On to the Short Sun
Jan. 26th, 2004 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avramFinished The Book of the Long Sun last night, started On Blue’s Waters (first part of The Book of the Short Sun) today.
I’ve been wondering about just what sort of technology was available to people in the Whorl. Horn, in On Blue’s Waters, talks about how they couldn’t make things on the Whorl like people could back on Earth (he does not, of course, use those terms). Certainly there’s a shortage in Viron of parts to use to repair chems and use as cybernetics for bios, but the Aynuntamiento has a supply of chem bodies to turn into duplicates of themselves and Generalissimo Siyuf. (Maybe that’s why there’s a shortage.)
And then there are the taluses. We know they’re built on the Whorl, Silk visits a factory that makes them, and we learn in great detail about the manufacture of their shells, but little is said about their electronics. Taluses seem less smart than chems, implying that whatever the process is that creates their minds, it’s less advances than what was available on Earth. But what is it? Are they cobbled together out of chem parts, or cards? Surely Viron doesn’t have the resources to build computers from scratch!
I also wonder about the azoths. Certainly Earth tech, and rare, though Blood owns two, not including the one Crane brought for him from Trivigaunte. And I wonder what an azoth’s range is. Presumably it can’t reach the heights the Trivigaunti airship usually hangs at; otherwise the thing would never have lasted past its first encounter with an azoth-wielder.
And I flat-out fail to believe in the scene where Silk parries Blood’s azoth attack on Marble/Rose. If something light enough to be made into a sword could deflect an azoth blade, troopers would be made out of it, and combat floaters would have thin strips of it worked into their shells. And then there’s the question of why the apparently-immaterial azoth blade should be deflected by something it can’t cut, rather than just continuing on the other side of it as a beam of light would.
Update: I googled for azoth, and found a page about alchemy which tells me:
I still don’t know why Silk calls the activation button on his azoth a “demon”.
I’ve been wondering about just what sort of technology was available to people in the Whorl. Horn, in On Blue’s Waters, talks about how they couldn’t make things on the Whorl like people could back on Earth (he does not, of course, use those terms). Certainly there’s a shortage in Viron of parts to use to repair chems and use as cybernetics for bios, but the Aynuntamiento has a supply of chem bodies to turn into duplicates of themselves and Generalissimo Siyuf. (Maybe that’s why there’s a shortage.)
And then there are the taluses. We know they’re built on the Whorl, Silk visits a factory that makes them, and we learn in great detail about the manufacture of their shells, but little is said about their electronics. Taluses seem less smart than chems, implying that whatever the process is that creates their minds, it’s less advances than what was available on Earth. But what is it? Are they cobbled together out of chem parts, or cards? Surely Viron doesn’t have the resources to build computers from scratch!
I also wonder about the azoths. Certainly Earth tech, and rare, though Blood owns two, not including the one Crane brought for him from Trivigaunte. And I wonder what an azoth’s range is. Presumably it can’t reach the heights the Trivigaunti airship usually hangs at; otherwise the thing would never have lasted past its first encounter with an azoth-wielder.
And I flat-out fail to believe in the scene where Silk parries Blood’s azoth attack on Marble/Rose. If something light enough to be made into a sword could deflect an azoth blade, troopers would be made out of it, and combat floaters would have thin strips of it worked into their shells. And then there’s the question of why the apparently-immaterial azoth blade should be deflected by something it can’t cut, rather than just continuing on the other side of it as a beam of light would.
Update: I googled for azoth, and found a page about alchemy which tells me:
In alchemy, there are three symbolic substances: mercury, sulphur, and salt. To these was added a fourth, mysterious life principle called Azoth. [...] Concerning the nature of Azoth there is much controversy. Some view it as the invisible, eternal fire; others as electricity; still others as magnetism. Transcendalists refer to it as the astral light. [...] In 16th century portraits painted of Paracelsus, the pommel of his sword, upon which rests his hand, bears the inscription “Azoth.”
I still don’t know why Silk calls the activation button on his azoth a “demon”.