Note 579
* [vsv] QU Is it clear that the Known Net is anarchical (no central admin possible)
* [jdv] p335 Unintelligible paragraph
* [vsv] here might be a place for backwards echo on the people they were not able to save
* [vsv] ? INCON CHK “documented history” assertion last scene was the first use of thralls, you should grep for it, too, and decide on usage.
Note 580
* [vsv] ? “outside of the Net’s records”; I’m not sure I want to get into the implication of initializing catastrophes here.
Note 581
* [ur] Page 279, INSERT N [at the beginning of a paragraph]:
Note 582
* [vsv] CHK network capacity issue here
June 13, 1991 400s at between 1 and 10 MB/s says message is between 400MB and 4000MB. If they can receive it in 2d, that’s between 2.3KB/s and 23KB/s … hmm, so that’s consistent with elsewhere, I guess. (Toward end of story you imply about 15KB/s)
Note 583
* [vsv] CHK 400s against the length of the following talk Gotta decide if this is to be from Straumli Main or the High Lab Gotta decide whether to have this at all Gotta get consistent on how far down the Blight intends to extend and how far it can have thrall-type control. Some of this might be resolved (may already be resolved) in the Net speculation that follows Actually, the badness speculated on in the following news items is something that is apparently not completely unknown at the Top of the Beyond and certainly in the Low Transcend (see earlier messages). Perhaps this is something that should be mentioned in these messages NÆH June 13, 1991 On this pass through the ms, I am only doing obvious shaving of the Net News.
* [vsv] IMPER in fact, the Net News may be best hope for SOLN some of the stories major INCON s
* [vsv] Is it too confusing that Ravna is from Sjandra Kei and yet she recognizes a famous individual from Straum
* [vsv] April 26, 1991 This section may be the best place to work in the notion of Blight as something long-term stable
Note 585
* [vsv] ID when you do the video from the Blight, you might make some of your points about why Known Net messages look a lot like 1985 internet messages From: tag
Note 584
* [vsv] CHK 4 billion years “a new stability” (see above) — could be echoed sarcastically in responses
Note 586
* [vsv] [ur] No section break here!
Note 587
* [hld] you mean very low S/N
* [vsv] as constituted these messages set up the background for what perversions can be by the Conventional Wisdom. This Khurvark one could also make some points about the Net not being like a local net — If you do this should have some indication the this poster is somehow especially naive. If you do this, it might also fit will with the flamer response.
Note 588
* [ur] [Light gloss]
Note 589
* [ur] (full-gloss channel)
Note 590
* [ur] CHRON ” Date: 610.12 Ksec since Fall of Relay 1.496 Msec since Fall of Relay (Clock Slop
Note 591
* [ur] [Light gloss]
Note 592
* [ur] (full-gloss channel)
Note 593
* Probably should also say relation to galactic plane
* INCON the way the end of the story is set up [08Aug90 ], you should put this organization much further away
Note 594
* [vsv] June 10, 1991 antispinward
Note 595
* [ur] CHRON ” Date: 695.23 Ksec since Fall of Relay 1.587 Msec since Fall of Relay (Clock Slop
Note 596
* [vsv] CHKd 5 billion years May 4, 1991 Inconsistent gloss style below?
Note 597
* [ur] [Light gloss]
Note 598
* [ur] (full-gloss channel)
Note 599
* [ur] CHRON ” Date: 750.44 Ksec since Fall of Relay 1.588 Msec since Fall of Relay (Clock Slop
Note 600
* [vsv] Terminology, “evocation”. Certainly as we get greater and greater smarts in our endpoint hardware, low-bandwidth links will be “augmented” by guesses that the receiver makes about the incoming message (partly based on cues inserted by the sender).
* [vsv] Frank Herbert had a story many years ago that used this idea, but I don’t remember him calling the trick evocation. However, it will probably be a dominant feature of video comm over the next few years.
* [vsv] Where to draw the line: IDEA : Write a story about a guy who is almost convicted of murdering his wife: The murder was seen by a witness, but over the phone. And of course it turns out that the link was such low bandwidth that the evocation at the witness’s end showed hi-res images of the defendant because the receiver had some reason to believe the defendant was the only other person who could be in the murder victim’s room.
