be fairly certain that Ari II and Justin were meant to
> connect by Ari I, and since (one of) F&C remarks that it's very
> natural that sera partners with Justin, and means partners in their
> sense, it's not at all clear but what the intention was to provide
> next-generation command crew for Reseune; Ari I had to make do with
> Denys as the Administrator while she handled the politics, but that
> was definately sub-optimal. Having Justin as the Admin would be
> _much_ better for Ari II. (except of course it's been buggered up, and
> is just as likely to come out some other way around, now.)
Justin would be lousy as admin. Too much real time.
What Justin can do for Ari is provide that echo.
> >>They were afraid that it would take Geoffrey Carnath's abuse; what it
> >>appears to really take is adults she can't dominate and a partial
> >>success as evidence that she can _hope_ to get control of her
> >>environment if she works as hard as she can.
> >
> >That makes sense.
> >
> >But did Giraud and Denys _know_ what Geoffrey had done? I get the
>
> Yes. Giraud had the security records, and while the only _complete_
> record was in base 1, Giraud is no dummy, and had some folks to talk
> to who had been alive at the time.
They definitely knew.
Whose decision was it not to go through the Geoffrey-pattern?
Ari II thinks it was Giraud's. If she's right then Ari I would have done
_that_? Thinking it necessary, sure, but... ick. The very odd thing there
I think is Ari I's advice on sex is (awful as it is) advice on being a
sexual predator, not on being sexual prey. It isn't advice that would be
any use whatsoever to someone who was being abused, which makes me wonder.
> >impression that they weren't quite sure, being only children at the
> >time themselves. Of course, they may have been editing things down
> >for Ari II's ears, but the impression I got was that they didn't know
> >about the abuse (or they may have thought it was directed at Florian
> >instead of Ari) -- all they saw from the outside was the argument,
> >and a bit of hospitalization records, and all for an apparently
> >insignificant cause. Of course, they're fairly smart, and they might
> >have figured it out... but did they?
>
> I think so. Denys _says_ that they decided not to be abusive, in not
> quite so many words, when Ari moves out.
Who decided? Denys is very slippery on that.
Jo Walton
> In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>
> [Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
>
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> >>If social order collapses, all die. That's very much in the back of
> >>everyone's heads, certainly.
> >
> >That wasn't what I meant, exactly. I was thinking more of Ari's work on
> >Horse and plants and her concerns that humans in an environment of
> >nothing but other humans were missing something essential. Reseune is
> >an environment where the majority of living things are humans (even
> >plants seem to be relatively rare; and the Creators of Cyteen
> >apparently *weren't* tremendously fond of beetles), and it's a society
> >where most of the people in it spend their time thinking about creating
> >more people.
>
> Ah, ok, yes, lack of social context for other forms of life.
>
> They definately have that.
Ari I was definitely aware of that though, see what Denys says when Ari II
wants Horse. I wonder how much the tapes help - the tapes of learning to
ride. Incidentally, that's a perfectly wonderful set-up for "person from
high tech is transferred to low tech/magical world but knows how to
ride. :]
> >>Even if they could think it, they wouldn't be allowed to do it. Being
> >>born into Reseune as a CIT is the equivalent of being born with Top
> >>Secret or higher clearance; you _can't_ leave, you know too much. And
> >>Reseune is a sovereign planet as a legal entity.
> >
> >Are you sure? What kind of quarantine do they put Valery Schwartz and
> >Julia Strassen in when they send them out? I know Julia goes to another
>
> The send them to Fargone; they stay inside Reseune controlled
> territory -- so does Jordan, at Planys -- it's just far away from Ari.
>
> >experimental site, but I can't remember what they say about Valery.
>
> He got sent to Fargone station with his mother, didn't he?
He did. Nobody ever actually leaves. Also nobody _arrives_ - if Reseune
wants staff they have to wait for them to grow up, which is really odd
in a whole lot of ways. We know they have "city offices" in Novgorod
because Justin pretends to work there when he gets the cup of squash
at the stall, but we don't know who staffs them really.
Reseune also has House and Town divisions.
> >>>I can't think of many people besides Cherryh who would have the nerve to
> >>>start off a 700-page novel with a murder and never tell you who done it.
> >>>Although, of course, *she* may think the solution's perfectly clear ...
> >>
> >>Not from what I recall of reports of conversations; there was a period
> >>of time in which Sera Cherryh was apparently of the opinion that she
> >>didn't know herself if it was a murder or not.
> >
> >Huh. And I never took the suicide theory seriously ...
>
> I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
> it; it could have been a real accident.
1) Catlin did it on Ari's orders (suicide)
2) Abban did it (murder)
3) Seely or Abban did it on Denys or Giraud's orders (murder)
4) "Maybe she just slipped." (accident)
> The hold over Grant is that the Warwicks can't hold his contract;
> Reseune does, so he can be reassigned as an administrative decision
> within Reseune. It's interesting that the Nyes don't ever use that as
> a serious threat against Justin; I suspect that the social
> consequences of actually seperating a pair like that would be dire.
They don't want Justin to totally fall apart and need hospitalising
because he's a lever with Jordan and if Jordan heard that it would be
disastrous. Grant is essential to his sanity, they cannot take Grant
away. Giraud even lets Grant stay the time Ari's gone down to Ag and
broken her arm when they interrogate him. Petros and Yanni know that
much about how Justin works.
> >So X's would have reported to Geoffrey Carnath, and then to Denys;
> >except that an Alpha's supervision above his or her supervisor
> >seems to be largely a technicality.
Ari can and does bring Grant in as a child and runs tape on him.
> I don't think so; we don't see it in a lot of detail, but we get
> repeated comments, particularly when Justin and Grant are arguing,
> about how Alpha azi tend to go strange -- the tape sets aren't really
> complicated enough to support the world view of someone that smart.
> So either you socialize them, and they get more and more CIT-like over
> time, or you don't, and they get stranger as they age.
>
> It would appear to be very important to an alpha azi that they
> socialize well.
Being like a CIT with "some real strange logic areas" is what may well
have happened to Abban, who really isn't socialised well at all.
> >Precisely. The second time around, they were in security training for
> >months before their assignment to Ari II, at a point in the project
>
> Catlin has never _not_ been in security training. It was just Florian
> to whom it was a surprise.
Oh, and note re Micole's first point above about animals, what it is
that Florian has been doing. Ari knew.
> >I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
> >quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
> >had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
> >afterward in some way.
>
> That really was an order from Ari, is my take on it. She absolutely
> cannot afford to have them interogated under psych probe.
Do you think Ari II has that same order in file?
> Giraud has some terrible blind spots about azi, he really does. I
> don't think he understands the azi-cit partnership dynamics well at
> all, he seems to see the Justin-Grant pairing as primarily sexual.
If his primary real experience with them is the Josh Talley's of the
world, building and rebuilding memories out of flux, starting from
blank slates, in the War (and mostly admin/Security since) then it
isn't surprising.
> The rider command structure needs five people to handle the
> information flow and make the decisions, and they have to function as
> a collective.
>
> Something like that is there in Ari I's intended structure for Ari II
> to inherit, also -- and I think coincidentally -- for five people.
>
> { [Grant,(Justin], <Ari II), [Florian, Catlin] > }
I like that.
> If you can stand the notation; it really wants colours.
>
> I can't figure out precisely what Grant is for; the obvious answer is
> necessary ruthlessness, but that makes me blink a bit. (He's _not_
> there just to keep Justin happy; they're intellectually peers.) It's
> hard to imagine Ari I setting things up so Grant was head of Security
> -- Justin was pretty obviously intended to be administrator -- but
> that does look a bit like where that was going.
>
> Instead, at least for awhile, they're likely to get _Ari_ as Head of
> Security and an interesting timing problem getting Justin's head fixed
> -- Giraud sabotaged his ability to be political -- before he's
> nominated for Special status. (Which Yanni is about to be in a
> position to do, it's his real and long standing conviction, and it
> just happens to be very handy for Reseune, politically.)
Jordan's going to be there. Jordan's not going to be happy with any head
fixing, not even if Justin wants it. Jordan's not going to trust Justin
at all, I don't think.
<snip>
Michael S. Schiffer
> He did. Nobody ever actually leaves. Also nobody _arrives_ - if Reseune
> wants staff they have to wait for them to grow up, which is really odd
> in a whole lot of ways. We know they have "city offices" in Novgorod
> because Justin pretends to work there when he gets the cup of squash
> at the stall, but we don't know who staffs them really.
One constant in Cherryh's works seems to be Family, with a capital F.
It's invariably a major force, whether it's Konstantin vs. Kressich on
Pell, Nye, Warrick and Emory in Reseune, the merchanter crews, the
Kontrins in Serpent's Reach, or hani clans. While the Family can be
oppressive and full of intrigue, other forms of organization are scarier
(not necessarily worse, but more full of menace): Mazianni, Earth Company,
Kif, Union military. Or they're incomprehensably chaotic: the Cyteen
general population, the betas in Serpent's Reach, Earth governments. Even
shipping with hired merchanter crew is suspicious and dangerous, hiring
out as crew even more so.
This relates obliquely to your post on sf.fandom visualizing your
relatives' Heaven as an eternal family picnic. My wife and I are both
dearly fond of our families, but when we've discussed Cherryh, we've
agreed that the idea of spending decades in an isolated environment with
our entire extended family (and *no one else*) is not exactly a dream come
true. Reseune, or a merchanter, or even to a large extent a station, is
serving in a hierarchy in which the uncle Who Knows Everything, whom you
currently see once a year, is your social superior and possibly your
immediate boss, forever-- or until you intrigue to replace him. Or to
switch over to that aunt who loves you, but wishes you would just lose ten
pounds. And says so. Every day.
It's amazing those ships ever make port.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS "I decline utterly to be impartial
ms...@mediaone.net as between the fire brigade and
msch...@condor.depaul.edu the fire."
-- Winston Churchill, July 7, 1926
tomlinson
>
>
> There's Giraud and Denys, who relate to Abban and Seely very
> 'properly'; distantly, and without stopping to think that the
> Supervisor role that works with child-azi doesn't work at all with
> adult genius, _however_ they got their world view.
Properly and distantly, hm...just a thought: why does Denys Nye
react so fiercely to the prospect of Ari's taking Seely away or
doing something to him? (End of CYTEEN.)
> Then we have the example of Grant and Justin, who were carefully set
> up by Ari I as a test of _something_, something awfully close to one
> person in some psych senses. Presumably in part a check to see if she
> could duplicate F&C with a CIT as half of the pair.
Mmm...
God, the thought just vanished. Seriously.
-tomlinson
--
Ernest Tomlinson
----------------
Atheniensium res gestae, sicuti ego aestimo, satis amplae magnificaeque
fuere, verum aliquanto minores tamen quam fama feruntur. (Sallust)
Tony Zbaraschuk
labor <a900...@univie.ac.at> wrote:
> The azi we have seen (except sociolized alphas) display a quite
>fragile psyche and need a positive reinforcement of the tape rather
>often. On the other hand, they seem easier to deconstruct even to
>their deep sets (brainwashed) than any civ and receptive to new
>instructions.
So far so good, if you do the new instructions right. Do them
wrong, and they react off of other instructions, and (since most
azi lack the flexibility to deal with conflicts in their tapes)
you have real problems.
> Yet lots of them serve in the military and security. I can (barely)
>imagine that it doesn't mean so much in the military - at least until
>they get in really primitive conditions where they can't get their
>tape no matter the stress or are captured. Although in captivity they
>probably won't be able to keep much information back.
Mindprobing is a fairly well-developed technology in CYTEEN: inside
an interrogation lab run by someone who knows what they're doing
and has the right drugs on hand, it's pretty much impossible to
keep secrets. The problem with Ari's death is it's impossible to
question Jordan under drugs to find out what happened because
he's a Special and legally immune.
> However it seems folly to employ them in security - if even one
>security azi should be captured and secretely worked over by competent
>psychs or if something was slipped into their tapes - as seemingly
>happened with Abban - the whole system will be compromised.
Yes, this is a problem. There are safeguards -- for instance, Ari's
reprogramming of Florian and Caitlin to _never_ take drugs or tape
from anyone except her. We notice that Grant has at least some
ability to resist a mindprobe/tapejob done by someone who doesn't
have the Reseune keys to his psyche.
Difficult to capture or work over a well-trained Security azi.
Very difficult to do it without detection, which is what you
need in order to insert them back into place (as opposed to
simply draining them of information, which you could do
equally easily with a Cit. Reprogramming a Cit is far
more difficult, granted.)
The problem with Abban is that a Security system -- any Security
system -- has no defense against a rottenness at the inmost
core. With Denis, who has a Base superior to everyone but
Ari (who's inactive in the system and/or still learning how
to do things), and is trusted by his brother, there's really
no way to rein him in, or even to detect him until he acts,
at which point the damage has already been done.
If a Beta checks the Gamma's tapes, and an Alpha checks the
Beta's, and Abban check's the Alpha's, and Denis checks
Abban's -- then who watches Denis?
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Micole Sudberg
wrote:
>In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>>In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>
>[Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
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competition;
>>>>> >they're both sure of being the biggest shark in the ocean.
>>>>>
>>>>> While hating that, bitterly, becuase no one will argue with them.
>>>>
>>>>Yes. Have you read =Wave Without A Shore=?
>>>
>>>I don't think so. I may have bounced off it a long while ago when I
>>>wasn't up to reading it.
>>
>>I think it may be the first place where she sets up the wall/echo
>>analogy, and it's probably the most intense working out of it. It's
>>very clearly a thought-experiment done as a novel, and the amazing thing
>>is that both the experiment and the novel parts work.
>
>That's not the one where the ship gets lost in jump, is it?
No--that would be either =Port Eternity= (Tennyson as tape) or possibly
=Voyager in the Night= (merchanter gets lost, meets peculiar aliens,
odd identity mix-ups). =Wave Without A Shore= is about a colony whose
people choose not to acknowledge things which are blindingly evident;
and why they choose it; and how it works; and how it breaks. It is very
much about the problems of people who don't have other minds to bounce
ideas off of.
>>It's probably the closest a Cherryh novel gets to Greg Egan.
>
>Heh. That sounds like a very odd description in a lot of ways.
It is a very odd book.
>The hold over Grant is that the Warwicks can't hold his contract;
>Reseune does, so he can be reassigned as an administrative decision
>within Reseune. It's interesting that the Nyes don't ever use that as
>a serious threat against Justin; I suspect that the social
>consequences of actually seperating a pair like that would be dire.
I don't think Reseune has the social concept of a pair yet, I think it's
something they're just working out. I think Amy and her azi dancing
together at a party cause scandalized whispers because the idea of pairs
is only half-conscious for most of Reseune: they know the azi partners
are central, but they're not ready for the implications, especially
about the instability of unpartnered CITs.
Justin's reliance on Grant is probably one reason why Giraud and Denys
are so relatively light on Justin; they see it purely as a weakness, and
see him as less of a threat thereby. Yanni starts off seeing it as a
weakness too, I think; and I think what turns it around for him is that
*Grant* is obviously *not* harmed by this, if anything Grant turns out
very well; which recasts the dynamic.
>>So X's would have reported to Geoffrey Carnath, and then to Denys;
>>except that an Alpha's supervision above his or her supervisor
>>seems to be largely a technicality.
>
>I don't think so; we don't see it in a lot of detail, but we get
>repeated comments, particularly when Justin and Grant are arguing,
>about how Alpha azi tend to go strange -- the tape sets aren't really
>complicated enough to support the world view of someone that smart.
>So either you socialize them, and they get more and more CIT-like over
>time, or you don't, and they get stranger as they age.
I didn't mean that being an azi's supervisor was a technicality (though
I do think it goes towards that, for Grant and Ollie), simply that there
don't seem to be checks *above* the supervisor. Nominally Grant does
go under Denys Nye's supervision after Ari I's death.
>>>>that was the type they were most familiar with producing, and that they had
>>>>the most baseline data on.
>>>
>>>Not when F&C I were created; She got them before the War started when
>>>she was 17. They were probably an experiement to see just how far Azi
>>
>>Thanks--I always get the interactions of personal timelines and
>>historical ones tangled.
>
>It's just _so much_ time. Hard to keep track of.
It actually seems like a very short time to me, for the kinds of
political and technological changes that take place--not an
unrealistically short time, just one of those dense cascading eras where
any move kicks off a hundred others.
>>I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
>>quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
>>had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
>>afterward in some way.
