Re: Proxy Business

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 00:12:23 +0100 (BST)

Nick Brooke, replying to me:
> > Does [a new Mask] look and act, etc, in a manner resembling _a_ claimant, or
> > would it be more Correct to suggest he might resemble some combination
> > in some degree or other of one or more of the constituent fresh
> > batch of mortal Egi?
>
> Yes, the latter would be more correct. Though I am not sure that your
> "mortal Egi" is the term I'd use for these claimants. Egi stuff has more to
> do with "fixing" the other wandering parts of Moonson and reintegrating him,
> IMO, not just providing the Body. That's mortals' business -- politics, if
> you like.

Not just providing the body, but I'd guess providing 'bits' (let's not say 'parts'...) to each fresh Mask _is_ part of the role/one of the roles the mortal Egi play, since after all what they're doing in a sense is replacing the original Egi, whose original role was to do just that in the creation of 'Mask 0'. Others will have rather different roles, yes, doubtless some the cynical might term 'political'...

This is one key respect that I think the Masks are 'more Lunar than' TakenEgi (the Gardener...). T. was originally an instance of yer basic Yelmic self-resurrection, honed to repeatable perfection ("I'll be back." "I have returned...") The Masks are, not simply a shoddy version of that process, but rather (in part) a somewhat different one, more explicitly re-doing the ritual of T.'s creation, not to create a different being, but to re-make (essentially) the same being, by whatever means necessary.

Cheers,
Alex.

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