A fire upon the deep, p.71
A Fire Upon the Deep, page 71
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Note 196
* QU Have I made it sufficiently plausible why ftl and intelligence is connected with the Zones?
* [jrf] Not really, so far
* QU is this too much like the experience of Tunç Blumenthal?
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Note 197
* Chapter TITLE : “God in a Box”, trouble is, that’s awfully close to Barry Longyear’s The God Box
* INCON ? you imply a little further on that 20 worlds are associated with Sjandra Kei. Even if you change the name, you should redo your chron and population growth calculations
* [vsv] Go for 3 worlds, 2 in one system
* IMP PRB somewhere have to talk about the possibility of just making copies of Pham Nuwen — June 11, 1991 TUF
* ID while with the Org, her name might be Ravna Vrinimi Human Bergsndot
* PRB QU that Powers would be interested in him in particular
* [vsv] … this because they can’t be more than 3 weeks flight from Sjandra Kei (this before the storms). Of course, Pham turns out to be a setup
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Note 198
* [jrf2] What are “death cubes”? What does this mean? June 11, 1991 TUF
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Note 199
* ID IMP Somewhere might remark [excuse, actually] the fact that some alien races seem so un-alien. Also, you should work on getting more alienness. These guys are all like members of the same culture much less different races from different planets
* [hld] They use “tech-tools” to mask alieness adequately to have data and artefact trading work — very large superset of AI aided translators. Most “aliens” never get to see “real” aspect of other species. Exception for academic specialists and “cultural engineers”.
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Note 200
* PRB Maybe you should have her worrying a little more about Org ethics; seems reasonable that if they are very good about caring for employees, that strong reciprocity is expected
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Note 201
* [jrf] What does this mean?
* [vsv] Presumably this is a ‘Kalir idiom It means “looking for the hidden ‘gotcha’”
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Note 202
* [hld] Would Skandr’s displays be visible to Ravna, or would it be some sort of direct connect?
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Note 203
* [jrf] Have we heard about this sending before?
* [vsv] Yes, explicitly in c06
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Note 204
* [JLC] mildly questions not having a reference to Powers beyond the Powers here
* [vsv] April 13, 1991 Might have Old One also be amused by this name c16) June 11, 1991 — NÆH
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Note 205
* [JLC] says this next sentence is awkward
* [hld] Are Powers evanescent, or do they evolve into less and less comprehensible/physical entities
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Note 206
* [vsv] [ur] July 19, 1991 I’m leaving this downlink reference, else there are serious questions about why they didn’t offer simply to ship a copy of the whole archive.
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Note 207
* [vsv] [ur] July 19, 1991 someplace have a note about archive freighters IMP ID archive theft and archive copying (could be that copying is hard)
* IMP Give Grondr an explicit race, and use that in the ms: Kalir
* ID come up with a consistent system of classes for powers, and put Old One in it NÆH
* QU REN alternatives to “Old One”? JLC: The Newly Ancient MG: Old Fogey, El Viejo VSV: Old Hand
* [jrf] IMP Define exactly what we mean by “a Power”!
* [vsv] I think I have done so now. See the Prolog, and also the first discussion between Ravna and Grondr.
[jrf2] ok
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Note 208
* [hld] Take payment from Old One in enhancements to Relay to offload existing facilities
* [vsv] PRB hld suggestion is apt here
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Note 209
* [ur] page 93, INSERT L [a separate paragraph]:
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Note 210
* [ur] FRAG #Grondr’s image was replaced by a couple of communication traffic graphics. One showed archive usage, something Ravna was quite familiar with by now. The archive at Relay was a double money-maker, since before people could pay to see the data they had to rent connect time. For millions of users, the cost was worth it, since most other old archives were in decrepit civilizations with crummy front ends.#In the last hundred hours, usage was unpleasantly close to saturation. Nearly twenty percent of all accesses were from a single account — Old One’s.
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Note 211
* ID Powers only seem fickle/capricious because of our small interface with them
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Note 212
* [vsv] February 9, 1991 not too IMP Somewhere do your processing commentary on what agrav is
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Note 213
* [jrf] What’s this last sentence about?