Note 601
* [vsv] Heh, heh: … or three pairs of wheels? I wonder what would have happened if Ravna had just read a little further. In some weird way, Twirlip knows the Secret of the Riders. I wonder how many people will catch this. It’s really not up to the level of a legitimate clue (I didn’t notice it until after I wrote it) — but if it were, Ravna would have instantly caught on to it. This is a special case of something you might use elsewhere: Even though the Known Net has enormous connectivity, the interests of the participants and the prejudices of the newsfilter software would tend to create virtual partitions. There could be large segments that, sometimes unknowingly, are ignoring each other. Most of the time this would just improve efficiency; in some cases great insights would be lost. (Hence, I bet some people or their automation would expend lots of effort dredging the unintelligible. Even that would not eliminate the problem.)
Note 602
* [vsv] [ur] decide on single-spacing v double-spacing on these messages
Note 603
* [ur] [Light gloss]
Note 604
* [ur] (full-gloss channel)
Note 605
* [ur] CHRON ” Date: 750.47 Ksec since Fall of Relay 1.589 Msec since Fall of Relay (Clock Slop
Note 606
* [vsv] April 20, 1991 It may be possible to slim this down:
Note 607
* [jrf2] How about some Ravna response here, perhaps talking to Blueshell and Greenstalk? How about progress in re Pham’s recovery? This scene just sits here, needs transition to the next page
Note 608
* [vsv] QU Does this increase too much the justifiable suspicion that there should be of the Riders later? c32:892)
* [vsv] April 20, 1991 improved this aspect, at the end of the paragraph.
* [vsv] April 20, 1991 Blueshell’s imagery here may not be very Riderish
* [vsv] April 21, 1991 Blueshell could say something thoughtless about the control issue, eg: “What do you expect of a Type 2 perversion? The difference here is that this is so far spreading and powerful.”
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Note 609
* CHKd the claim that Vendacious is 100years old. Put in Chron.txt
BKG CHK You imply three-way parenting here. Is that anyplace else?
* [vsv] I don’t think I do mention it elsewhere
* ID Maybe later in the story, you could make it clear that at one time Vendacious was a decent fellow
Note 610
* ID really a theme: the delicate balance between discipline/concentration and freedom/imagination. The Tines are more flexible in changing the balance as is shown by both their attraction to Johanna and their liking for choirs
* QU Is Scriber too inconsistently bright?
Note 611
* CHKd castle terminology
* [vsv] “loop” archaic for “loophole” “arrow loop” is used by Macaulay p30
* CHKd 20 feet thick? Macaulay’s inner (bigger) curtain was 35’ tall and
* [vsv] 12’ thick (c p11) “merlon” and “embrasure” as in Macaulay glossary
Note 612
* mARK 22Jun89
Note 613
* CHK QU is this too close NÆH
* CHKd castle terms: ward, turret
* QU do I need to make it clearer that Scriber brought various optical devices? NO
Note 614
* QU is this explanation of the provenance of the optics coming too late?
* [vsv] this might be connected with SOLN of jrf’s request for earlier stuff about Scriber
Note 615
* CHKd sp daresay
Note 616
* QU Should I delete the sentence beginning “Finally”? (because it is to repetitious of Scriber’s weaknesses?)
Finally, he would have a chance to show what he could do!
Note 617
* CHK for and remove usage that depends on mouth sound. Eg, “a waste of breath”, “blabbermouth”, “close-mouthed”
Note 618
* mARK 23Jun89
Note 619
* [vsv] INCON make time of day consistent between Scriber’s murder and going to Johanna’s — actually the time of day is okay, what’s incredible is that Vendacious didn’t manage to interecept Ja. I think I’ve rationalized even that now (2 paragraphs up ).
Note 620
* IMP PRO RETRO I think the humans should call the spacecraft a ship. This is consistent with the notion that interstellar travel is a big deal.
Note 621
* INCON make use of armor consistent
Note 622
* CHKd sp forepaw
Note 623
* QU Is it okay that I haven’t mentioned earlier in this scene that the dataset is present? YES
Note 624
* QU use of “men” okay here? Best?