>
>That really was an order from Ari, is my take on it. She absolutely
>cannot afford to have them interogated under psych probe.
Oh, hell. Yes, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. Ari I in a
nutshell, and why everyone was so scared of her, too. Not why *they*
thought they were scared of her, I think you're right about Giraud and
azi; but why they really were--the ruthlessness, and the clarity.
>The rider command structure needs five people to handle the
>information flow and make the decisions, and they have to function as
>a collective.
>
>Something like that is there in Ari I's intended structure for Ari II
>to inherit, also -- and I think coincidentally -- for five people.
It would have to be, wouldn't it? I don't think the riders fed into the
merchanters--different evolutions.
>{ [Grant,(Justin], <Ari II), [Florian, Catlin] > }
>
>If you can stand the notation; it really wants colours.
:) Oh, that's neat. If you put it up somewhere in HTML with colors, do
let me know.
>I can't figure out precisely what Grant is for; the obvious answer is
>necessary ruthlessness, but that makes me blink a bit. (He's _not_
>there just to keep Justin happy; they're intellectually peers.) It's
>hard to imagine Ari I setting things up so Grant was head of Security
>-- Justin was pretty obviously intended to be administrator -- but
>that does look a bit like where that was going.
If Justin was going to do external politics and Ari II, somebody else
was going to have to do necessary day-to-day.
Head of Security doesn't seem right; wouldn't Ari I have put Grant more
into bodyguard training for that, somewhere along the line? He was all
science and research instead.
>Instead, at least for awhile, they're likely to get _Ari_ as Head of
>Security and an interesting timing problem getting Justin's head fixed
>-- Giraud sabotaged his ability to be political -- before he's
You think? He did very well in the hearings, under short notice. The
people who know the most about Justin's weaknesses were Ari, and Giraud,
and Denys; and two of them are dead. Yanni knows some of them, but not
all; and Jordan knows where they were twenty years ago, but he doesn't
know where they've shifted.
>>>>What makes you think Ari I knew what was essential?
>>>
>>>Macrosets determine microsets. She was right about that. _Which_
>>>stress, and which partial victory over her adult-dominated environment
>>>at that age, that's not important. Beating Khalid in a PR war will do
>>>just fine.
>>
>>Ari was right about the macrosets. That doesn't solve the problem of
>>figuring out what's *in* the macroset for any individual.
>
>No, but if she could do to Justin what she did to Jordan only
>different she's got a really good grasp of the general case.
>
>_Her own_ sets, she botched a bit; she nearly did Ari some harm with
>that little romance lecture.
That's what I meant--if she could do that, she didn't quite have the
general rule worked out. I think the little lecture means she expected
somebody to re-enact Geoffrey--to *have* to re-enact Geoffrey to get Ari
II.
>Probably not immensely very transferable, but -- and there's a very
>interesting question in this, I think -- they _didn't_ get Ari back.
>They got someone with Ari's capabilities who has a very different
>fundamental motivation, and it looks like Ari I planned that -- else
>why create Justin? -- but she wasn't clear on whether or not the
I still think: for Geoffrey. Or for an administrator-regent, at best.
Ari I thought Justin was somebody she could use; Ari II thinks Justin is
somebody she can talk to. The implications are fairly different.
The point about Ari II is very good indeed; but I'm still inclined to
think that in fact something closer to replication is what Ari I was
aiming for. For herself, anyway; for Union, and other people, she was
planning psychogenesis, sociogenesis, that brilliant turnaround halfway
through the novel. The contradiction is one of the things about Ari I
that's the saddest, and scariest.
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <7c7apv$fsr$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>>
>> [Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
>> Ah, ok, yes, lack of social context for other forms of life.
>>
>> They definately have that.
>
>Ari I was definitely aware of that though, see what Denys says when Ari II
>wants Horse. I wonder how much the tapes help - the tapes of learning to
>ride. Incidentally, that's a perfectly wonderful set-up for "person from
>high tech is transferred to low tech/magical world but knows how to
>ride. :]
That would potentially make the Union embassador to Earth able to
astonish zir hosts, too.
>> >>>I can't think of many people besides Cherryh who would have the nerve to
>> >>>start off a 700-page novel with a murder and never tell you who done it.
>> >>>Although, of course, *she* may think the solution's perfectly clear ...
>> >>
>> >>Not from what I recall of reports of conversations; there was a period
>> >>of time in which Sera Cherryh was apparently of the opinion that she
>> >>didn't know herself if it was a murder or not.
>> >
>> >Huh. And I never took the suicide theory seriously ...
>>
>> I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
>> it; it could have been a real accident.
>
>1) Catlin did it on Ari's orders (suicide)
The timing absolutely sucks, and I'm not sure Catlin could.
>2) Abban did it (murder)
I think so.
>3) Seely or Abban did it on Denys or Giraud's orders (murder)
Don't think so; the timing absolutely sucks and I don't think Giraud
could hurt her.
>4) "Maybe she just slipped." (accident)
Which is unsatisfying in some literary senses.
>> The hold over Grant is that the Warwicks can't hold his contract;
>> Reseune does, so he can be reassigned as an administrative decision
>> within Reseune. It's interesting that the Nyes don't ever use that as
>> a serious threat against Justin; I suspect that the social
>> consequences of actually seperating a pair like that would be dire.
>
>They don't want Justin to totally fall apart and need hospitalising
>because he's a lever with Jordan and if Jordan heard that it would be
>disastrous. Grant is essential to his sanity, they cannot take Grant
>away. Giraud even lets Grant stay the time Ari's gone down to Ag and
>broken her arm when they interrogate him. Petros and Yanni know that
>much about how Justin works.
Yes.
(although see reply to other post)
>> >So X's would have reported to Geoffrey Carnath, and then to Denys;
>> >except that an Alpha's supervision above his or her supervisor
>> >seems to be largely a technicality.
>
>Ari can and does bring Grant in as a child and runs tape on him.
Good point.
>> It would appear to be very important to an alpha azi that they
>> socialize well.
>
>Being like a CIT with "some real strange logic areas" is what may well
>have happened to Abban, who really isn't socialised well at all.
That's very much what I think happened to Abban; Abban is utterly,
utterly mad, and has been for years, and no one has noticed.
>> >Precisely. The second time around, they were in security training for
>> >months before their assignment to Ari II, at a point in the project
>>
>> Catlin has never _not_ been in security training. It was just Florian
>> to whom it was a surprise.
>
>Oh, and note re Micole's first point above about animals, what it is
>that Florian has been doing. Ari knew.
There was certainly some forethought and planning going on there.
>> >I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
>> >quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
>> >had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
>> >afterward in some way.
>>
>> That really was an order from Ari, is my take on it. She absolutely
>> cannot afford to have them interogated under psych probe.
>
>Do you think Ari II has that same order in file?
I don't think she's thought of it to take it out, it's still there.
Given that they _can't_ transfer, she's got a problem. If she could
transfer them to Justin if she dies, she probably has it set up to do
that, but I don't think she can.
>> Giraud has some terrible blind spots about azi, he really does. I
>> don't think he understands the azi-cit partnership dynamics well at
>> all, he seems to see the Justin-Grant pairing as primarily sexual.
>
>If his primary real experience with them is the Josh Talley's of the
>world, building and rebuilding memories out of flux, starting from
>blank slates, in the War (and mostly admin/Security since) then it
>isn't surprising.
It's not surprising but it is pretty serious as a failing in the head
of security; there's a whole class of problems he doesn't know to
worry about.
>> The rider command structure needs five people to handle the
>> information flow and make the decisions, and they have to function as
>> a collective.
>>
>> Something like that is there in Ari I's intended structure for Ari II
>> to inherit, also -- and I think coincidentally -- for five people.
>>
>> { [Grant,(Justin], <Ari II), [Florian, Catlin] > }
>
>I like that.
Thanks. I quite like that, too.
>> If you can stand the notation; it really wants colours.
>>
>> I can't figure out precisely what Grant is for; the obvious answer is
>> necessary ruthlessness, but that makes me blink a bit. (He's _not_
>> there just to keep Justin happy; they're intellectually peers.) It's
>> hard to imagine Ari I setting things up so Grant was head of Security
>> -- Justin was pretty obviously intended to be administrator -- but
>> that does look a bit like where that was going.
>>
>> Instead, at least for awhile, they're likely to get _Ari_ as Head of
>> Security and an interesting timing problem getting Justin's head fixed
>> -- Giraud sabotaged his ability to be political -- before he's
>> nominated for Special status. (Which Yanni is about to be in a
>> position to do, it's his real and long standing conviction, and it
>> just happens to be very handy for Reseune, politically.)
>
>Jordan's going to be there. Jordan's not going to be happy with any head
>fixing, not even if Justin wants it. Jordan's not going to trust Justin
>at all, I don't think.
Nope. But they've got sufficent leverage on Jordan; Justin is about
the only possible Reseune internal candidate for Science and they're
going to need to be able to run someone very soon. Jordan is
definately enough of a realist to want to be part of a Reseune with
the power to keep him out of the military's hands.
There's also the problem that Jordan has been just about as socially
isolate as it is possible to be; he's going to be having bad echo
problems himself, being _required_ to fit back into the society of his
peers, quickly, and in politically sensible ways -- especially if he
wants to rescind his confession, as it were -- he's going to be
undergoing some serious change whether he wants to or not.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal ţe heardra, heorte ţe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal ţe mare ţe ure maegen lytlađ.
Graydon
Mary K. Kuhner <mkku...@kingman.genetics.washington.edu> wrote:
>In article <7c7apv$fsr$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>[someone, attribution lost, wrote]
>
>is another one in _Voyager in Night_.) _Wave Without a Shore_
>is very loosely linked (via a reference to Gehenna, though Gehenna
>is one of those ubiquitous planet names so this may not even be significant)
>to the Union/Alliance continuity, but essentially stands alone. It is
>a much odder book, probably the oddest thing Cherryh has ever written
>(and she's a devilishly diverse author). It is specifically about the
>need of a genius for peers or even opponents, something to bounce off:
>that theme plays out on several different levels through the book.
>
>It's almost magical realism, in an SF setting and without magic.
>(And I sure hope no one asks me to unpack what I mean by that.)
>
>If you took the author's name off it I would say without hesitation that
>it was by the same hand as MA Foster's _The Gameplayers of Zan_ and
>_The Morphodite_.
I shall have to try to find that one, then, I definately haven't read
it and it sounds fascinating.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal ţe heardra, heorte ţe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal ţe mare ţe ure maegen lytlađ.
Graydon
>> In article <7auo9j$igm$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com>,
>> Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Who has finally got around to finishing a re-read of :Cyteen:...
>
>
> So perhaps you can offer some insight in the question that bugs me
>since I have read it. Now, I have read Cyteen in german, so some terms
>might sound queer in my reverse translation, but here it goes:
>
>fragile psyche and need a positive reinforcement of the tape rather
>often. On the other hand, they seem easier to deconstruct even to
>their deep sets (brainwashed) than any civ and receptive to new
>instructions.
>imagine that it doesn't mean so much in the military - at least until
>they get in really primitive conditions where they can't get their
>tape no matter the stress or are captured. Although in captivity they
>probably won't be able to keep much information back.
>security azi should be captured and secretely worked over by competent
>psychs or if something was slipped into their tapes - as seemingly
>happened with Abban - the whole system will be compromised.
>
I don't think Abban's tapes were tweaked -- no one avaiable who _can_
do that, all the skills for it are in Reseune, and the only person who
would want to who might be able to is Jordan -- I think he was using
an highly idiosyncratic reality map.
Remember that 'military' and 'security' are more or less synonyms;
'Reseune Security' is the armed forces of the sovereign Reseune
Adminstrative Territory.
'military' is ship crew; some armored infantry doing station boarding,
but mostly stable, predictable technical jobs. So they ought to be
fine, especially as they're mostly socialized -- we see a sidebar
about a socialized Beta military azi at one point, when it's
discussing reward tape -- because they are not at all likely to be
captured; they're much, much more likely to wind up dead than
captured. They don't _have_ really primitive conditions, the worst
conditions they've got are closely analagous to a nuclear submarine.
If they _are_ captured, well, they know less than a CIT and anyone at
all can be opened right up with psycheprobe techniques which the
Maziani presumably had. In :Merchanter's Luck: we see the result of
that -- agents at risk of capture are synthetic personalities, which
is the work Giraud did during the War.
Security is different, but not that different; it's a problem of
access control in artificial environments, not the same problem it
would be on a more earthlike world; they're not much at risk of
capture, they're in a very controlled environment with lots of contact
with headquarters, and they're on the top side of a considerable tech
advantage.
Also, designing a military set is probably fairly easy; there's the
various aphorisms about how good military leadership doesn't require
genius because the problems are basically simple, and I think that
applies in the case of military azi.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal şe heardra, heorte şe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal şe mare şe ure maegen lytlağ.
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <7c6hf7$agi$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>
>> In article <7auo9j$igm$1...@eskinews.eskimo.com>,
>> Tony Zbaraschuk <to...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Who has finally got around to finishing a re-read of :Cyteen:...
>>
>> >>In article <7aqlqr$52q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
><sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:> ><spoiler tape ahead>
>>
>> Just plain old fashioned spoilers; spoiler _tape_, eww. I don't want
>> to experience what that is.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>><snip>
>> There's Giraud and Denys, who relate to Abban and Seely very
>> 'properly'; distantly, and without stopping to think that the
>> Supervisor role that works with child-azi doesn't work at all with
>> adult genius, _however_ they got their world view.
>>
>> Then there's Jane Strassen and Ollie, who act a little bit like a
>> married couple but who are mostly, to borrow Florian and Catlin's
>> term, Partners; the two of them do one job, and it's a job no one
>> person could do even if that person had all the necessary skills.
>
>This is the model young Ari thinks she wants - she wants "an Ollie",
>when she gets F&C who are partnered with each other and not with her
>in that same way she thinks she would have picked just one instead of
>two. It's F&C's togetherness that makes her careful of them when it
>gets sexual too. I don't know if Ari I set it up like that. But Ollie's
I think not; Ari I didn't pick Jane as the Olga surrogate, at least
not from the impression Jane's internal monologue about that process
gives, it's more the Nyes doing it.
>early input made a huge difference I think, Ari II consistently thinks
>about Ollie in a very positive and underlying way. Olga had some poor
>sap - probably an admin assistant and sex toy, not at all the same.
Yup. Positive relationship model that Ari I never, ever got.
>> Then we have the example of Grant and Justin, who were carefully set
>> up by Ari I as a test of _something_, something awfully close to one
>> person in some psych senses. Presumably in part a check to see if she
>> could duplicate F&C with a CIT as half of the pair.
>
>This gives me a horrible thought - you know the rape/intervention? She
>said she was going to use him for what she had been planning to use
>Grant for. I'd assumed she was lying, but she wasn't lying about his
>essay question or that she liked him, and assuming Ari (any value) is
>lying rather than telling as much truth as possible is... naive.
I really don't think Ari I was intending to duplicate Geoffrey
Carnath's particular unpleasantness -- and it must have been
spectacularly unpleasant, Ari II had to look up a lot of the words.
It looks to me like Ari I was planning to have a failed -- crushed --
first romance, rather than an instance of spectacular abuse.
>> Then we've got the difference between the first instance of Ari and
>> Catlin and Florian and the second; the first is somewhere between the
>> Nyes and Jane in how she treats her Azi; the second is somewhere
>> between how Jane and Ollie worked together and how Grant and Justin
>> are an entity.
>
>She hurt Florian (notes) and "they knew when to be afraid". That's
>really quite a different pattern.
Very much so.
It's also my ongoing impression that Ari II gives F&C much more
authority in practice than Ari I did; they have a vote. (Not as much
of one as Ari does, but they two of her can outvote her about security
issues and behaviours.)
>> This has a lot to do with how the replication botched; the first Ari's
>> major driving force was something close to rage, rage on a sexual
>> trigger.
>>
>> Ari II _likes_ sex; if she hadn't had Ari I's expectations put into
>> her head with quite such comprehensive force, she'd have rather less
>> trouble with it than she does, and for a teenager under hellish social
>> pressure, one could conduct one's self much, much less well than Ari
>> II does. _)She(_ believes that her Maman loved her. What she wants
>
>She did. Jane wasn't that great a match for Olga, she didn't go into
>parenting the second time with a huge ego involvement, she went into it
>determind to do a good job for Reseune, and got caught emotionally.