* [vsv] I referring to the fact that she intends to change Pham’s mind about “selling” himself to Old One
* [vsv] [ur] IMPER PRB INCON <= Human equivalent “mechanical” intelligences ought to possible in the Slow Zone (though not built from scratch: building an AI from scratch by a Slow Zone civilization would be theoretically possible, but is highly impractical without more advanced development environments. Even if it could be done it would take more compute time to set up than these civilizations can normally live). June 11, 1991 : Not sure how serious this is
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Note 214
* ID recommend you change to the following indent for CHAPTERs, so as to avoid bad autoindenting
* PRB How to make Relay sufficiently wild (but not too wild)
* [MG] Magic — human equivalents scuttling around under foot. Toroid of black holes with a Transcend in the middle
* [vsv] fractal complex of floaters
* [jlc] sounds neat
* Hmm raises interesting image of a large structure of this sort with the lowest layers being a mecrobe level
* [jrf] [ur] ?
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Note 215
* [vsv] [ur] June 12, 1991 this is also a place where you might remark on the accessibility of Relay to starship commerce
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Note 216
* TITLE Beyonders’ Quest TITLE Transcenders’ Quest TITLE The Blight from the Transcend TITLE At the Bottom of the Beyond
* [jrf] intriguing title
* PRB get times here so they can be tied up with news item later
* [jrf] yes
* ID One reason extra for having Old One’s ship down here is cryptographic
* [JLC] Yes!
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Note 217
* QU is the description of TWC too high tech?
* [vsv] June 7, 1991 CHKd “bourse” exchange; a European stock exchange from purse
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Note 218
* ID about bar scene and ness: Could make the point that only a small fractions of races can actually get together for a bar scene of the classic sort. This leads to bars with very limited clientele in any one area (but lively), and bars that are scarcely more than sterile conference sites — things would be different at the Top of the Beyond where you could meet in the abstract
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Note 219
* QU Decide whether you want to have mentioned in narrative before here how alone Ravna has been
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Note 220
* QU Is the change in character below too jarring (even though it is explained later)?
* [MG] MG said no
* [JLC] no
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Note 221
* ID suggest using “in” as preposition for multiplanet regions, and “at” for smaller things
* [JLC] neat
* PRB INCON ? Gotta decide whether you want the Skroderiders to need a voder or not. Also, do you want them to be specifically familiar with Sjandra Kei (pretty much needed for the use of crypto stuff later in the novel)
* [vsv] Voder yes January 24, 1991 get geometry of their trading path clear. Make consistent with whatever rewrite you do of Straumli Realm location, and Skroderider coincidences
* ID February 9, 1991 In connection with Rider Secret and its explanation of long coincidences: you could have Pham discussing this during some of the “long time” inserts NO ! (except maybe to dismiss it even from his own paranoia)
* INCON with later personality of Blueshell
* PRB long coincidences here
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Note 222
* [vsv] INCON ? “by God”?
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Note 223
* REN to avoid image that these are plants, you might want to change Greenstalk’s name Pinkstalk? QU [too sexual?] Sveltstalk? or maybe just Greenshell and Bluestalk (swapping adjectives)
* [jrf] use these —> Settled for Blueshell and Greenstalk
* [JLC] wants more description of Skroderiders somewhere; also felt mislead by lack of description. In particular, he thought Riders were smaller than they are
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 Might actually specify dimensions here
* [vsv] June 11, 1991 okay: top is 150 by 120 cm
* [vsv] 11Jun91 mARK
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Note 224
* ? CHK Homo Sap, etc
* CHKd skrode. Is there such a word? [not in my collegiate]
* [vsv] [ur] CHK OED skrode Should it be capitalized when used alone? NO
* [jrf] why not?
* [vsv] No real good reason, except that it is so common to the Riders that they think of it as a common noun (hand, foot).
* CHK INCON 100y Could comment that Out of Band is an uninspired name. Also I really would like somewhere to have the notion of media freighters (AST’s “sneakernet” “station wagon broadband”) 07Jun91 MARK
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Note 225
* CHK this size of one-time pad compared to the usage numbers elsewhere
* [jrf] ?
* [vsv] in c33 you say “… terabytes of random bits …” In any case this should be compared with claims of parsimony in the battle chapter c33c36
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Note 226
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 CHK “link-layer” — really not clear what such would be June 12, 1991 TUF The greater problem relates to suspicion and motive in the Destruction of Relay
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Note 227
* QU Is it too confusing that there is some mechanical translation but also some effort to learn other languages
* [actually I find this quite reasonable. The mech translators are for specific pairs and are not perfect in the Middle Beyond]
* [vsv] maybe most consistent would be to say that Relay is High Middle and Sjandra Kei is Low Middle
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 Okay, but I think for the most part, I’ll call them both “middle”
* [vsv] Still the translators in this bar seem to be too good
* QU INCON that Blueshell invited the humans over when he knew it might start a fight
* Possible SOLN : He was getting fed up with this colleagues
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Note 228
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 NO T “potted plant” — I think okay, given the words and dimensions you use in the first encounter
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Note 229
* ID ironic, Pham is both VSV’s foil and Old One’s — and for almost the same purpose!
