by Vernor Vinge
Note 415
* [ur] Jefri said his parents had similar datasets. Steel’s whitejackets had found what was left of them in the burnt out junk around the ship. Jefri also claimed that the ship’s computer was in some ways better than a dataset, but so far it seemed dead too.
* [ur] PRB QU is there too much repetition of Steel’s galactic aims? In any case, should probably be more carefully paced a development
* PRO RETRO the stuff about manicures — perhaps in reference to
Vendacious’s claws NÆH June 12, 1991
* QU PRO RETRO note capitalization of People
* qU is the italicization of tines going to make people think that it is a foreign word?
* QU Is the progression of Steel’s attitudes working now?
* PRB TUF The implication is that this scene is very shortly after Jefri’s revelation about the distress signal, yet the scenes in between about Jefri and Amdi in the courtyard seem to cover quite a bit of time
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Note 416
* [jrf2] Make “Servants” lower case in this paragraph NO
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Note 417
* iNCON again with the live birth in 13.txt
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Note 418
* CHKd sp bloodline
* PRB Seems a little illogical here to blame Jefri but not Amdi for not getting the radios to work
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Note 419
* iNCON depths?
* mARK 17Jun89
* PRO RETRO this use of “wing”
* [vsv] INCON that they have such easy access. Actually, I think I have now (February 10, 1991 ) fixed this in c30 (though it reads awkwardly and comes rather late)
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Note 420
* CHKd sp mischievous
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Note 421
* PRB QU I hope people don’t think that Steel thinks it was Jefri talking!
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Note 422
* QU Is he killing too many people?
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Note 423
* QU do I go too far in misunderstandings? Suggest you catalog all such
* [vsv] Jefri misanalyzing Steel here
Johanna in c03— do delete this
* QU Is the implication about father too negative here (or maybe nicely Freudian)
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Note 424
* MARK 18Jun89 here is where r2.txt should go
* [vsv]
* INCON BKG Rethink the b/s numbers, and how they apply to the different protocol layers
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Note 425
* [vsv] [ur] INCON CHK go through whole story and make message rates consistent single line space deleted for now January 26, 1991 [Light gloss]
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Note 426
* [ur] CHRON ” 4.579Msec xxx seconds since the fall of Straumli Realm (Clock Slop < 100 seconds)
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Note 427
* [vsv] June 12, 1991 say Given other things in story, I’d say between 5000 and 120000 messages per day is plausible would lead to between 265000 and 6300000 messages. So I’m going to 1e6 here
that’s over 54d
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Note 428
* ID Consider using “out from” consistently in place of “above”
* [vsv] June 12, 1991 NO , the “above” usage is generally too entrenched
Note references to Eye-in-the-U here
* [jrf2] How many seconds??
* [vsv] [ur] June 12, 1991 hr sec PRB
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Note 429
* INCON REN “type 2” or “class 2”?
* [vsv] Class Two (Type 73 was used earlier in reference to Old One, though;
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Note 430
* Relayer gesture phrases <— can’t find any ref to this February 10, 1991
* QU IMP Are wars rare? (and what does that mean?)
* IMP ID What substrates are most susceptible to Helper? Can mean substrate at different levels (Terrestrial v Jovians… or cultural) High Beyond is most susceptible Chapter TITLE : By all that is Moderate!