They were much too focused on 'someone who knew Olga', I think; it's
very much as though they were measuring the wrong things when they
picked her, even if they did want to get rid of Ollie.
>> is to set things up so everyone can be happy, not so she is sure she's
>> safe, she's repeatedly taken chances with her safety to get a more
>> generally happy outcome. Ari I would never do that.
>>
>> Since we can be fairly certain that Ari II and Justin were meant to
>> connect by Ari I, and since (one of) F&C remarks that it's very
>> natural that sera partners with Justin, and means partners in their
>> sense, it's not at all clear but what the intention was to provide
>> next-generation command crew for Reseune; Ari I had to make do with
>> Denys as the Administrator while she handled the politics, but that
>> was definately sub-optimal. Having Justin as the Admin would be
>> _much_ better for Ari II. (except of course it's been buggered up, and
>> is just as likely to come out some other way around, now.)
>
>Justin would be lousy as admin. Too much real time.
Giraud deliberately sabotaged Justin so he couldn't handle real time,
then forbade Yanni or Petros to do anything about it on something
awfully close to pain of death; we've got that bit from his POV where
he says he'll be damned before he sees Jordie Warrwick's son with any
power in Reseune.
The passage where Ari describes her first relationship, with the
careful abscence of names, just _can't_ be Jordan. Ari was ninety-odd
when Jordan came along.
It could, though, be Giraud. He fits a lot of Ari's -- at least Ari
II's -- aesthetic biases and he's old enough, and reading it that way
fits thematically because Giraud got one king hell of a torch about
Ari from _somewhere_. He hates Jordan with a blank bleak and
encompassing hatred merely becuase Ari was _interested_ in him.
>What Justin can do for Ari is provide that echo.
At the moment, and very importantly, yes, but Ari I was intending that
he have real power in Reseune to act as a counterweight to the Nyes --
and if Giraud _was_ that first disastrous relationship of Ari's, why
she thinks she'd need a counterweight takes on a considerably
increased significance -- and she would not have picked someone who
could not handle real time.
Yanni may have put Justin on real-time work as a way to see if he'd
adapt through Giraud's block, come to that; when he didn't, well, that
says something about how thorough the block is.
Having the parts of Ari's implantation about connecting with her
successor start connecting has been making Justin better at real time;
he successfully took on the council session, which he wouldn't have
been able to do before Ari's small intervention on him.
The other angle at this is a question of how real the neutral-cop
REALLY bad cop act Denys and Giraud do is; if it's a case of Denys not
being able to fully control Giraud -- and I think that's the case --
the Project is in a state of having a constraint imposed by Giraud,
who has most of the external political power, and is interested in the
Ari of his idealization being recovered rather more than he's
interested in getting Ari as she was back.
>> Yes. Giraud had the security records, and while the only _complete_
>> record was in base 1, Giraud is no dummy, and had some folks to talk
>> to who had been alive at the time.
>
>They definitely knew.
>
>Whose decision was it not to go through the Geoffrey-pattern?
Giraud; probably by fiat, because he blames that incident for Ari I's
inability to love anyone, especially him. Denys was probably willing
to go along with it, and indeed I expect that the rest were quite
willing to hike up Ari's level of hormonal craziness rather than
arrange for someone to rape her, never mind what Geoffrey did.
>Ari II thinks it was Giraud's. If she's right then Ari I would have done
>_that_? Thinking it necessary, sure, but... ick. The very odd thing there
Ari I isn't sane about sex; she can't get any kind of objective
detachement at all. I don't think she would have arranged for the
whole procedure, but it looks like she thought it was very important
for Ari to have someone to be able to relate to, on the one hand --
Justin -- and for her to have a catestrophic first romantic
experience, on the other. She's set up for that, thoroughly so, and
if Justin hadn't been more brave than sensible -- and taken a very
large risk with Giraud, Denys only just holds Giraud off over that
one, Giraud does not want Ari II ever finding out that Ari I thought
Justin was important, foolish though he may know that is,
intellectually -- the set up would have worked.
Instead, they got to the recognition and acknowledgement of mutual need
_without_ sex. That's way off Ari I's program.
>I think is Ari I's advice on sex is (awful as it is) advice on being a
>sexual predator, not on being sexual prey. It isn't advice that would be
>any use whatsoever to someone who was being abused, which makes me wonder.
I think it's there as the pattern to fall into and Ari I's real
belief, rather than an intellectually choosen goal. Ari I really
doesn't beleive anyone could ever love her without the consequences
being really dreadful at best.
>> >impression that they weren't quite sure, being only children at the
>> >time themselves. Of course, they may have been editing things down
>> >for Ari II's ears, but the impression I got was that they didn't know
>> >about the abuse (or they may have thought it was directed at Florian
>> >instead of Ari) -- all they saw from the outside was the argument,
>> >and a bit of hospitalization records, and all for an apparently
>> >insignificant cause. Of course, they're fairly smart, and they might
>> >have figured it out... but did they?
>>
>> I think so. Denys _says_ that they decided not to be abusive, in not
>> quite so many words, when Ari moves out.
>
>Who decided? Denys is very slippery on that.
He is. I think it was Giraud's fiat.
Jennifer Barber
>
>>2) Abban did it (murder)
>
>I think so.
You know, I would love this theory, and believe it completely, if there
were some indication that Abban had been present at that discussion towards
the beginning, after Ari I's return from Council, where she basically says,
"Sure, let them have Jordan--if they still want him by the time the issue
comes up". I can see Abban coming up with a "brilliant" plan to discredit
Jordan by making it look like he killed Ari (in which case, well, it *did*
work), all in the name of serving Reseune....Unfortunately, IIRC just
before this conversation, there's a like like "..and Abban went off to give
orders to such-and-such"....
I'm just not sure I buy the jealousy explanation. No doubt about it,
though, Abban's not quite sane.
jennifer
--
Uwe Kroeger page: http://www.mindspring.com/~jlbarber/kroeger.html
Elisabeth page: http://members.aol.com/jlbarber/eljen.html
"Ein Leben ohne Buecher waer' Tortur!"
--Michael Kunze, "Buecherlied", _Tanz der Vampire_
Graydon
Jennifer Barber <jlba...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>In article <7c9moq$og$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>>>2) Abban did it (murder)
>>
>>I think so.
>
>You know, I would love this theory, and believe it completely, if there
>were some indication that Abban had been present at that discussion towards
>the beginning, after Ari I's return from Council, where she basically says,
>"Sure, let them have Jordan--if they still want him by the time the issue
>comes up". I can see Abban coming up with a "brilliant" plan to discredit
>Jordan by making it look like he killed Ari (in which case, well, it *did*
>work), all in the name of serving Reseune....Unfortunately, IIRC just
>before this conversation, there's a like like "..and Abban went off to give
>orders to such-and-such"....
Giraud tells Abban to go get information from Family azi and staffers
because Jordan Warrwick in Ari's company is an Event and an indication
of something having gone seriously wrong; Abban's going to come back
to report, and Giraud is going to tell him what's going on. Abban's
number two in security, effectively, and shipping Jordan out of
Reseune is a _big_ issue for security. Especially since it means that
he's managed to talk to people outside of Reseune without Giraud's
knowledge; that's a security hole, and Abban would be involved in
finding and plugging it, since he handles so many fiddlin' details for
Giraud.
>I'm just not sure I buy the jealousy explanation.
_Abban's_ not jealous, Abban's trying to avoid further pain to Giraud.
That _Giraud_ is jealous of Ari's interest in the Warkwicks I don't
think is in doubt; he _says_ he's utterly unwilling to have Jordie
Warrwick's son have power in Reseune, and he's remarkable brutal
even with Grant, who logically hasn't got a thing to do with it.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
Graydon
tomlinson <etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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>
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>>
>
>> There's Giraud and Denys, who relate to Abban and Seely very
>> 'properly'; distantly, and without stopping to think that the
>> Supervisor role that works with child-azi doesn't work at all with
>> adult genius, _however_ they got their world view.
>
>react so fiercely to the prospect of Ari's taking Seely away or
>doing something to him? (End of CYTEEN.)
Becuase Seely is Security, Denys is terrified of a whole lot of
things, and the social implications of a deposed administrator having
their bodyguard taken way are pretty clear -- 'you will be killed
quietly later. How much later depends on your behaviour.'
>> Then we have the example of Grant and Justin, who were carefully set
>> up by Ari I as a test of _something_, something awfully close to one
>> person in some psych senses. Presumably in part a check to see if she
>> could duplicate F&C with a CIT as half of the pair.
>
>Mmm...
>
>God, the thought just vanished. Seriously.
Gotta watch out for those deep set filters.
Graydon
Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>In article <7c7apv$fsr$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon)
>wrote:
>>In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>>Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>>>In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>>
>>[Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>That's not the one where the ship gets lost in jump, is it?
>
>No--that would be either =Port Eternity= (Tennyson as tape) or possibly
>=Voyager in the Night= (merchanter gets lost, meets peculiar aliens,
>odd identity mix-ups). =Wave Without A Shore= is about a colony whose
>people choose not to acknowledge things which are blindingly evident;
>and why they choose it; and how it works; and how it breaks. It is very
>much about the problems of people who don't have other minds to bounce
>ideas off of.
I really must find that one, then.
>>The hold over Grant is that the Warwicks can't hold his contract;
>>Reseune does, so he can be reassigned as an administrative decision
>>within Reseune. It's interesting that the Nyes don't ever use that as
>>a serious threat against Justin; I suspect that the social
>>consequences of actually seperating a pair like that would be dire.
>
>I don't think Reseune has the social concept of a pair yet, I think it's
>something they're just working out.
Good point.
>I think Amy and her azi dancing together at a party cause scandalized
>whispers because the idea of pairs is only half-conscious for most of
>Reseune: they know the azi partners are central, but they're not
>ready for the implications, especially about the instability of
>unpartnered CITs.
It's amazing how little recognition there seems to be throughout
Reseune that it's an abnormal psych environment.
>Justin's reliance on Grant is probably one reason why Giraud and Denys
>are so relatively light on Justin; they see it purely as a weakness, and
>see him as less of a threat thereby.
They don't see Justin as a threat becuase Giraud deliberately crippled
him; most of those 'mind probes' are nothing of the sort, their Giraud
running interventions to make _sure_ Justin can't handle real-time
stress and can't focus on the concrete.
>Yanni starts off seeing it as a weakness too, I think; and I think
>what turns it around for him is that *Grant* is obviously *not*
>harmed by this, if anything Grant turns out very well; which recasts
>the dynamic.
Yanni is intellectually honest, for Keplerian values of same. This is
not uncommon in that generation but neither Nye has got it.
>>>So X's would have reported to Geoffrey Carnath, and then to Denys;
>>>except that an Alpha's supervision above his or her supervisor
>>>seems to be largely a technicality.
>>
>>I don't think so; we don't see it in a lot of detail, but we get
>>repeated comments, particularly when Justin and Grant are arguing,
>>about how Alpha azi tend to go strange -- the tape sets aren't really
>>complicated enough to support the world view of someone that smart.
>>So either you socialize them, and they get more and more CIT-like over
>>time, or you don't, and they get stranger as they age.
>
>I didn't mean that being an azi's supervisor was a technicality (though
>I do think it goes towards that, for Grant and Ollie), simply that there
Yes. Becuase the context for flux sets was complete enough.
>don't seem to be checks *above* the supervisor. Nominally Grant does
>go under Denys Nye's supervision after Ari I's death.
I think there are checks above the Supervisors _outside_ of Reseune;
_inside_ Reseune is a whole different fishkettle, it's a hermetically
sealed research facility and they play fast and loose with the
proceedural rules, Giraud -- Giraud who we first see going into panic
attacks at Ari's willingness to ignore rules -- just ditches them when
he gets stressed.
>>>>>that was the type they were most familiar with producing, and that they had
>>>>>the most baseline data on.
>>>>
>>>>Not when F&C I were created; She got them before the War started when
>>>>she was 17. They were probably an experiement to see just how far Azi
>>>
>>>Thanks--I always get the interactions of personal timelines and
>>>historical ones tangled.
>>
>>It's just _so much_ time. Hard to keep track of.
>
>It actually seems like a very short time to me, for the kinds of
>political and technological changes that take place--not an
That's explicitly in one of the history tape bits, too.
>unrealistically short time, just one of those dense cascading eras where
>any move kicks off a hundred others.
Yup. Renaisance period, no question. The worries that they're going
to evolve into something alien seem entirely well founded.
>>>I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
>>>quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
>>>had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
>>>afterward in some way.
>>
>>That really was an order from Ari, is my take on it. She absolutely
>>cannot afford to have them interogated under psych probe.
>
>Oh, hell. Yes, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. Ari I in a
>nutshell, and why everyone was so scared of her, too. Not why *they*
>thought they were scared of her, I think you're right about Giraud and
>azi; but why they really were--the ruthlessness, and the clarity.
Which is, to my mind, the _wrong_ reason to be scared of her; the
reason to be scared of Ari is that she can barely stand herself.
Clarity and ruthlessness are _features_.
>>The rider command structure needs five people to handle the
>>information flow and make the decisions, and they have to function as
>>a collective.
>>
>>Something like that is there in Ari I's intended structure for Ari II
>>to inherit, also -- and I think coincidentally -- for five people.
>
>It would have to be, wouldn't it? I don't think the riders fed into the
>merchanters--different evolutions.
Riders derive from Fleet which is Earther side merchanter offshoot;
Cyteen founded _prior_ to that offshoot, could be same clade. I don't
think it is, but it could be.
>>{ [Grant,(Justin], <Ari II), [Florian, Catlin] > }
>>
>>If you can stand the notation; it really wants colours.
>
>:) Oh, that's neat. If you put it up somewhere in HTML with colors, do
>let me know.
If I did it with colours I could shade it and throw a sop to my
scruples about putting Justin in an Azi pairing like that, but I do
think that's appropriate.
>>I can't figure out precisely what Grant is for; the obvious answer is
>>necessary ruthlessness, but that makes me blink a bit. (He's _not_
>>there just to keep Justin happy; they're intellectually peers.) It's
>>hard to imagine Ari I setting things up so Grant was head of Security
>>-- Justin was pretty obviously intended to be administrator -- but
>>that does look a bit like where that was going.
>
>If Justin was going to do external politics and Ari II, somebody else
>was going to have to do necessary day-to-day.
Yanni, as things stand at the end of :Cyteen:, which ought to work out
pretty well, I don't think Yanni's a hundred yet.
>Head of Security doesn't seem right; wouldn't Ari I have put Grant more
>into bodyguard training for that, somewhere along the line? He was all
>science and research instead.
He was, but she was planning a radical course change for Justin; no
reason she couldn't have intended one for Grant, and indeed she'd just
been handed a golden opportunity to make that change in Grant. She
just didn't live long enough to use it.
Also note that Justin got _really good_ self defense tape from
somewhere as a kid; want to bet that there wasn't a little nudge from
Base 1 as to which tape Justin found in the library when he made that
request? There might have been a lot of foundation stuff in both
Justin and Grant that they don't know about and didn't recognize the
significance of.
>>Instead, at least for awhile, they're likely to get _Ari_ as Head of
>>Security and an interesting timing problem getting Justin's head fixed
>>-- Giraud sabotaged his ability to be political -- before he's
>
>You think? He did very well in the hearings, under short notice. The
That's in explicitly, that Giraud crippled him. Ari II figures it out
from the records when she figures out what Ari I was trying to do with
Justin. He did well in the hearings, yes, but he still had the panic
attacks; thing is, he's _also_ got all the psych keys Ari I left in
his head to fixate on her, which are latching on to Ari II with glad
cries. So Justin's getting ... more integrated, I suppose is the best
term, quite rapidly at that point. He's figured out what's going on,
and for the first time in seventeen or eighteen years doesn't feel
totally overwhelmed by circumstance.
>people who know the most about Justin's weaknesses were Ari, and Giraud,
>and Denys; and two of them are dead. Yanni knows some of them, but not
>all; and Jordan knows where they were twenty years ago, but he doesn't
>know where they've shifted.
Jordan is going to be exceedingly peeved when he finds out that Justin
doesn't have the buttons he used to have, all right.
Yanni also _likes_ Justin; I don't think Yanni is a problem. The
problem is going to be mostly a)getting Giraud's lids off of parts of
Justin's psych -- he's a public figure now, whether he wants to be or
not, those lids have to come off -- in a stable way and b)getting from
the frank admissions of desire stage to something stable between Ari
and Justin. (watch for the betting pool down in the Town about
Justin's probable lifespan.)