* IDEA The Mandatory-or-Forbidden Crowd: it’s very hard to get any real progress past them
IDEA USA variant of Mandatory-or-Forbidden: Free-or-ForbiddenSubsidized-or-Forbidden
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Note 230
* [vsv] at worst (February 9, 1991 ) a small INCON : TUF
* [vsv] CHK INCON reference to Straumli Main here; is that just the transceiver or is it the name of a habitation
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 CHK CHRON
* [vsv] June 12, 1991 usual time units problem: “hours” “sec” etc
* [vsv] June 12, 1991 by current CHRON it is now 36 days since Straum fell from the Net, Straum is High Beyond, so I say time from there to Relay CHRON
really can’t be more than 20d (could be as short as 10) CHRON
and then there is the time OOB has already been at Relay CHRON
that could be 3 to 14d CHRON
* [vsv] CHRON so I’ll say 15d flight and 12d at Relay = 27d So they left Straum 9d after it fell from Net
27d = 2.332 Msec = 648h. 9d = .7776Msec = 216h = 1.286w
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Note 231
* PRB QU Too little indication of why such a takeover is a Very Bad Thing?
* [JLC] Yes
* [vsv] Connected with the IMPER PRB of where Straumli Realm is
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Note 232
* ID SIDEBAR “first hand” myths from the Transcend
* QU Is there an INCON with Ravna wondering the same thing earlier in the story?
* ID In connection with Applied Theology: analogies v simulations
* IDEA Major problems in writing: The gimmick that would be already well-known Language/communication problems as they really occur
* QU PRB IMP Too talky. Should show these things. Sigh
* [JLC] I think it’s okay
* [jrf] I agree; little way around it, except V12
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Note 233
* [vsv] ID Helper video should be a place where you can show some of the horror
* CHK sp alienness
* [jrf] ok
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Note 234
* I’d like to get this idea in somewhere: FRAG : Blueshell seem to use the old honorific with all humans; in Triskweline, it sounded especially silly
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Note 235
* [jdv] p114 c08 ” bent ” Ravna is thinking about what happened to Straumli Relam and is talking to Pham
Should have more vividness of about what is the horror of Blight
* [vsv] QU shorten because of redundance with the Prolog? June 12, 1991 FRAG : Damn, it was so much horror for so little reason.
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Note 236
* PRB Nuts. This really ought to be done like D. G. Compton’s As the Gentle Rain.
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Note 237
* PRB Someplace gotta have them getting drinks or whatever
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Note 238
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 CHK that you’ve presaged this daughter colony thing June 12, 1991 : middle of this paragraph redundant?
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Note 239
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 CHK back in c01 that the refugee ship had done an ad hoc move. Probably also have to have some explanation for why Tines world. (Maybe it wasn’t Tines world; but the move was only a small one.)
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Note 240
* [vsv] See c07 notes; I have dropped Fornax from this story
* PRB INCON if you stick with this statement, you can kiss Fornax goodbye
* [vsv] NO June 12, 1991 : ID Exponential scaling makes the OOB’s later ability to talk to Jefri more plausible, but it also undermines the economic viability of major off-plane sites like Relay
* There exists a FRAG (probably in r2) that talks more about the nature of these antennas
* June 12, 1991 the ignorance alluded to here may be INCON with some later instances
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Note 241
* [vsv] [ur] INCON with OOB‘s antenna swarm (in 2 different ways) June 12, 1991 Probably not
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Note 242
* [vsv] [ur] I really think “newsgroup” should be one word in this novel. June 12, 1991 If time, might fix this (~8 instances, v 16 instances of the “newsgroup” usage)
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Note 243
* PRB Gotta make it clear someplace that the certificants were not in on the secret of the refugee ship — I think I’ve implied this at the end of this scene SOLN ?
* PRB Somewhere around here should say something to make it less improbable that there were children at the Lab. For instance, it might have been strongly isolated and for a long time.
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Note 244
* QU “My Lady Ravna” instead of “My Lady Bergsndot”
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Note 245
* [ur] ? INCON with earlier statement about sound shielding between tables
* [ur] ? PRB with 6’th sentence
* [JLC] What is Ravna’s age? June 12, 1991 GUESS 30y
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