* ID Jellyfish image of the Helper
* PRB INCON Think about representation and propaganda of the Helper
* ID Might have diagrams courtesy Woodcarver Graphics
* ID PRB QU How to work net wildlife in — see sapient packets, below
* PRB “play/pay” has to be explained somewhere
[vsv] can’t find any reference to this February 10, 1991
* [vsv] Possible INCON Contradiction in how hard it is to make ultradrive (cf the refugee ship)
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Note 431
* [ur] single line space deleted for now [Light gloss]
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Note 432
* [vsv] [ur] June 3, 1991 Consider doing this to less precision:
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Note 433
* [ur] CHRON ” Date: 5270944 seconds since the fall of Straumli Realm xxx seconds since the fall of Straumli Realm (Clock Slop < 100 seconds)
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Note 434
* [vsv] PRB “syntax” v “protocol”
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Note 435
* [ur] single line space deleted for now [Light gloss]
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Note 436
* [ur] CHRON ” Date: 5281040 seconds since the fall of Straumli Realm xxx seconds since the fall of Straumli Realm (Clock Slop < 70 seconds)
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Note 437
* CHK stellifications? I had trouble with this word in MiRT ; not sure if I had it right as of publication
* [vsv] according to my dictionary “stellify” means “turn into a star”; and this is in contradiction to the “stellation” I used in MiRT (at least in MiRT /C15A.TXT)
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Note 438
* [vsv] [ur] June 12, 1991 hr sec
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Note 439
* ID could have this second part of the message be a separate mailing from my pet flamer, and/or some naif
* PRB All this should be obvious/old hat to the intended audience
* [vsv] The last few sentences of the posting may be an excuse for its Dick-and-Jane tone
* [vsv] ? INCON Class Two as originally presented seems a little different than this — not that it was a danger to the creating civilization in the Middle Beyond
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Note 440
* [vsv] [ur] April 14, 1991 May want to delete the last couple of sentences
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Note 441
* [vsv] CHKd geometry
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Note 442
* [vsv] Seems like by this time there should be more construction
* [vsv] Actually what you are saying here isn’t too inconsistent with what you say at the beginning of c24
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Note 443
* [vsv] IMP PRB again ambiguity about Johanna’s survival
Gotta get this handled consistently!
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Note 444
* [jrf2] About 20 pages back, Jefri refers to Johanna as if he knows she’s alive. Does he? Did he? This is confusing here.
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Note 445
* [ur] single line space deleted for now January 26, 1991
* [vsv] ? suggest using this special mark all through in the news items to make them come out in single space
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Note 446
* [ur] Using w.bat and wc.com to do 1500words/day
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Note 447
* IMP ID QU Ravna as a stay-at-home with an adventurous turn of mind (and actually we already have evidence that she is a remarkable “stay-at-home” since she left Sjan
dra Kei to work for three years at Relay)
* [vsv] REN Grondr —> QU It does collide with “the Blabber”, just have to decide what to do
IMP ! PRB to work on alienness of aliens
* ID possibility of using “it” pronoun for Powers, but capitalizing
* [vsv] looks like what you’ve done is mainly use “it” except perhaps “he” when speaking of Old One later
* IMP In first conversation about Old One, part of OOs safety may stem from the fact that they know its parent
* She’s doing well with the OrgTheir embarrassmentHer competenceHer story is “Secret/Personal” so she can unblock it at a later timeRefugee stuff is still “Secret/Org” well-guardedTrying to make sure they aren’t doing business for the Perversion
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Note 448
* Chapter TITLE “The Emissary Device”
* QU IMP again what to do about the gender of the Riders.
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Note 449
* CHKd “glassine” <— unfortunately, this is a type of paper!
* [vsv] so used “glassy”
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Note 450
* [jrf2] “extreme to say” is awkward
* [vsv] [ur] June 20, 1991 but result may not be euphonious
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Note 451
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 Note the implication that very long term “memory” is also contained in the skrode 12Jun91
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Note 452
* [vsv] [ur] CHK INCON “dozen civilizations” see jrf.txt<?>
* [vsv] Seems to me like this sort of INCON is tied up with general resolution of location of Straumli Realm
* [vsv] grep for [Bb]light ; is the is the first usage?
* [vsv] CHKd 02Feb91 It’s been ~135 days since Blight’s birth June 13, 1991 hr sec
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Note 453
* [vsv] June 12, 1991 “Since their ship was refinanced”: several CHRON implications here. This refinance could have been as early as 5Aug15988. Since it is now 10Nov15988, that’s a maximum of of 95d. Hmm. So even if they flew 3 such flights, and even if they’ve been in drydock for a while, there’s still enough time
In fact other constraints seem to put the (unstormy) time to disk from Relay at < 20d
* TITLE Trip to a Target
* [jrf2] “They” refers to the Riders or the jobs? Unclear:
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Note 454
* [jrf2] still finds “light had the ultimate speed” AWK June 20, 1991 TUF
* [vsv] CHKd if there was any claim earlier that the ship had a ramscoop
No earlier reference as of now, So I am officially assuming OOB did not previously have such
* [jrf] Need (short) scene or scenes before this showing Ravna finding out about the situation on Nameless. This here is all out of the blue.
[vsv] I have rearranged some of the things, so maybe this is fixed now? Think more on this when you do your repolish of Countermeasure scenes.
* [jrf2] It’s better now.