>>>>>What makes you think Ari I knew what was essential?
>>>>
>>>>Macrosets determine microsets. She was right about that. _Which_
>>>>stress, and which partial victory over her adult-dominated environment
>>>>at that age, that's not important. Beating Khalid in a PR war will do
>>>>just fine.
>>>
>>>Ari was right about the macrosets. That doesn't solve the problem of
>>>figuring out what's *in* the macroset for any individual.
>>
>>No, but if she could do to Justin what she did to Jordan only
>>different she's got a really good grasp of the general case.
>>
>>_Her own_ sets, she botched a bit; she nearly did Ari some harm with
>>that little romance lecture.
>
>That's what I meant--if she could do that, she didn't quite have the
>general rule worked out.
I think she did, I think she was just stuck with being unable to apply
it due to observer bias; what Ari II says, in context of Denys, about
how hard it is to maintain detatchment dealling with someone whose
sets are back to the beginning of your own is very appropos to that.
>I think the little lecture means she expected somebody to re-enact
>Geoffrey--to *have* to re-enact Geoffrey to get Ari II.
And she was _right_; they didn't get Ari I's pyschesets back. They
got something like the same capabilites back, in a ruthless idealist
who likes herself. This is grounds for being a whole lot more nervous
than anyone has figured out they ought to be, yet. Mikhail Corrain
figuring out that all his behavour profiles are _off_ has the
potential for being as funny as his remark about Khalid's speaches.
>>Probably not immensely very transferable, but -- and there's a very
>>interesting question in this, I think -- they _didn't_ get Ari back.
>>They got someone with Ari's capabilities who has a very different
>>fundamental motivation, and it looks like Ari I planned that -- else
>>why create Justin? -- but she wasn't clear on whether or not the
>
>I still think: for Geoffrey. Or for an administrator-regent, at best.
'For Geoffrey', yes, but as a source of pain where love was wanted, he
was supposed to _reject_ Ari, to be capable of nothing but romantic
rejection while remaining devoted and inevitably subordinate. Not as
the kind of abuser Geoffrey was. Adminstrator-regent and trusted
second, the way Ari used the Nyes.
>Ari I thought Justin was somebody she could use; Ari II thinks Justin is
>somebody she can talk to. The implications are fairly different.
Massively. This is the best argument there is against the suicide
theory, I think. Ari'd _never_ have botched the timing like that.
>The point about Ari II is very good indeed; but I'm still inclined to
>think that in fact something closer to replication is what Ari I was
>aiming for. For herself, anyway; for Union, and other people, she was
>planning psychogenesis, sociogenesis, that brilliant turnaround halfway
>through the novel. The contradiction is one of the things about Ari I
>that's the saddest, and scariest.
Very sad, yes.
Although... think about where the long-term pattern is going, no
matter how sane all the folks running Reseune are getting.
Jo Walton
> In article <921188...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <7c7apv$fsr$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
> >> In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
> >> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
> >> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
> >>
> >> [Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
>
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> >> >Huh. And I never took the suicide theory seriously ...
> >>
> >> I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
> >> it; it could have been a real accident.
> >
> >1) Catlin did it on Ari's orders (suicide)
>
> The timing absolutely sucks, and I'm not sure Catlin could.
Assuming my theories on the way the door works (which I'm sure you
remember from last time) there's time. This is Courtenay's theory,
and the reason I don't believe it is because I cannot see Ari
killing herself in the middle of a project, and she is _always_
in the middle of a project, and right then she's in the middle of
screwing over Justin, as well as everything else, which is fun for
her. She doesn't have enough to gain even if she is dying anyway.
> >2) Abban did it (murder)
>
> I think so.
I like your theory but it does lack finesse in terms of Abban being
significantly mentioned on stage prior to that point.
> >3) Seely or Abban did it on Denys or Giraud's orders (murder)
>
> Don't think so; the timing absolutely sucks and I don't think Giraud
> could hurt her.
Timing is the same as for Abban alone, assuming Denys heard the phone
call... I don't think it was Giraud but one can make a case for
Denys/Seely.
> >4) "Maybe she just slipped." (accident)
>
> Which is unsatisfying in some literary senses.
And profoundly satisfying in others. Some days I like that one best
because it's so very ironic. It also does a lot for the idea of the
random universe casually destroying planning, which reflects on Ari's
macro-plans.
> >> >I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
> >> >quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
> >> >had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
> >> >afterward in some way.
> >>
> >> That really was an order from Ari, is my take on it. She absolutely
> >> cannot afford to have them interogated under psych probe.
> >
> >Do you think Ari II has that same order in file?
>
> I don't think she's thought of it to take it out, it's still there.
>
> Given that they _can't_ transfer, she's got a problem. If she could
> transfer them to Justin if she dies, she probably has it set up to do
> that, but I don't think she can.
Hey, come on, there is another option which is Final Tape! F & C as
CITs with input would be very dangerous and very powerful.
I don't think Ari I would have wanted that, even if she'd personally
written their Final Tape. (The question of what precisely Final Tape
_is_ is an open one - opinions range from "civics and personal finance
info" to "complete reprogramming".) They'd have been too powerful and
too different inputs onto all three Youngers. But Ari II going in to
Denys? I think she would have wanted them as a check on Justin, as well
as a support for him, back in Reseune, running another of her sets.
> >> Giraud has some terrible blind spots about azi, he really does. I
> >> don't think he understands the azi-cit partnership dynamics well at
> >> all, he seems to see the Justin-Grant pairing as primarily sexual.
> >
> >If his primary real experience with them is the Josh Talley's of the
> >world, building and rebuilding memories out of flux, starting from
> >blank slates, in the War (and mostly admin/Security since) then it
> >isn't surprising.
>
> It's not surprising but it is pretty serious as a failing in the head
> of security; there's a whole class of problems he doesn't know to
> worry about.
Yes. Remember Catlin's comment about them making azi to run Security
because they can't trust each other? Most of Security _is_ azi, and
they know what to worry about I expect. Catlin shot Abban. Denys too,
but we have her thought processes for shooting Abban.
> >Jordan's going to be there. Jordan's not going to be happy with any head
> >fixing, not even if Justin wants it. Jordan's not going to trust Justin
> >at all, I don't think.
>
> Nope. But they've got sufficent leverage on Jordan; Justin is about
> the only possible Reseune internal candidate for Science and they're
> going to need to be able to run someone very soon. Jordan is
> definately enough of a realist to want to be part of a Reseune with
> the power to keep him out of the military's hands.
>
> There's also the problem that Jordan has been just about as socially
> isolate as it is possible to be; he's going to be having bad echo
> problems himself, being _required_ to fit back into the society of his
> peers, quickly, and in politically sensible ways -- especially if he
> wants to rescind his confession, as it were -- he's going to be
> undergoing some serious change whether he wants to or not.
Jordan is not a nice person, he's been isolated, he's probably crazy
and he can't be psychprobed. What he's going to do isn't necessarily
going to be reliably sensible.
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <7c9moq$og$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> In article <921188...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In article <7c7apv$fsr$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> >> In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>> >> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>> >> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>> >>
>> >> [Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
>>
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>> >> >Huh. And I never took the suicide theory seriously ...
>> >>
>> >> I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
>> >> it; it could have been a real accident.
>> >
>> >1) Catlin did it on Ari's orders (suicide)
>>
>> The timing absolutely sucks, and I'm not sure Catlin could.
>
>Assuming my theories on the way the door works (which I'm sure you
>remember from last time) there's time. This is Courtenay's theory,
There's _time_, sure, but the +timing+, Ari I's in-process
intervention on Justin and the necessary authority (to keep him out of
Giraud's hands when she dies if she's planning to see Jordan blamed)
are neither of them done, _that_ is what sucks.
>and the reason I don't believe it is because I cannot see Ari
>killing herself in the middle of a project, and she is _always_
>in the middle of a project, and right then she's in the middle of
>screwing over Justin, as well as everything else, which is fun for
>her. She doesn't have enough to gain even if she is dying anyway.
Yup. Just becuase she's dying doesn't mean she doesn't have a use for
every one of those hours. Plus her thoughts to herself about the
project she's working on, she's _very_ involved in that. (although I
find it odd that she's hitting so many 'defective' machines. I think
she's in a worse way, physically, than is readily apparent to anyone
else at the time.)
>> >2) Abban did it (murder)
>>
>> I think so.
>
>I like your theory but it does lack finesse in terms of Abban being
>significantly mentioned on stage prior to that point.
Abban is mentioned quite clearly as Giraud's shadow prior to that;
he's not presented in a very forward way, but that is, I think, much
of the point. He's invisble, which is how he gets away with it.
>> >3) Seely or Abban did it on Denys or Giraud's orders (murder)
>>
>> Don't think so; the timing absolutely sucks and I don't think Giraud
>> could hurt her.
>
>Timing is the same as for Abban alone, assuming Denys heard the phone
No, no, _their_ timing. They don't want to have Ari dropping dead in
the middle of the Hope appropriation bill debate, since whatever else
they are they're pro-psychogenisis.
>call... I don't think it was Giraud but one can make a case for
>Denys/Seely.
Except whatever Denys is motivated by it's not power of a sort Ari
prevents him from having, and other than that motivation is
exceedingly tenuous.
>> >4) "Maybe she just slipped." (accident)
>>
>> Which is unsatisfying in some literary senses.
>
>And profoundly satisfying in others. Some days I like that one best
>because it's so very ironic. It also does a lot for the idea of the
>random universe casually destroying planning, which reflects on Ari's
>macro-plans.
Yes, although the timing is so spectacularly bad it gets out of random
territory for me; a day earlier or a day later would have meant a very
great deal.
[termination order for F&C I]
>> >Do you think Ari II has that same order in file?
>>
>> I don't think she's thought of it to take it out, it's still there.
>>
>> Given that they _can't_ transfer, she's got a problem. If she could
>> transfer them to Justin if she dies, she probably has it set up to do
>> that, but I don't think she can.
>
>Hey, come on, there is another option which is Final Tape! F & C as
>CITs with input would be very dangerous and very powerful.
Final Tape isn't a given; F&C don't necessarily have sets which
support it. I'm dubious that they can stay sane if Ari's dead, as
well, they're not set up to function independently of her.
>I don't think Ari I would have wanted that, even if she'd personally
>written their Final Tape. (The question of what precisely Final Tape
>_is_ is an open one - opinions range from "civics and personal finance
>info" to "complete reprogramming".)
I think it's something like what happened to Dorfl the Golem in
Pratchett's :Feet of Clay:; he was purchased, and the receipt put in
his head along with the magic animating words. Azi who've had Final
Tape start belonging to themselves.
>They'd have been too powerful and too different inputs onto all three
>Youngers. But Ari II going in to Denys? I think she would have wanted
>them as a check on Justin, as well as a support for him, back in
>Reseune, running another of her sets.
I think she would have wanted them around, but I don't think it's
possible; they don't have edited sets, after all, they're more or less
the originals plus whatever the side effects of the improved training
methods are. That's not going to affect their deep sets.
Which they both know, and they are both geniuses; their choice of
tactics makes a lot more sense that way. Ari can decide it's
worthwhile to take chances but they don't have to let her, and if
keeping her from taking foolish chances means killing Denys whether or
not he's willing to negotiate, that's just too damn bad for Denys.
This isn't going to surprise Ari II when she thinks about it, but it
is going to make her feel stupid and probably apologetic and insist
they tell her the next time they come to that sort of conclusion.
>> >> Giraud has some terrible blind spots about azi, he really does. I
>> >> don't think he understands the azi-cit partnership dynamics well at
>> >> all, he seems to see the Justin-Grant pairing as primarily sexual.
>> >
>> >If his primary real experience with them is the Josh Talley's of the
>> >world, building and rebuilding memories out of flux, starting from
>> >blank slates, in the War (and mostly admin/Security since) then it
>> >isn't surprising.
>>
>> It's not surprising but it is pretty serious as a failing in the head
>> of security; there's a whole class of problems he doesn't know to
>> worry about.
>
>Yes. Remember Catlin's comment about them making azi to run Security
>because they can't trust each other?
Trust each other with guns, yes, I remember that very clearly. I like
Catlin.
>Most of Security _is_ azi, and they know what to worry about I
>expect. Catlin shot Abban. Denys too, but we have her thought
>processes for shooting Abban.
Yup. Very straightfoward world view.
Can you think of anyone _but_ Giraud in Security who _isn't_ azi?
>> There's also the problem that Jordan has been just about as socially
>> isolate as it is possible to be; he's going to be having bad echo
>> problems himself, being _required_ to fit back into the society of his
>> peers, quickly, and in politically sensible ways -- especially if he
>> wants to rescind his confession, as it were -- he's going to be
>> undergoing some serious change whether he wants to or not.
>
>Jordan is not a nice person, he's been isolated, he's probably crazy
>and he can't be psychprobed. What he's going to do isn't necessarily
>going to be reliably sensible.
Jordan's domineering; the question is whether or not he can be happy
if he can't dominate Justin or Ari, and that's a question which I
agree can ramify in all directions.
I suspect it can be finessed long enough to get Justin Special status
and to get Jordan some positive PR and to entangle him in _something_,
he's not going to want to set precedent for what happens when a
Special really does go round the twist. He's smart, but he's also in
an information vacuum, especially about Justin, and he's going to stay
there, more or less.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal şe heardra, heorte şe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal şe mare şe ure maegen lytlağ.
Jo Walton
> In article <921187...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <7c6hf7$agi$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
SPOILERS
> >><snip>
> >> There's Giraud and Denys, who relate to Abban and Seely very
> >> 'properly'; distantly, and without stopping to think that the
> >> Supervisor role that works with child-azi doesn't work at all with
> >> adult genius, _however_ they got their world view.
> >>
> >> Then there's Jane Strassen and Ollie, who act a little bit like a
> >> married couple but who are mostly, to borrow Florian and Catlin's
> >> term, Partners; the two of them do one job, and it's a job no one
> >> person could do even if that person had all the necessary skills.
> >
> >This is the model young Ari thinks she wants - she wants "an Ollie",
> >when she gets F&C who are partnered with each other and not with her
> >in that same way she thinks she would have picked just one instead of
> >two. It's F&C's togetherness that makes her careful of them when it
> >gets sexual too. I don't know if Ari I set it up like that. But Ollie's
>
> I think not; Ari I didn't pick Jane as the Olga surrogate, at least
> not from the impression Jane's internal monologue about that process
> gives, it's more the Nyes doing it.
I meant I don't know if Ari I - or Geoffrey Carnath it must have been
for Ari I, in fact - set it up to give her two azi focused on each
other to avoid giving her one as {part of her}.
I doubt it actually, thinking it back to Geoffrey Carnath, they didn't
have the experience then. But Ari is the only person to have two
partner-azi. Jane has two, but Phaedra isn't alpha and is like a servant.
> >early input made a huge difference I think, Ari II consistently thinks
> >about Ollie in a very positive and underlying way. Olga had some poor
> >sap - probably an admin assistant and sex toy, not at all the same.
>
> Yup. Positive relationship model that Ari I never, ever got.
Which went very deep and very early.
There's that staff meeting where Giraud is bored talking about vocab
choices in seven year olds, and the question of how many adults she
cites to Dr. Edwards comes up, and he says she hasn't cited Ollie for
a long time, since just after Jane got sent away, and really Ollie
had two levels of input I think, one as a person in a positive
relationship with Jane, and the other as a physical comfort which Ari I
wouldn't ever have had.
The comment about little things at the beginning making huge differences
is true, and they know it, but they don't carry it through.
> >> Then we have the example of Grant and Justin, who were carefully set
> >> up by Ari I as a test of _something_, something awfully close to one
> >> person in some psych senses. Presumably in part a check to see if she
> >> could duplicate F&C with a CIT as half of the pair.
> >
> >This gives me a horrible thought - you know the rape/intervention? She
> >said she was going to use him for what she had been planning to use
> >Grant for. I'd assumed she was lying, but she wasn't lying about his
> >essay question or that she liked him, and assuming Ari (any value) is
> >lying rather than telling as much truth as possible is... naive.
>
> I really don't think Ari I was intending to duplicate Geoffrey
> Carnath's particular unpleasantness -- and it must have been
> spectacularly unpleasant, Ari II had to look up a lot of the words.