* [vsv] No, because she is speaking in Samnorsk! This is a general principle of Samnorsk which you should carefully enforce
Note 625
* RETRO the use of different voices
Note 626
* CHKd sp part*way is not in webster
Note 627
* QU proper to italicize Ja here and not in the Tinish scene preceding?
Note 628
* QU have I had enough previous discussion of how not all pack members are articulate?
Note 629
* ? Slight INCON between this and the next paragraph
Note 630
* PRB you should probably have talked about how she sees they make sound earlier in the story DONE in c12
* CHKd sp staccato CHKd sp hackle
Note 631
* QU is my shuttling between “he” and “it” in referring to Ja okay?
* [vsv] yecco, individual members are in one sense the most strongly gendered. (Though as semi-animals/body parts the gender is more what we humans might associate with animals or things)
* PRO RETRO “repack”
* ID PRB Hmm, but repacks could eventually become well-integrated as they have pups and lose discoordinates
* [vsv] this is mentioned in c35
Note 632
* [ur] Using w.bat and wc.com to do 1500words/day
Note 633
* Someplace should explain why “Beyond” is appropriate even for the people living there. (Could be in conversation with Pham Nuwen, or even in another story.)
* [vsv] You should make implausible that they are being chased
Note 634
* [vsv] CHK numbers with previous also check how this fits with the speed of the attack approach at Relay
* [vsv] June 13, 1991 I estimate this is at 26Dec15988, so they’ve been going for 18d (and are about 3d from disk plane). So by now they should be going slower than 1Kly/d ( = 41.67 ly/hr = 0.0116 ly/sec) so here I say > 30 ly/hr
* [vsv] [ur] CHK at 0.3c what relativistic effects would Pham have seen in the Qeng Ho?
Note 635
* [vsv] Usual sapience problem here:
* [vsv] INCON these speeds may not be all that frustrating to the Riders since they do a lot of trade with Middle Beyond and Low. You may just want to zap this paragraph: #Yet the skroderider, Blueshell, spent much of his time grumbling about their slow progress, and the ship’s idiocy. This deep in the Beyond OOB had no intrinsic intellect, nor the computer power needed for the super high speeds that were possible near the Transcend. Sure. Down here, the Out of Band II was only slightly beyond the wildest dreams of Pham’s Qeng Ho.
Note 636
* [vsv] CHK number and directions with similar statement earlier INCON
Note 637
* [vsv] June 8, 1991 FRAG , which pretty much points the reader in the wrong direction:
* FRAG #Pham stared at the ultrawave map. The weave and tone weren’t quite fixed. There were little ripples as the ship’s processors played signal processing games with the input; still no sign of blips or dashes that might be a ship’s trail. But if the Enemy even suspected … then the OOB was surely being shadowed. It wouldn’t be by the full intellect of the Enemy; they were far too deep in the Beyond for that. No, the Enemy would be using its thralls, on ships not much better than this one. Even so, he doubted that they’d be detected. If the others had more than a couple of ships, they could post them along the OOB‘s path, not move them except when they were out of range. #Ravna and the Skroderiders were likely on a fool’s errand … and if not, then a suicide mission. Being already dead, it scarcely mattered to Pham Nuwen.
Note 638
* [vsv] I had an Eye in the U reference in this paragraph
Note 639
* [vsv] March 23, 1991 IDEA solitons. SEQ about Pilgrim
Note 640
* [vsv] March 23, 1991 generic notion of Foundling races: ones that have had members moved long distances. One reason for making it generic is so that not everything in this story is of maximum cosmic proportions.
Note 641
* [ur] [Light gloss]
Note 642
* [ur] (full-gloss channel)
Note 643
 
; * [vsv] [ur] IMPER gotta get these three-dimensional relationships worked out INCON Here the position is okay, as long as you mean “below” in the Zone sense
Note 644
* [vsv] Should go through and change this to War Trackers (two words). ( “Wartrackers” —> “Wart Rackers” not good :-)
Note 645
* [ur] CHRON ” Date: 1.551 Msec since Fall of Relay 1.590 Msec since Fall of Relay (Clock Slop
Note 646
* [vsv] CHK INCON number of messages; also compare with the claim for how long it took to get the video message, and other problems of transceiver bandwidth