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Note 455
* mARK 21Aug89
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Note 456
* [vsv] Good data point about depths relevant to PLOT in this paragraph And unfortunately may want to change it, if you move Straumli Realm
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Note 457
* [vsv] CHKd 02Feb91 100 days
June 8, 1991 CHKd CHRON 90d
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Note 458
* PRB INCON this assessment of the Riders seems a little in conflict with Ravna’s thinking them “just plain folks” in r1 <— NÆH
* QU misuse of race?
* PRB INCON stalks, tendrils, tentacles, fronds: research differences, decide which you want as synonyms, which they don’t have, and which refer to different aspects of their bodies.
* [vsv] Stalk is the central body; the other terms can be used for their manipulators (but may never have used “tentacle”).
* [MG] PRB Doesn’t see wheels as appropriate in the original environment
* [jrf] What is their original environment?
* [vsv] Original environment was intertidal coastal — like where you can see barnacles and sea urchins on our world…. I think this comes up explicitly later (eg, next paragraph of ms) and I thought was implied by the various scenes of them in the water Suggests artificial walkers with anchors instead of wheels Suggests that there are different explicit stories Doesn’t like “left to themselves they had developed intelligence”
* [jrf] It’s ok as is!
“a unique nervous system without short term memory”
Might spread this discussion through more discussion of their antics. The incongruity of their playing and moving, the rooster tail.
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Note 459
* [jrf] |Why??? Altruistically, or to use the skroderiders??
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Note 460
* [vsv] QU RETRO write “emissary device” to right after first bedroom scene
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Note 461
* QU Does following paragraph make sense? I really don’t want to get the notion that he might want to trade sex for favors (unless that can done in a light way)
* PRB QU Pham Nuwen is really human; I don’t want my readers to think he is a “mechanical machine”
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Note 462
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 Do you use “waldo” anywhere else? Should you? Should you really be using it here? Yes, in c36
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Note 463
* QU How jarring is the claim that she has pictures of Jefri’s parents
* CHK CHRON cited here. You may want to make first contact to be earlier so that there is more time to develop the conclusions you cite in this scene
* CHKd couldn’t find any reference to Hamid’s eye color in “The Blabber”
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Note 464
* [ur] single line space deleted for now January 26, 1991
* [vsv] I think it’s okay:
* PRB MG these numbers are too low in the next scene, unless you make it clear that this is one per day. Doesn’t see the point of numbers. Overall should think about the timing more (and the possibility of pipelining questions)
* [vsv] IMP ! big thing is rearranging all the messages
Everybody seems to want to move this back to Part I. You may still want something here, though for best effect it should be connected up to things happening on Tines World.
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Note 465
* QU How clear is it that this “enemy attack” is a Steel fakery?
* [JLC] It isn’t very clear
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Note 466
* [vsv] February 24, 1991 Actually, there is also the explanation that it was a freight container. Actually**2, these may not be inconsistent
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Note 467
* [vsv] [ur] June 13, 1991 “the Old One” v “Old One”?
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Note 468
* [vsv] [ur] June 13, 1991 AWK
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Note 469
* [vsv] ID PRB actually this is a place where artificially sapient creatures for the Low Beyond would probably be appropriate. June 13, 1991 In a way, this is what the godshatter turns out to be
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Note 470
* [jrf] Not clear exactly what the Old One is. It could, for all we can see, be part of the Perversion.
* IMPER INCON PRB Seems like there are a lot of things that the Powers could perform without Beyonder help. For instance, why didn’t Old One just build his own relay equipment and lower it into the Beyond. Hmm, that particular example has a solution, I think —namely that he was using the connections available there and the extant archive there. There are a number of possible
explanations, but they introduce other problems (like conflicting with the aid that Ravna is asking for in this scene)
* [vsv] I have tried to make some changes in the following paragraphs to ease the (global) problem
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Note 471
* MG PRB : It’s not a pipeline so much as sometimes he is god.
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Note 472
* PRB make it clear in this scene that Pham still depends on his Qeng Ho background even though it is synthetic PRB I need something sense oriented in this scene (not sex). It seems to be interminable dialogue. QU How dull is it coming across.
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Note 473
* NÆH : ID It would be nice if somewhere you could contrast the factions in Applied Theology, the Bean Counters versus the Analogists
* NÆH : ID Might RETRO write Analogism into the scenes where she’s trying to explain the Powers to Pham Nuwen in r1
* IDEA fragment: “data [or idea] scrubbers”, I wonder what they would be?