When Micole first posted that theory it made me feel so nauseous
I couldn't say anything to it.
She was capable of doing that, don't know if she was or not.
> It looks to me like Ari I was planning to have a failed -- crushed --
> first romance, rather than an instance of spectacular abuse.
Like she got when she made a pass at him but more so, without the
conversation at Changes afterwards?
> >> Then we've got the difference between the first instance of Ari and
> >> Catlin and Florian and the second; the first is somewhere between the
> >> Nyes and Jane in how she treats her Azi; the second is somewhere
> >> between how Jane and Ollie worked together and how Grant and Justin
> >> are an entity.
> >
> >She hurt Florian (notes) and "they knew when to be afraid". That's
> >really quite a different pattern.
>
> Very much so.
>
> It's also my ongoing impression that Ari II gives F&C much more
> authority in practice than Ari I did; they have a vote. (Not as much
> of one as Ari does, but they two of her can outvote her about security
> issues and behaviours.)
Yes. Though F&C1 had some autonomy, Florian recognises some of the
security stuff Base 1 does as his predecessor's work in a way that
feels like something done with initiative. If Ari II understands azi
much better than Ari I did she might fiddle with the long term plan
for Union. Though even so we know it can't work.
> >She did. Jane wasn't that great a match for Olga, she didn't go into
> >parenting the second time with a huge ego involvement, she went into it
> >determind to do a good job for Reseune, and got caught emotionally.
>
> They were much too focused on 'someone who knew Olga', I think; it's
> very much as though they were measuring the wrong things when they
> picked her, even if they did want to get rid of Ollie.
They were measuring what she did with Julia, but the _reasons_ why she
did it were too different. Julia didn't interest her and so she didn't
love her, Ari certainly did engage her interest.
The more I think about it the more I see how much pressure the Project
itself put on Ari II - the reason she goes to find Justin the time
with the guppies is to check that he hasn't Disappeared, that was a
really major thing in her life.
> >> Since we can be fairly certain that Ari II and Justin were meant to
> >> connect by Ari I, and since (one of) F&C remarks that it's very
It was Catlin, incidentally, by the guppy tank.
> >> natural that sera partners with Justin, and means partners in their
> >> sense, it's not at all clear but what the intention was to provide
> >> next-generation command crew for Reseune; Ari I had to make do with
> >> Denys as the Administrator while she handled the politics, but that
> >> was definately sub-optimal. Having Justin as the Admin would be
> >> _much_ better for Ari II. (except of course it's been buggered up, and
> >> is just as likely to come out some other way around, now.)
> >
> >Justin would be lousy as admin. Too much real time.
>
> Giraud deliberately sabotaged Justin so he couldn't handle real time,
> then forbade Yanni or Petros to do anything about it on something
> awfully close to pain of death; we've got that bit from his POV where
> he says he'll be damned before he sees Jordie Warrwick's son with any
> power in Reseune.
Good point. Jordan could handle realtime, and there's no real indication
Justin wouldn't have been able to. He carries through a (foolish and
naive but responsive to the situation) plan when he was 17, after all.
> The passage where Ari describes her first relationship, with the
> careful abscence of names, just _can't_ be Jordan. Ari was ninety-odd
> when Jordan came along.
>
> It could, though, be Giraud. He fits a lot of Ari's -- at least Ari
> II's -- aesthetic biases and he's old enough, and reading it that way
> fits thematically because Giraud got one king hell of a torch about
> Ari from _somewhere_. He hates Jordan with a blank bleak and
> encompassing hatred merely becuase Ari was _interested_ in him.
You are clever. Yes. That makes a whole lot of sense. She doesn't say
first relationship, she just says she had a friend, but yes, that can't
have been Jordan, that's a much earlier pattern. Giraud is about five
or so years younger than her?
> >What Justin can do for Ari is provide that echo.
>
> At the moment, and very importantly, yes, but Ari I was intending that
> he have real power in Reseune to act as a counterweight to the Nyes --
> and if Giraud _was_ that first disastrous relationship of Ari's, why
> she thinks she'd need a counterweight takes on a considerably
> increased significance -- and she would not have picked someone who
> could not handle real time.
Justin was absolutely right about what the Project needed - the time
Yanni scrambled the ash on the report.
I'm sure that's what Ari I was setting up.
> Yanni may have put Justin on real-time work as a way to see if he'd
> adapt through Giraud's block, come to that; when he didn't, well, that
> says something about how thorough the block is.
>
> Having the parts of Ari's implantation about connecting with her
> successor start connecting has been making Justin better at real time;
> he successfully took on the council session, which he wouldn't have
> been able to do before Ari's small intervention on him.
>
> The other angle at this is a question of how real the neutral-cop
> REALLY bad cop act Denys and Giraud do is; if it's a case of Denys not
> being able to fully control Giraud -- and I think that's the case --
> the Project is in a state of having a constraint imposed by Giraud,
> who has most of the external political power, and is interested in the
> Ari of his idealization being recovered rather more than he's
> interested in getting Ari as she was back.
I don't think Giraud knows there's a difference. Denys does, Denys
definitely does, Denys thinks in those sorts of terms. Giraud in
his midnight couriered letter to Ari and in his thoughts about
Justin he's thinking in terms of her learning valuable lessons, not
about trying to _fix_ her. By that time - after she gets Khalid, I
think, he's treating her as a success. Denys _isn't_.
> >> Yes. Giraud had the security records, and while the only _complete_
> >> record was in base 1, Giraud is no dummy, and had some folks to talk
> >> to who had been alive at the time.
> >
> >They definitely knew.
> >
> >Whose decision was it not to go through the Geoffrey-pattern?
>
> Giraud; probably by fiat, because he blames that incident for Ari I's
> inability to love anyone, especially him. Denys was probably willing
> to go along with it, and indeed I expect that the rest were quite
> willing to hike up Ari's level of hormonal craziness rather than
> arrange for someone to rape her, never mind what Geoffrey did.
Talk about the need for Ethics Boards! Yes. But so much of what made
her successful as herself about there was despite the deliberate
input that it's a really good thing Ari I was right about microstructures.
> >Ari II thinks it was Giraud's. If she's right then Ari I would have done
> >_that_? Thinking it necessary, sure, but... ick. The very odd thing there
>
> Ari I isn't sane about sex; she can't get any kind of objective
> detachement at all. I don't think she would have arranged for the
> whole procedure, but it looks like she thought it was very important
> for Ari to have someone to be able to relate to, on the one hand --
> Justin -- and for her to have a catestrophic first romantic
> experience, on the other. She's set up for that, thoroughly so, and
> if Justin hadn't been more brave than sensible -- and taken a very
> large risk with Giraud, Denys only just holds Giraud off over that
> one, Giraud does not want Ari II ever finding out that Ari I thought
> Justin was important, foolish though he may know that is,
> intellectually -- the set up would have worked.
>
> Instead, they got to the recognition and acknowledgement of mutual need
> _without_ sex. That's way off Ari I's program.
Yes. And mostly because Grant is sensible - which _is_ Ari I's programming
but not what she intended there I'm sure.
> >I think is Ari I's advice on sex is (awful as it is) advice on being a
> >sexual predator, not on being sexual prey. It isn't advice that would be
> >any use whatsoever to someone who was being abused, which makes me wonder.
>
> I think it's there as the pattern to fall into and Ari I's real
> belief, rather than an intellectually choosen goal. Ari I really
> doesn't beleive anyone could ever love her without the consequences
> being really dreadful at best.
What I was trying to imagine was Ari II being abused and asking Base 1
about sex and getting _that_.
But now I think about it I am entirely wrong, because there are more
patterns for abuse than one and I bet it was the same awful pattern
that would fit that, and it really wasn't rape in the violent sense,
except with Florian, as the medical records show. The predator/prey
model isn't the only one for abuse, there's thinking it's what you
want and a good idea at the time out of not damn enough world-information
and being glad someone likes you, and she'd have been very vulnerable
to that.
Ari I was fourteen when she moved out, not twelve, and the public
records show that it was over a demand for her to have her own key
to her room.
If it was a pattern of Uncle Geoffrey being attentive and making
her feel wanted that advice - while probably the worst advice in
the world - does make sense. Poor Ari I - I bet she went right along
with it and when she said no it probably _was_ over the autonomy of
her staff, and it was F&C who made that no possible in any case.
They were there, they were real, they were protection even if they
were only kids and ended up sedated in hospital. Gods. And Ari I went
right on working with him later. See Michael's point on families.
Ari II didn't understand that at the time she read up on it, but... she
was two years younger and hadn't had that pattern. In fact the text
supports that, she says she can make a picture of what happened, and
"making pictures" is always in :Cyteen: "without enough information".
Do we know what Geoffrey was like, apart from from that? About his
other relationships? I don't think we do. I was wondering how strong
a person he was, and if he was like Jordan.
> >> I think so. Denys _says_ that they decided not to be abusive, in not
> >> quite so many words, when Ari moves out.
> >
> >Who decided? Denys is very slippery on that.
>
> He is. I think it was Giraud's fiat.
Giraud was definitely in overall charge there, and you could well be
right. I can't see Denys _wanting_ to do that - Denys definitely wasn't
sexually fascinated with Ari - indeed I don't think Denys is much for
sex at all.
Micole Sudberg
>
>> In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
[Spoilers just for =Cyteen=; I think we've veered away from the =40,000
in Gehenna= bits]
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
> I wonder how much the tapes help - the tapes of learning to
>ride. Incidentally, that's a perfectly wonderful set-up for "person from
>high tech is transferred to low tech/magical world but knows how to
>ride. :]
When I was fifteen, I decided that in my fantasy novels everyone was
just going to *walk*, dammit.
>He did. Nobody ever actually leaves. Also nobody _arrives_ - if Reseune
>wants staff they have to wait for them to grow up, which is really odd
>in a whole lot of ways. We know they have "city offices" in Novgorod
Well, there's Reuben. And some of the other Specials, I think unnamed,
who come from outside Reseune; but those Specials do seem to be in other
fields. I wonder what happens if you're interested in azi psych and
you're from somewhere else? Union general education is still very fuzzy
to me.
Another amazing thing about =Cyteen=: it's huge and exhaustive and at
the end of it you *still don't know* some really basic things about
living Unionside.
>because Justin pretends to work there when he gets the cup of squash
>at the stall, but we don't know who staffs them really.
>
>Reseune also has House and Town divisions.
What's the Town division? Or who?
<Ari's death>
>> I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
>> it; it could have been a real accident.
>
>1) Catlin did it on Ari's orders (suicide)
>
>2) Abban did it (murder)
>
>3) Seely or Abban did it on Denys or Giraud's orders (murder)
>
>4) "Maybe she just slipped." (accident)
>
I can see the train of events for 2 and 3, and 4 obviously doesn't have
one; but what would lead to 1? I can also, just barely see:
5) Florian/Catlin did it (murder)
6) Somebody from outside Reseune did it, for solely political reasons
--though I am least inclined to favor those two. I don't have a very
firm opinion, but I'm leaning towards accident, especially keeping in
mind Graydon's point later on that Ari I is probably in worse physical
shape at the time than anyone realizes.
>> >I think that's underestimating Giraud. Somebody had F&C I killed very
>> >quickly, after all, and even by your Abban theory, Abban wouldn't have
>> >had the authority; or would have had to justify that call to Giraud
>> >afterward in some way.
>>
>> That really was an order from Ari, is my take on it. She absolutely
>> cannot afford to have them interogated under psych probe.
>
>Do you think Ari II has that same order in file?
That's a *very* interesting question.
Jo Walton
sud...@staff.juno.com "Micole Sudberg" writes:
> In article <921188...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
> wrote:
> >In article <7c7apv$fsr$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
> >
> >> In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
> >> Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
> >> >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>
> [Spoilers just for =Cyteen=; I think we've veered away from the =40,000
> in Gehenna= bits]
>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >>
>
> >He did. Nobody ever actually leaves. Also nobody _arrives_ - if Reseune
> >wants staff they have to wait for them to grow up, which is really odd
> >in a whole lot of ways. We know they have "city offices" in Novgorod
>
> Well, there's Reuben. And some of the other Specials, I think unnamed,
> who come from outside Reseune; but those Specials do seem to be in other
> fields. I wonder what happens if you're interested in azi psych and
> you're from somewhere else? Union general education is still very fuzzy
> to me.
There are Specials in Union and not in Reseune, but nobody ever comes
to work at Reseune.
I can just see someone at Novgorod University (we know they have one,
Corain says to Jordan "Student at Reseune means something different
from student at a University" in their first interview...) wanting
to specialise in azi psych and go to Reseune and their parents
screaming at them. :]
> Another amazing thing about =Cyteen=: it's huge and exhaustive and at
> the end of it you *still don't know* some really basic things about
> living Unionside.
It would be very interesting to know what an ordinary person's life
is like. Pretty good and pretty free, I suspect, for a CIT in
Novgorod or Pan Paris or somewhere.
> >because Justin pretends to work there when he gets the cup of squash
> >at the stall, but we don't know who staffs them really.
> >
> >Reseune also has House and Town divisions.
>
> What's the Town division? Or who?
Sam Whiteley - Justin thinks that Whiteley is a Reseune name, but Town,
not House. There are a number of people living out there who aren't
Family. Azi too.
> <Ari's death>
>
> >> I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
> >> it; it could have been a real accident.
> >
> >1) Catlin did it on Ari's orders (suicide)
> >
> >2) Abban did it (murder)
> >
> >3) Seely or Abban did it on Denys or Giraud's orders (murder)
> >
> >4) "Maybe she just slipped." (accident)
>
> I can see the train of events for 2 and 3, and 4 obviously doesn't have
> one; but what would lead to 1? I can also, just barely see:
I don't believe in (1) because I don't think she'd kill herself, but
if she wanted to kill herself and frame Jordan she could have got
Catlin to do the physical setup.
> 5) Florian/Catlin did it (murder)
Oh yeah? Why?
> 6) Somebody from outside Reseune did it, for solely political reasons
Without going through the security door? Not unless they were very
clever. Someone with a bomb might have got to her in Novgorod if
she was careless or unlucky, but in Wing One???
> --though I am least inclined to favor those two. I don't have a very
> firm opinion, but I'm leaning towards accident, especially keeping in
> mind Graydon's point later on that Ari I is probably in worse physical
> shape at the time than anyone realizes.
That does favour slipping, true. Accident has a strange symmetry to it.
But it could well have been Abban.
tomlinson
: >>
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: >>
: Becuase Seely is Security, Denys is terrified of a whole lot of
: things, and the social implications of a deposed administrator having
: their bodyguard taken way are pretty clear -- 'you will be killed
: quietly later. How much later depends on your behaviour.'
I'll accept that. Although I notice that Ari doesn't threaten to take
Seely, but to let Denys keep him, "under some restrictions."
OK, same thing maybe, _mutatis mutandis_: Denys is afraid that Ari
will run something on Seely, and that Denys's trust in him will thence
fatally be undermined. (Security considerations again.)
: Gotta watch out for those deep set filters.
Heh. I think I've reconstructed the thought. It's tempting to read
meticulous and deliberate planning into _everything_ in CYTEEN, but
I'd prefer to think that nobody, not even the elder Ari, possesses
that much control over the situation. Take, for example, Ari's death;
numerous theories have been propounded, as to who murdered her and why.
I think it's pointless speculation; I like Jo's reading, that Ari's
death was nothing but a random accident. Really, the manner of her
death does not matter; what's important is that her death disrupts
everything.
What has this got to do with Justin Warrick...we know that Justin
was Ari's creation, she manipulated Jordan into starting Justin as
a PR. The same log entry says a couple things about Grant that
seem to contradict one another. (One the one hand, Ari made no
real alterations on the geneset that gave rise to Grant, except
what was necessary to get him classified as experimental. On the
other hand, young Ari says that elder Ari did a _lot_ of research
and preparation before starting on Grant. Where the hell did his
geneset come from, anyway? And incidentally, if Grant's designation
is Alpha-LX, why isn't he named "Louis" or "Lucas" or something
beginning with an "L", like every other azi in CYTEEN?)
All of which is to say, Justin and Grant might have been "test cases"
(to borrow young Ari's phrase), but test cases without controls.
Ari can prepare all she likes and still, success or failure rides upon
the vagaries of fortune. I submit that if it weren't for Justin's
disastrous attempt to send Grant off to Krugers, and the unforeseen
mischance of Grant's subsequent capture and rescue, that the two never
would have been driven into each other's arms (I'm assuming, from
young Ari's log entry on Justin, that this was elder Ari's goal from
the start.)
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <7c9pek$1ah$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>> In article <921187...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>> Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >In article <7c6hf7$agi$1...@lara.on.ca> gra...@lara.on.ca "Graydon" writes:
>
>SPOILERS
>
>
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>
>> >> Then there's Jane Strassen and Ollie, who act a little bit like a
>> >> married couple but who are mostly, to borrow Florian and Catlin's
>> >> term, Partners; the two of them do one job, and it's a job no one
>> >> person could do even if that person had all the necessary skills.
>> >
>> >This is the model young Ari thinks she wants - she wants "an Ollie",
>> >when she gets F&C who are partnered with each other and not with her
>> >in that same way she thinks she would have picked just one instead of
>> >two. It's F&C's togetherness that makes her careful of them when it
>> >gets sexual too. I don't know if Ari I set it up like that. But Ollie's
>>
>> I think not; Ari I didn't pick Jane as the Olga surrogate, at least
>> not from the impression Jane's internal monologue about that process
>> gives, it's more the Nyes doing it.
>
>I meant I don't know if Ari I - or Geoffrey Carnath it must have been
>for Ari I, in fact - set it up to give her two azi focused on each
>other to avoid giving her one as {part of her}.
Perhaps Geoffrey Carnath was trying to produce a Hot Bi Babe.
>I doubt it actually, thinking it back to Geoffrey Carnath, they didn't
>have the experience then. But Ari is the only person to have two
>partner-azi. Jane has two, but Phaedra isn't alpha and is like a servant.
I really do think F&C were a specific experiement to see if really
high end Alpha azi could be set up to stablize each other without much
involvement in a particular Supervisor -- note that the degree of
fixed devotion F&C have requires an intervention, just as soon as Ari
can actually do it, that's not intrinsic to their sets (although the
possibility of it is, but it's not clear that it isn't possible for
almost _any_ azi) and that aspect of the experiement failed, and by
the time Ari had power in her sixties it was a settled arrangement.
[Jane and Ollie]
>> Yup. Positive relationship model that Ari I never, ever got.
>
>Which went very deep and very early.
Of course it did; Ollie was Ari's reliable source of meaningful hugs,
because he wouldn't be nice to her no matter what.
>There's that staff meeting where Giraud is bored talking about vocab
>choices in seven year olds, and the question of how many adults she
>cites to Dr. Edwards comes up, and he says she hasn't cited Ollie for
>a long time, since just after Jane got sent away, and really Ollie
>had two levels of input I think, one as a person in a positive
>relationship with Jane, and the other as a physical comfort which Ari I
>wouldn't ever have had.
Agreed.
>The comment about little things at the beginning making huge differences
>is true, and they know it, but they don't carry it through.
They're terrified of it. If they think about that too much it's
obvious that the best they can get is equivalent capabilities and
focus, which isn't what they've sold _themselves_ on, with the likely
expection of Giraud, who values results above all else.
>> I really don't think Ari I was intending to duplicate Geoffrey
>> Carnath's particular unpleasantness -- and it must have been
>> spectacularly unpleasant, Ari II had to look up a lot of the words.
>
>When Micole first posted that theory it made me feel so nauseous
>I couldn't say anything to it.
>
>She was capable of doing that, don't know if she was or not.
Capable, yes, but she was also interested in producing an +improved+
version of herself in many ways. She wouldn't have considered turning
over Base 1's full capabilities to an eighteen year old if she hadn't
been, and I think the goal of someone able to pick up Ari's projects
at 20 or so was part of Ari's original design, not the political
necessity driving the Nyes.
>> It looks to me like Ari I was planning to have a failed -- crushed --
>> first romance, rather than an instance of spectacular abuse.
>
>Like she got when she made a pass at him but more so, without the
>conversation at Changes afterwards?
Precisely like that, but without the intellectual and emotional
connection.
Ari II was carefully programmed to take that as very personal
rejection, on levels her brain doesn't have much grasp of; the
intention was to make her come down in Ari I's social issolation, with
the reinforcement of Ari I's voice in Base 1 telling ther that this
was the inevitable result, which is an indication that Ari considered
that an essential part of her psychset.
So either she's wrong -- and this is a good thing for Ari II and
presuambly Ari II -- or she's right, and wierdness is likely to
proliferate.
The thing that is absolutely stunning is Denys' aparent refusal to
think about Justin; they're doing with Justin something very much like
what they're doing with Ari, in terms of stresses, and they _still_
don't expect him to be different from Jordan while being terrified
that Ari II will be different from Ari I. It's strange.
>> It's also my ongoing impression that Ari II gives F&C much more
>> authority in practice than Ari I did; they have a vote. (Not as much
>> of one as Ari does, but they two of her can outvote her about security
>> issues and behaviours.)
>
>Yes. Though F&C1 had some autonomy, Florian recognises some of the
>security stuff Base 1 does as his predecessor's work in a way that
>feels like something done with initiative.
Autonomy, but nothing like a vote.
Ari II gives them a vote; that's _very_ obvious when they're leaving
Novgorod right at the end, Justin doesn't just have to face Ari,
that's enough of a stress situation that the masks are off and the
collective entity is functioning as such in something like public.
>If Ari II understands azi much better than Ari I did she might fiddle
>with the long term plan for Union. Though even so we know it can't
>work.
It can't work as a long term plan for the human _species_; it can work
for Union, indeed if the Union Science Bureau is able to dispatch
Morgaine's ancestors to shut down the Qhal gates it's very likely that
it worked exceedingly well. (or, at least, that argues for a great
deal more stability than Alliance achieves.)
>> >She did. Jane wasn't that great a match for Olga, she didn't go into
>> >parenting the second time with a huge ego involvement, she went into it
>> >determind to do a good job for Reseune, and got caught emotionally.
>>
>> They were much too focused on 'someone who knew Olga', I think; it's
>> very much as though they were measuring the wrong things when they
>> picked her, even if they did want to get rid of Ollie.
>
>They were measuring what she did with Julia, but the _reasons_ why she
>did it were too different. Julia didn't interest her and so she didn't
>love her, Ari certainly did engage her interest.
Yup. And by the time this was obvious it was too late to switch, and
there wasn't really anyone to switch _too_, either.
>The more I think about it the more I see how much pressure the Project
>itself put on Ari II - the reason she goes to find Justin the time
>with the guppies is to check that he hasn't Disappeared, that was a
>really major thing in her life.
Yes. I don't think it was intended to be, either; Denys has an
immense grasp of detail and nothing like a sufficent grasp of how all
the details fit together on the scale of people. Scale of economies,
oh yes. Scale of people, not at all.
>> >> Since we can be fairly certain that Ari II and Justin were meant to
>> >> connect by Ari I, and since (one of) F&C remarks that it's very
>
>It was Catlin, incidentally, by the guppy tank.
Thanks. I really shouldn't have as much trouble as I do telling what
they're thinking apart.
>> >Justin would be lousy as admin. Too much real time.
>>
>> Giraud deliberately sabotaged Justin so he couldn't handle real time,
>> then forbade Yanni or Petros to do anything about it on something
>> awfully close to pain of death; we've got that bit from his POV where
>> he says he'll be damned before he sees Jordie Warrwick's son with any
>> power in Reseune.
>
>Good point. Jordan could handle realtime, and there's no real indication
>Justin wouldn't have been able to. He carries through a (foolish and
>naive but responsive to the situation) plan when he was 17, after all.
Yes. The question becomes one of 'who runs the intervention', really;
Ari II is now in a position to pull any tapes of Giraud's
interventions that exist, and figure out what went wrong in Justin's
head (and with Ari I's plans, to the extent that she can deduce them)
as a result. The conversation about that is likely to be extremely
interesting.
>> The passage where Ari describes her first relationship, with the
>> careful abscence of names, just _can't_ be Jordan. Ari was ninety-odd
>> when Jordan came along.
>>
>> It could, though, be Giraud. He fits a lot of Ari's -- at least Ari
>> II's -- aesthetic biases and he's old enough, and reading it that way
>> fits thematically because Giraud got one king hell of a torch about
>> Ari from _somewhere_. He hates Jordan with a blank bleak and
>> encompassing hatred merely becuase Ari was _interested_ in him.
>
>You are clever. Yes. That makes a whole lot of sense. She doesn't say
>first relationship, she just says she had a friend, but yes, that can't
>have been Jordan, that's a much earlier pattern. Giraud is about five
>or so years younger than her?
He was four when the first Ari was twelve, according to Denys. So
eight years, which isn't unheard of now and certainly wouldn't be a
large big deal to two adults in that context. And the senior Ari has
a long standing thing for younger men. (oh, and note the kind of
highly dismissive language Giraud uses about those interests of Ari's;
annonymous sexual predation, the lot of it, not significant at all.)
>> >What Justin can do for Ari is provide that echo.
>>
>> At the moment, and very importantly, yes, but Ari I was intending that
>> he have real power in Reseune to act as a counterweight to the Nyes --
>> and if Giraud _was_ that first disastrous relationship of Ari's, why
>> she thinks she'd need a counterweight takes on a considerably
>> increased significance -- and she would not have picked someone who
>> could not handle real time.
>
>Justin was absolutely right about what the Project needed - the time
>Yanni scrambled the ash on the report.
Yup. Justin _is_ a Special, and that's something that everyone but
Ari and Yanni are in the habit of discounting.
>I'm sure that's what Ari I was setting up.
Yes. Although she _wanted_ it with Jordan, and didn't get it quite
right, and had to do it over, something that munged her time table.
>> The other angle at this is a question of how real the neutral-cop
>> REALLY bad cop act Denys and Giraud do is; if it's a case of Denys not
>> being able to fully control Giraud -- and I think that's the case --
>> the Project is in a state of having a constraint imposed by Giraud,
>> who has most of the external political power, and is interested in the
>> Ari of his idealization being recovered rather more than he's
>> interested in getting Ari as she was back.
>
>I don't think Giraud knows there's a difference.
On every third thursday when he's thinking with unusual clarity.
>Denys does, Denys definitely does, Denys thinks in those sorts of
>terms. Giraud in his midnight couriered letter to Ari and in his
>thoughts about Justin he's thinking in terms of her learning valuable
>lessons, not about trying to _fix_ her. By that time - after she gets
>Khalid, I think, he's treating her as a success. Denys _isn't_.
Denys wants a version of Ari who is cautious, so far as I can tell.
He wasn't very happy with the old version, whereas Giraud idolized the
old version, and is delighted when the new version starts proving
politically effective.
>> >Whose decision was it not to go through the Geoffrey-pattern?
>>
>> Giraud; probably by fiat, because he blames that incident for Ari I's
>> inability to love anyone, especially him. Denys was probably willing
>> to go along with it, and indeed I expect that the rest were quite
>> willing to hike up Ari's level of hormonal craziness rather than
>> arrange for someone to rape her, never mind what Geoffrey did.
>
>Talk about the need for Ethics Boards! Yes. But so much of what made
>her successful as herself about there was despite the deliberate
>input that it's a really good thing Ari I was right about microstructures.
You couldn't get an Ethics Board to agree to the _idea_ of
psychogenisis, I don't think, not if Reseune had to get external
approval before trying that.
I really do think that those genes in that environment only really
need to be prevented from getting what they want and given the initial
closeness/distance emotional whipsaw to produce a Special. Reseune is
a place which is more frightening the more you find out and the better
you are at integrating patterns.
>> >Ari II thinks it was Giraud's. If she's right then Ari I would have done
>> >_that_? Thinking it necessary, sure, but... ick. The very odd thing there
>>
>> Ari I isn't sane about sex; she can't get any kind of objective
>> detachement at all. I don't think she would have arranged for the
>> whole procedure, but it looks like she thought it was very important
>> for Ari to have someone to be able to relate to, on the one hand --
>> Justin -- and for her to have a catestrophic first romantic
>> experience, on the other. She's set up for that, thoroughly so, and
>> if Justin hadn't been more brave than sensible -- and taken a very
>> large risk with Giraud, Denys only just holds Giraud off over that
>> one, Giraud does not want Ari II ever finding out that Ari I thought
>> Justin was important, foolish though he may know that is,
>> intellectually -- the set up would have worked.
>>
>> Instead, they got to the recognition and acknowledgement of mutual need
>> _without_ sex. That's way off Ari I's program.
>
>Yes. And mostly because Grant is sensible - which _is_ Ari I's programming
>but not what she intended there I'm sure.
That was there to bolster Justin, I think, possibly even as a check on
him if she oopsed a bit and produced a hostile Justin, she knows she
doesn't have time for a third try.
>> >I think is Ari I's advice on sex is (awful as it is) advice on being a
>> >sexual predator, not on being sexual prey. It isn't advice that would be
>> >any use whatsoever to someone who was being abused, which makes me wonder.
>>
>> I think it's there as the pattern to fall into and Ari I's real
>> belief, rather than an intellectually choosen goal. Ari I really
>> doesn't beleive anyone could ever love her without the consequences
>> being really dreadful at best.
>
>What I was trying to imagine was Ari II being abused and asking Base 1
>about sex and getting _that_.
Ugh.
I think that's a good argument against a theory that Ari I was
planning on replicating the abuse.
>But now I think about it I am entirely wrong, because there are more
>patterns for abuse than one and I bet it was the same awful pattern
>that would fit that, and it really wasn't rape in the violent sense,
Ur?
_Ari_ was in the hospital; Florian and Catlin were in detention,
whatever Ari was in the hospital for 'unexplained medical treatment
that may have included sedation.' (pg 412 of the British brick
edition.) Then we find out from Base 1 that Geoffrey ordered her
sedated.
You think a Family Council would have backed Ari over Geoffrey if she
hadn't been directly assaulted? It's not offical that she was, but
it's pretty clear that she was, and that the medical records for her
condition indicate that Geoffrey was pretty brutal to her after
Florian and Catlin were out of the picture -- Ari II doesn't know the
words -- and they were both taped afterward, too, and we don't find
out what that tape did or does. Geoffrey wasn't just overcome by
passion at some point, that's a considerable outbreak of calculation.
Rage at being denied, or something like that, perhaps.
>except with Florian, as the medical records show. The predator/prey
>model isn't the only one for abuse, there's thinking it's what you
>want and a good idea at the time out of not damn enough
>world-information and being glad someone likes you, and she'd have
>been very vulnerable to that.
Yes. Which is a lot of where I think the setup with Justin was going.
>Ari I was fourteen when she moved out, not twelve, and the public
>records show that it was over a demand for her to have her own key
>to her room.
Yup.
>If it was a pattern of Uncle Geoffrey being attentive and making
>her feel wanted that advice - while probably the worst advice in
>the world - does make sense. Poor Ari I - I bet she went right along
>with it and when she said no it probably _was_ over the autonomy of
>her staff, and it was F&C who made that no possible in any case.
>They were there, they were real, they were protection even if they
>were only kids and ended up sedated in hospital. Gods. And Ari I went
>right on working with him later. See Michael's point on families.
Michael's point on families is very well taken.
>Ari II didn't understand that at the time she read up on it, but... she
>was two years younger and hadn't had that pattern. In fact the text
>supports that, she says she can make a picture of what happened, and
>"making pictures" is always in :Cyteen: "without enough information".
Agreed. She doesn't have the pattern of seduction anywhere in her
life up until that point.
>Do we know what Geoffrey was like, apart from from that? About his
>other relationships? I don't think we do. I was wondering how strong
>a person he was, and if he was like Jordan.
Ari couldn't get the Administrator's post away from him until he died,
despite being in her sixties and near the height of her intellectual
power; I would be astonished if he were not an intelligent and
powerful personality.
How _much_ like Jordan, no idea; it could be an awfully close match in
many respects.
>> >> I think so. Denys _says_ that they decided not to be abusive, in not
>> >> quite so many words, when Ari moves out.
>> >
>> >Who decided? Denys is very slippery on that.
>>
>> He is. I think it was Giraud's fiat.
>
>Giraud was definitely in overall charge there, and you could well be
>right. I can't see Denys _wanting_ to do that - Denys definitely wasn't
>sexually fascinated with Ari - indeed I don't think Denys is much for
>sex at all.
There isn't any indication that Denys is interested in sex that I've
picked up on either.
I don't think they had anyone who _could_ have run that seduction
pattern; they're subliminally terrified that Justin is going to,
becuase he's good looking enough by Ari's biases to do so, but none of
the people available to the project match the pattern. (which is
another arguement for Ari I's intentions for Justin; she was convinced
that her capacity for compassion depended on those experiences, and
presumably considered them critical to Ari's proper development.)
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal ţe heardra, heorte ţe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal ţe mare ţe ure maegen lytlađ.
Graydon
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <7ch0hj$dp3$3...@news1.deshaw.com>
> sud...@staff.juno.com "Micole Sudberg" writes:
>> In article <921188...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
>> wrote:
>> [Spoilers just for =Cyteen=; I think we've veered away from the =40,000
>> in Gehenna= bits]
>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>I can just see someone at Novgorod University (we know they have one,
>Corain says to Jordan "Student at Reseune means something different
>from student at a University" in their first interview...) wanting
>to specialise in azi psych and go to Reseune and their parents
>screaming at them. :]
'but Mom, I'll write'
I can see that very easily.
>> --though I am least inclined to favor those two. I don't have a very
>> firm opinion, but I'm leaning towards accident, especially keeping in
>> mind Graydon's point later on that Ari I is probably in worse physical
>> shape at the time than anyone realizes.
>
>That does favour slipping, true. Accident has a strange symmetry to it.
>
>But it could well have been Abban.
I can believe in slipping being an accident; I can believe the LN2
line rupture being an accident.
I don't beleive that both of them together are accidents.
Graydon
>> Becuase Seely is Security, Denys is terrified of a whole lot of
>> things, and the social implications of a deposed administrator having
>> their bodyguard taken way are pretty clear -- 'you will be killed
>> quietly later. How much later depends on your behaviour.'
>
>I'll accept that. Although I notice that Ari doesn't threaten to take
>Seely, but to let Denys keep him, "under some restrictions."
Meaning Seely's presently very high security clearances would have to
go; Denys understands this as including running tape on Seely,
something Ari makes reasuring nosies about but doesn't rule out.
>OK, same thing maybe, _mutatis mutandis_: Denys is afraid that Ari
>will run something on Seely, and that Denys's trust in him will thence
>fatally be undermined. (Security considerations again.)
Exactly. 'I wouldn't hurt Seely' isn't a commitment not to run an
intervention on him that removes his absolute loyalty to Denys.
>> Gotta watch out for those deep set filters.
>
>Heh. I think I've reconstructed the thought. It's tempting to read
>meticulous and deliberate planning into _everything_ in CYTEEN, but
>I'd prefer to think that nobody, not even the elder Ari, possesses
>that much control over the situation.
I don't find that reading tempting; my reading is that accident plays
a very large role indeed.
>Take, for example, Ari's death; numerous theories have been
>propounded, as to who murdered her and why. I think it's pointless
>speculation; I like Jo's reading, that Ari's death was nothing but a
>random accident. Really, the manner of her death does not matter;
>what's important is that her death disrupts everything.
I think the perception of the cause of her death is politically
important and has meaning within the context of the novel.
>What has this got to do with Justin Warrick...we know that Justin
>was Ari's creation, she manipulated Jordan into starting Justin as
>a PR. The same log entry says a couple things about Grant that
>seem to contradict one another. (One the one hand, Ari made no
>real alterations on the geneset that gave rise to Grant, except
>what was necessary to get him classified as experimental. On the
>other hand, young Ari says that elder Ari did a _lot_ of research
>and preparation before starting on Grant. Where the hell did his
>geneset come from, anyway?
This is in early on; a short, myopic, brown haired Special in biology.
>And incidentally, if Grant's designation
>is Alpha-LX, why isn't he named "Louis" or "Lucas" or something
>beginning with an "L", like every other azi in CYTEEN?)
Two obvious reasons; it's a horrible joke -- Ari was intending to
grant him to Justin -- and it's probably tied into trying for a very
social alpha Azi, so he gets a name that doesn't follow the
conventions.
>All of which is to say, Justin and Grant might have been "test cases"
>(to borrow young Ari's phrase), but test cases without controls.
It's hard to say what constitutes a control; Jordan and Paul may well
have been one.
>Ari can prepare all she likes and still, success or failure rides upon
>the vagaries of fortune. I submit that if it weren't for Justin's
>disastrous attempt to send Grant off to Krugers, and the unforeseen
>mischance of Grant's subsequent capture and rescue, that the two never
>would have been driven into each other's arms (I'm assuming, from
>young Ari's log entry on Justin, that this was elder Ari's goal from
>the start.)
I don't think so; I think it was pretty much inevitable that they'd
end up that way. The precise form of the relationship is certainly
variable with circumstance, and if it weren't for that set of
occurences they might not have noticed quite so soon nor ended up in
quite so much a relationship of equals, but the inclination is in
Grant's deep sets.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
Matthew Malthouse
} In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
} Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
} >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
} to inherit, also -- and I think coincidentally -- for five people.
}
}
} If you can stand the notation; it really wants colours.
}
} necessary ruthlessness, but that makes me blink a bit. (He's _not_
} there just to keep Justin happy; they're intellectually peers.) It's
} hard to imagine Ari I setting things up so Grant was head of Security
} -- Justin was pretty obviously intended to be administrator -- but
} that does look a bit like where that was going.
this is one of the most fascinating conversations about Cyteen
I've read here. Thank's folks!
In my view Grant's significant purpose is as a foil for Justin.
Ari I _knows_ Jordan, she knows his weeknesses, strengths and
whichever of either makes him unsuitable for her purposes.
She knows Justin is a clone, she knows intimately how Jordan is,
and is likely to, interact with his son and can predict with
what effect.
Grant is a tool by means of which she can work on Justin, but
more generally I guess that she calculated the need for such
a constant presence to socialise _Justin_ in a sense, to
counteract the influence of Jordan's rather narcisitic choice
of familly.
Imagine what Justin might have been like continually overshadowed
by Jordan's genius without someone there against who he could
compare himself, even feel superior to at times.
Either Justin would have totally helpless and feeble or intractably
arrogant. Either way he'd not suit Ari I's future plans.
Matthew
--
"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."
http://www.calmeilles.demon.co.uk
Jennifer Barber
(tomlinson) wrote:
>geneset come from, anyway? And incidentally, if Grant's designation
>is Alpha-LX, why isn't he named "Louis" or "Lucas" or something
>beginning with an "L", like every other azi in CYTEEN?)
For that matter, IIRC there's something towards the end about "Seely SA",
which surprised me; wouldn't that be "Seely AS"? *Surely* he's an Alpha,
considering his position in Security....Typo? Faulty memory? :)
J.
>I can believe in slipping being an accident; I can believe the LN2
>line rupture being an accident.
>
>I don't beleive that both of them together are accidents.
That level of coincidence *is* hard to swallow, which is why I've seen
the situation as a combination of the two.
Ari has seizure or slips and falls, smacks her head, dies.
Denys, Giraud, Seely, or Abban find her, realize the potential of the
situation (perhaps after consulting with one, some, or all of the
others), moves the body, scores the pipes, and *voila*: ready-made
murder; the best of a bad situation. Bye bye Jordie, hello political
power.
This sort of situation strikes me as being very much Cherryh's style;
a combination of accident, blind luck (good or bad), and
improvisation.
J.
Micole Sudberg
>In article <7ch0hj$dp3$3...@news1.deshaw.com>
> sud...@staff.juno.com "Micole Sudberg" writes:
>
>> In article <921188...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
>> wrote:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
>> >> I can think of things neither murder nor suicide which would explain
>> >> it; it could have been a real accident.
>> >
>> >1) Catlin did it on Ari's orders (suicide)
>> >
>> >2) Abban did it (murder)
>> >
>> >3) Seely or Abban did it on Denys or Giraud's orders (murder)
>> >
>> >4) "Maybe she just slipped." (accident)
>>
>> I can see the train of events for 2 and 3, and 4 obviously doesn't have
>> one; but what would lead to 1? I can also, just barely see:
>
>I don't believe in (1) because I don't think she'd kill herself, but
>if she wanted to kill herself and frame Jordan she could have got
>Catlin to do the physical setup.
But I thought she wanted to set up a conflict between Jordan and Justin?
I don't have an exact citation, I think it's somewhere where Ari II is
going over the notes, and she's talking about Jordan as a dominant
wasn't going to raise a dominant child; and how Ari I was planning an
intervention that would break the two of them apparent and set Justin in
a more dominant role (in preparation for taking on the development of
Ari II).
Framing Jordan at that point doesn't set up enough of a confrontation,
unless Ari *really* didn't understand Giraud; and even if he killed her,
I don't think she can have gotten him *that* wrong.
>> 5) Florian/Catlin did it (murder)
>
>Oh yeah? Why?
Anger, or fear, that Ari was getting too violent; anger, or love, or
pity, that she was falling apart.
I don't think it's at all likely; but it seemed worth mentioning and
ruling out for completion's sake.
>> 6) Somebody from outside Reseune did it, for solely political reasons
>
>Without going through the security door? Not unless they were very
>clever. Someone with a bomb might have got to her in Novgorod if
>she was careless or unlucky, but in Wing One???
If they had a political partnership with Giraud or Denys?
I kind of like the idea that it was somebody outside Reseune, because it
strikes me as ironic; they are so claustrobic there, in all senses. But
I think accident makes much more sense.
Graydon
Matthew Malthouse <matthew....@guardian.co.uk> wrote:
>On 11 Mar 1999 02:46:23 GMT Graydon wrote:
>} In article <7avgh0$dbu$1...@news1.deshaw.com>,
>} Micole Sudberg <sud...@staff.juno.com> wrote:
>} >In article <7at3pa$8cn$1...@lara.on.ca>, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
>} [Spoilers for :40 000 in Gehenna: and :Cyteen:]
>} Something like that is there in Ari I's intended structure for Ari II
>} to inherit, also -- and I think coincidentally -- for five people.
>}
>} { [Grant,(Justin], <Ari II), [Florian, Catlin] > }
>}
>} If you can stand the notation; it really wants colours.
>}
>} I can't figure out precisely what Grant is for; the obvious answer is
>} necessary ruthlessness, but that makes me blink a bit. (He's _not_
>} there just to keep Justin happy; they're intellectually peers.) It's
>} hard to imagine Ari I setting things up so Grant was head of Security
>} -- Justin was pretty obviously intended to be administrator -- but
>} that does look a bit like where that was going.
>
>this is one of the most fascinating conversations about Cyteen
>I've read here. Thank's folks!
>
>In my view Grant's significant purpose is as a foil for Justin.
In the [Grant, Justin] partnership, certainly.
The use for Grant in the overal command team structure, though that's
not as clear.
>Ari I _knows_ Jordan, she knows his weeknesses, strengths and
>whichever of either makes him unsuitable for her purposes.
>
>She knows Justin is a clone, she knows intimately how Jordan is,
>and is likely to, interact with his son and can predict with
>what effect.
>
>Grant is a tool by means of which she can work on Justin, but
>more generally I guess that she calculated the need for such
>a constant presence to socialise _Justin_ in a sense, to
>counteract the influence of Jordan's rather narcisitic choice
>of familly.
>
>Imagine what Justin might have been like continually overshadowed
>by Jordan's genius without someone there against who he could
>compare himself, even feel superior to at times.
>
>Either Justin would have totally helpless and feeble or intractably
>arrogant. Either way he'd not suit Ari I's future plans.
Agreed; that's pretty explicitly Ari's reason for making Grant as a
balance/support for Justin.
But run it forward; Ari is completely successful in her original
intentions -- meaning she gets the two years she didn't -- and Justin
is independent from Jordan, a rising -- _rapidly_ rising -- power in
Reseune, on track for Special status and able to provide a political
counterbalance to the Nyes.
What is Grant for _then_? Being someone Justin can still trust, yes,
and a personality continuity anchor, also yes, and a neat avoidance of
sexual temptations that will mess Justin's freshly implanted loyalties
up. But he's just as mentally _capable_ as Justin; much like it's
hard to remember that Justin is tall and athletic, it's hard to
remember that Grant is _more skilled_ than Justin at most of the day
to day tape designer sorts of jobs. There's an extremely balanced,
extraordinarily precise, and ultimately rational mind in there, and
Ari had plans for it in the structures of her intention beyond keeping
Jordan from squashing Justin, she had to have, becuase she understood
the dangers of Alphas -- particularly socialized alphas -- hitting
end-of-program.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal şe heardra, heorte şe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal şe mare şe ure maegen lytlağ.
Graydon
Jennifer Barber <jlba...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>(tomlinson) wrote:
>>geneset come from, anyway? And incidentally, if Grant's designation
>>is Alpha-LX, why isn't he named "Louis" or "Lucas" or something
>>beginning with an "L", like every other azi in CYTEEN?)
>
>For that matter, IIRC there's something towards the end about "Seely SA",
>which surprised me; wouldn't that be "Seely AS"? *Surely* he's an Alpha,
>considering his position in Security....Typo? Faulty memory? :)
Seely might predate the azi class system formalization.
There's also the possiblity that it's 'Security Alpha', a seperate
sub-classification, or 'Socialized Alpha', or gods know what; Seely
appears to treat it as part of his name.
I can't find Florian and Catlin's category numbers; they might also
preceed the novel's-present formal system. Anyone know what their
numbers are?
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
Paul Clarke
>
>Seely might predate the azi class system formalization.
>
>There's also the possiblity that it's 'Security Alpha', a seperate
>sub-classification, or 'Socialized Alpha', or gods know what; Seely
>appears to treat it as part of his name.
>
>I can't find Florian and Catlin's category numbers; they might also
>preceed the novel's-present formal system. Anyone know what their
>numbers are?
I don't recall the exact numbers, but they're in the form AF xxxx and
AC xxxx. (This is for Florian and Caitlin II; I assume their
predecessors would have had the same numbers.)
Dorothy J Heydt
>
>I can't find Florian and Catlin's category numbers; they might also
>preceed the novel's-present formal system. Anyone know what their
>numbers are?
Florian AF-9979 and Catlin AC-7892.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
etom...@my-dejanews.com
gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
> I don't find that reading tempting; my reading is that accident plays
> a very large role indeed.
It's the way Ari works. Doesn't young Ari, commenting on the infamous
blackmail-intervention tape, praise the elder's ability to work without
a net, so to speak--judging her "flux" (aside: a telling label for all
that is uncertain, irrational, and uncontrollable in the world of CYTEEN)
and adjusting to circumstances.
> I think the perception of the cause of her death is politically
> important and has meaning within the context of the novel.
But that perception (that Jordan Warrick murdered Ari), false or not,
is settled very early on in CYTEEN and never seriously questioned.
Cherryh _does_ pause long enough to give us a journal entry of young
Ari's in which she suggests that Jordan is innocent--but nothing ever
comes of this in the course of the novel, nor does young Ari follow
up on what she has discovered. I take this, then, as an apostrophe
of sorts, directed at the reader: Cherryh is _telling_ us that some
mysteries have no solutions, and need none.
> This is in early on; a short, myopic, brown haired Special in biology.
<shaking head>. Next time I read CYTEEN I'm taking notes. How was I
to know?
> Two obvious reasons; it's a horrible joke -- Ari was intending to
> grant him to Justin...
Sick. I like it.
> ...and it's probably tied into trying for a very
> social alpha Azi, so he gets a name that doesn't follow the
> conventions.
It occurs to me that Grant might not have been named according to the
usual convention for a more or less incidental reason. There's a
paragraph somewhere in CYTEEN where the naming of azi comes up; aren't
the usual azi names given by the people whose job it is to "bear" and
wean the azi? But Grant was raised not as an azi for a particular job,
but as Jordan's son and Justin's brother. How young was Grant when he
was handed off to Jordan--just a baby, or a couple years old (I wasn't
clear on that)? If the former, then it's possible that Jordan gave
Grant his name.
> I don't think so; I think it was pretty much inevitable that they'd
> end up that way. The precise form of the relationship is certainly
> variable with circumstance, and if it weren't for that set of
> occurences they might not have noticed quite so soon nor ended up in
> quite so much a relationship of equals, but the inclination is in
> Grant's deep sets.
It was a thought. Another will have to wait until I reread the first
chapters of CYTEEN; memory is treacherous.
-tomlinson
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
David Given
J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) writes:
[...]
>> Of course it did; Ollie was Ari's reliable source of meaningful hugs,
>> because he wouldn't be nice to her no matter what.
>
>
> I think Jane was a better mother than Olga too, she learned a lot of
> good things from Jane, and Jane shouting was a lot better than Olga's
> coldness. She thinks very fondly of Jane shouting "Dammit!"
One thing that strikes me about _Cyteen_: Reseune wanted to duplicate Ari
I. They *failed*.
What they got, Ari II, shared a lot of personality traits but was,
fundamentally, a quite different person, and a nicer one too, IMO. She's
*nice* to people. She helps Justin and Jordan, yes, because they can do
things for her, but also in part because she feels sorry for them and
she's certainly fond of Justin. She's careful to keep most of her friends
at a safe distance, yes, because they can be used against her but also
because she wants to keep them her friends. She also appears to have
successfully avoided Ari I's sadistic tendencies.
Ari II is someone I'd be rather interested in meeting, though I'd be
extremely careful. Ari I is someone I'd have a lot of interested in
keeping well away from.
--
+- David Given ---------------McQ-+ This is a test. This is only a test. Had
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | this been a real emergency, you would all
| Play: dgi...@iname.com | be dead by now.
+- http://wired.st-and.ac.uk/~dg -+
Malka Susswein
> In message <36ED993F...@mail.biu.ac.il> Malka Susswein writes:
> > > There are Specials in Union and not in Reseune, but nobody ever
> comes
> > > to work at Reseune.
> >
> > Wasn't Jordan originally an outsider?
> >
> > Jordan and Justin seem to be the only Warricks in Reseune, and they
> don't seem to
> > be related to anyone there. No one ever mentions what Jordan was
> like as a child.
> > We're told that Jordan's father was an educator (as far as I can
> tell, of the
> > regular sort). Of course, he may have been a teacher in Reseune (the
> kids _do_ go
> > to school), but that wasn't the impression I got. The impression I
> got was that
> > Jordan grew up outside of Reseune, and joined Reseune as an adult.
>
> Jordan and his aunt Mari (and Justin of course) are the only Warricks,
> but
> Jordan's father, Martin, was born at Reseune and so was his mother -
> his
> mother had him for the bonus you got for having a baby and handed him
> to
> Martin to bring up. Martin was an Ed Psych special. My guess is that
> Mari
> and Martin were brother and sister and came there from space, or their
> parents did. The cite for this is Ari II's notes about Justin,
> incidentally.
You're right, I forgot about Aunt Mari. Since Grant knows her, and since
she can supervise alphas, she must be in Reseune.
BTW, why doesn't she have anything to do with Justin and Grant? She is
their only family inside Reseune, and I got the impression that she was
still alive at the time of Ari I's death. They were in real dire
straights... So where was she?
I just checked out Ari II's notes on Justin, and you're right - Jordan's
parents were from Reseune. It doesn't actually say that _they_ were born
there, and there's really no way of knowing whether they were or
weren't. Of course, it's conceivable that at the time new staff were
still being added to Reseune from Outside.
So you seem to be right, Reseune doesn't hire from outside itself. The
question is: when did they stop?
BTW, the big birth-bonus is interesting. Perhaps by the time of Jordan's
conception Reseune Admin. had decided to restrict hiring from outside of
Reseune, and so the bonus was in order to increase the staff without
external hiring.
> Hey, why don't you post this and see what other people think?
Ooops! I must've pressed the wrong button, I thought I had posted it!
Well, I've posted it now...
Malka.
Dan Goodman
>In article <921676...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) writes:
>[...]
>>> because he wouldn't be nice to her no matter what.
>>
>>
>> I think Jane was a better mother than Olga too, she learned a lot of
>> good things from Jane, and Jane shouting was a lot better than Olga's
>> coldness. She thinks very fondly of Jane shouting "Dammit!"
>
>One thing that strikes me about _Cyteen_: Reseune wanted to duplicate Ari
>I. They *failed*.
>
>What they got, Ari II, shared a lot of personality traits but was,
>fundamentally, a quite different person, and a nicer one too, IMO. She's
>*nice* to people. She helps Justin and Jordan, yes, because they can do
>things for her, but also in part because she feels sorry for them and
>she's certainly fond of Justin. She's careful to keep most of her friends
>at a safe distance, yes, because they can be used against her but also
>because she wants to keep them her friends. She also appears to have
>successfully avoided Ari I's sadistic tendencies.
Not entirely, as I recall. She doesn't _act_ on them, usually.
>Ari II is someone I'd be rather interested in meeting, though I'd be
>extremely careful. Ari I is someone I'd have a lot of interested in
>keeping well away from.
I suspect we may be seeing Ari III.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
David Eppstein
> I suspect we may be seeing Ari III.
This all reminds me of _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_.
What are the Aris converging to?
--
David Eppstein UC Irvine Dept. of Information & Computer Science
epps...@ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Tony Zbaraschuk
>In article <921676...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>,
>I. They *failed*.
Define "failed."
The ostensible point (as opposed to Denis' ideas about getting the
same person back) was to duplicate Ari I's sociological abilities.
They seem to have succeeded at getting that part of the picture
in place. (Hard to tell, though, considering that so far Ari II
has mostly been learning what her predecessor was up to, as
opposed to originating something like sociogenesis or psychogenesis
on her own.)
>What they got, Ari II, shared a lot of personality traits but was,
>fundamentally, a quite different person, and a nicer one too, IMO. She's
>*nice* to people. She helps Justin and Jordan, yes, because they can do
>things for her, but also in part because she feels sorry for them and
>she's certainly fond of Justin. She's careful to keep most of her friends
>at a safe distance, yes, because they can be used against her but also
>because she wants to keep them her friends. She also appears to have
>successfully avoided Ari I's sadistic tendencies.
So far. But Ari I was in many ways old and bitter -- who's to say
that young fresh Ari II won't eventually develop along the same
lines? (I doubt it, myself: the foundations have been well and
truly laid; she had Jane and Ollie instead of Olga and Geoffrey,
Justin and Amy instead of Giraud and Denys -- but psychsets
interact with environments, and eventually Ari II's environment
must necessarily significantly diverge from Ari I's.)
>Ari II is someone I'd be rather interested in meeting, though I'd be
>extremely careful. Ari I is someone I'd have a lot of interested in
>keeping well away from.
I'll go with that.
Tony Z
--
"The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
His fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stays will die for naught, and home there's no returning."
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.--A.E. Housman
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
Eppstein) wrote:
>In <qUTH2.1690$xl4....@ptah.visi.com> dsg...@visi.com (Dan Goodman) writes:
>> I suspect we may be seeing Ari III.
>This all reminds me of _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_.
>What are the Aris converging to?
Hmmm. Morgaine, perhaps?
jrw
Malka Susswein
> mal...@mail.biu.ac.il "Malka Susswein" writes:
>
> But more of a question is _where is Jordan's mother_?
>
> We know she had a baby "about as clinically timed as you can have sex"
> and didn't have input into parenting the child who was Jordan. But who
> was she, and where is she now - she'd be in her 70s at the beginning
> of :Cyteen:, in her 90s by the end. Why has she no interest whatsoever
> in her biological descendants?
She's a cold hearted woman who really and truly doesn't care. I can't imagine her
actually thinking of Jordan as her child. He was just a job she did, and once she
had her money, the job was over.
> I can see not wanting to parent, and handing a baby to a guy who wants
> to. But she takes "uninvolved" to a degree almost beyond belief.
Yeah.
What interests me is whether Jordan ever looked her up, and what Jordan's father
told him about her. It seems natural to me that Jordan would be interested in who
his mother was, and why she abandoned him. He'd want to know who his family is
(after all, all he's got is a father and an aunt).
And about his mother - she must have known about Jordan once he became a Special.
Even if she hadn't had anything to do with him until then, she was sure to have
heard of that. I would have expected her to show up around then and claim her
progeny. After all, she's the mother of a Special... that ought to be worth
something.
> > I just checked out Ari II's notes on Justin, and you're right - Jordan's
> > parents were from Reseune. It doesn't actually say that _they_ were born
> > there, and there's really no way of knowing whether they were or
> > weren't. Of course, it's conceivable that at the time new staff were
> > still being added to Reseune from Outside.
>
> I think they came from Cyteen Station and from ships, originally, they
> asked people to come - and got specialists in little family clumps and
> in individuals. This was how Jane got there - but Jane got there very
> young, and she had a sister there too - did the Strassen parents come
> from a ship and _drag_ Jane and Amelie, or did the girls want to be
> there or...
Is Jane mentioned as a child anywhere? I have an impression that she was, but I
don't remember where. I have a recollection of Ari II looking at pictures of Ari I,
and seeing pictures of Maman there as a young girl. Which would mean that Jane was
either born in Reseune, or was brought there as a child by her parents.
> > So you seem to be right, Reseune doesn't hire from outside itself. The
> > question is: when did they stop?
>
> The original influx came when Olga Emory and James Carnath were young
> and setting the thing up. By the time Geoffrey Carnath (James'
> brother, family clumps right from the start) took over it seems as if
> they'd stopped recruiting,
So when did the Warricks arrive?
> and certainly from Ari's time there's no
> question - it never crosses Yanni's mind when he's ranting about being
> down to their second tier staff, that hiring people from outside is a
> possibility.
>
> Oh. A thought - Olga and so on were the people who accidentally
> invented azi by a "benign accident" as Grant calls it. They needed
> more people so they started off with tape from the cradle... and
> then _found_ they had azi. Maybe it's after that they changed.
They had a big find, and wanted to keep it "in the Family"?
> > BTW, the big birth-bonus is interesting. Perhaps by the time of Jordan's
> > conception Reseune Admin. had decided to restrict hiring from outside of
> > Reseune, and so the bonus was in order to increase the staff without
> > external hiring.
>
> Human bodies are cheap at Reseune, they have the birth tanks, they have
> the data - what's expensive is human attention to make those human
> bodies into CITs rather than azi. The bonus shouldn't have been for
> physically carrying a baby but for parenting it after. Wasn't though.
You're right!
That's very interesting... For all that they talk about how the only difference
between an Azi and a CIT is that Azi are raised on tape, no one seems to consider
giving out birth tank kids to CIT parents, unless there is no other choice. And
even then - they only use the CIT parents own eggs and sperm. There doesn't seem to
be any adoption of parentless birth tank babies.
So it seems that despite what Ari says, you're a CIT if your parents are CITs. So
they won't create babies in the birth labs and pay people to raise them as CITs.
Instead they pay CITs to have their own babies, in the good old fashioned way.
> Also interestingly they've stopped doing this at some point, Ari II
> says "back then" in reference to the bonus. So when did they stop?
Probably when they felt they had enough people to staff Reseune properly.
> Jordan's only forty or so at the start of the book - he "had" Justin
> really very young.
BTW, his father must've died young. Jordan was 30 when his father died, and his
father was pre-rejuv when he was conceived. So he was probably 70 max when he died.
Malka.
Malka Susswein
kimmel
going to be out? I know it's called A Calculus of Angels and Amazon.com
has it listed as an April book and they're still taking pre-orders, but
I also know that books will often become available a month or two
before the official release date.
Has anybody actually seen or read a copy? If so, do you feel it lives
up to the first book?
--
One terrified boy, and a girl who would save him.
"Claws of Vengeance" now available, http://www.alexlit.com/
Leigh Kimmel -- writer, artist and historian
kim...@globaleyes.net
http://members.tripod.com/~kimmel/lhkwebpage.html
Ask me how to order the new Sime~Gen novel!
Check out my bookstore http://members.tripod.com/~kimmel/bookstore
Steven H Silver
wrote:
>Does anybody know when the sequel to Newton's Cannon by Greg Keyes is
>going to be out? I know it's called A Calculus of Angels and Amazon.com
>has it listed as an April book and they're still taking pre-orders, but
>I also know that books will often become available a month or two
>before the official release date.
>
>Has anybody actually seen or read a copy? If so, do you feel it lives
>up to the first book?
Leigh-
I have a review of it at
http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/reviews.html#K: In short, I feel it
does live up to the first book, although quite different. It also
stands very well on its own.
Steven H Silver
shsi...@ameritech.net
http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag
cbi...@hsonline.net
gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
> >Head of Security doesn't seem right; wouldn't Ari I have put Grant more
> >into bodyguard training for that, somewhere along the line? He was all
> >science and research instead.
>
> He was, but she was planning a radical course change for Justin; no
> reason she couldn't have intended one for Grant, and indeed she'd just
> been handed a golden opportunity to make that change in Grant. She
> just didn't live long enough to use it.
A stealth bodyguard. To fool anyone who tries to off Justin into thinking
that his companion is just a defenseless little researcher who isn't a threat
to them. Then, when they least expect it. . . bye-bye bad guys. Might work.
>
> Also note that Justin got _really good_ self defense tape from
> somewhere as a kid; want to bet that there wasn't a little nudge from
> Base 1 as to which tape Justin found in the library when he made that
> request? There might have been a lot of foundation stuff in both
> Justin and Grant that they don't know about and didn't recognize the
> significance of.
I thought Paul was the source of that tape; for some reason I always
thought that he was originally trained as Security. (Mainly because we don't
see him doing any job that we don't also see being done by azi that are known
to be Security.) In fact, I can see Ari I givig the exact same speach to the
18 year old Jordan that Ari II gives to Amy some fifty years later: 'I want
someone to handle the mundane matters in your life so you can concentrate on
getting your work done. For my piece of mind that someone should be from
Security. For your piece of mind that someone better be smart and male.' I
can just see one of Justin's teachers telling Paul that Justin shouldn't be
fighting his peers like that, Paul agreeing, then getting Justin a karate tape
to learn from.
Thinking over the rape/intervention tape one thing struck me as kind of
odd: Ari I makes some statements to the effect that she essentially planned
out Jordan's life for him, that none of the things he's done were ever
entirely his own idea or action. Does this mean that she delibrately planned
on him getting involved with whatever radical revelutionary group he ran with
as a young man (and was still running with at the start of 'Cyteen' and
planned to have a nasty fued develope between them? Makes me wonder.
Another thing: did it strike anyone else as odd that, despite having been
raised together, no-one in Resune (outside of Jordan) seems to see Grant and
Justin as brothers? When Petros talks to Justin about their relationship the
question of incest never even comes up. When Justin refers to Grant as his
brother in a conversation with Yanni, he acts surprised that Justin does
think of Grant in that way. Admittitedly they are not biologically related
nor legally related to each other but emotionally and morally they are. Yet
no-one evers calls them on it, or even comments on it. Which probably goes
to show just how even azi that are raised in the House itself are seen as not
really 'part of the Family'.
I was re-thinking some of the small but telling details that I noticed in
'Cyteen' in light of the discussions I've read in this thread and in its
companion thread and a rather sickish thought occured to me. The detail I was
thinking over was the implication that Justin and Grant had been living on
their own for some years before the start of the book. I had always assumed
that that was because Jordan really couldn't handle a teen-aged Justin under
his roof anymore. Then this set of thoughts came to me: since Ari I selected
an azi companion for Justin that she knew he would find totally irresistible
(sexually speaking, that is), what would Jordan do around a Grant that was no
longer a small boy but an attractive young man? And what would a Justin that
was just starting to figure out that he is indeed lible to be attracted to men
do with an azi he knows is attractive to the 'original' version of himself?
Think about it.
Might make a bit of a mess. If it was allowed to get too far out of hand.
Chris
Malka Susswein
> I was re-thinking some of the small but telling details that I noticed in
> 'Cyteen' in light of the discussions I've read in this thread and in its
> companion thread and a rather sickish thought occured to me. The detail I was
> thinking over was the implication that Justin and Grant had been living on
> their own for some years before the start of the book. I had always assumed
> that that was because Jordan really couldn't handle a teen-aged Justin under
> his roof anymore. Then this set of thoughts came to me: since Ari I selected
> an azi companion for Justin that she knew he would find totally irresistible
> (sexually speaking, that is), what would Jordan do around a Grant that was no
> longer a small boy but an attractive young man? And what would a Justin that
> was just starting to figure out that he is indeed lible to be attracted to men
> do with an azi he knows is attractive to the 'original' version of himself?
> Think about it.
I don't think so. I can't imagine anything sexual happening between Grant and
either Jordan or Justin if Ari I hadn't done the rape-intervention on Justin.
After all, Jordan admits that he sees Grant as his son. Justin sees him as his
brother. Most fathers do not have sex with their children, no matter how
attractive they are. Same goes for brothers.
If a man adopts a little girl, and she grows up to be a beautiful woman, the kind
that he is normally attracted to, will he then have sexual relations with her?
Will he even _want_ to have sexual relations with her? Not likely.
Malka.