The Long Earth "Code" - SPOILERS!

[poohcarrot]

Nice find, Jano, but hardly a code though, is it darling?

Part 7 - Monica Jansson

As I said at the beginning, I originally thought the ending of Long Earth to be unnecessary. The last ten pages with the nuclear device didn't seem to serve any useful purpose, just superfluous drama.

However, if you assume the authors are having a big dig at the Tea Party and its creationist supporters, then the ending has a lot of meaning (to me at least).

Without the ending, Humanity First (aka Tea Party) would appear to be just a bunch of nutters who "talk the talk," but don't "walk the walk" ie; mouthy but relatively harmless.

With the ending, Humanity First (aka Tea Party) appear to be a bunch of DANGEROUS nutters, who should never ever be allowed near a nuclear button, and the sooner their anti-evolutionary, intelligent design nonsense is consigned to the garbage bin of history, the better.

One last point, Humanity First's plan to blow up Madison and kill lots of people is partially thwarted by Monica Jansson, who saves loads of lives with her "step and help" slogan.
Of all the people the Tea Party despise the most, right there at the top of the list are gay people and atheists. Monica Johnsson is both gay (page 60) and an atheist (page 33).

Poetic justice, or what?

[poohcarrot]

Conclusion

So there we have it. A totally pants theory/code jobbie, which if I were you, I'd take with a large pinch of salt.

I'm quite clearly barking mad, because TP would never stoop so low as to attack the Tea Party and its cuddly creationist supporters.

I'll leave you with 4 quotes from chapter 2 of Science of Discworld III - Darwin's Watch, written by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen.

"Creationism is simply a theistic belief system and offers no credible scientific evidence whatsoever for its beliefs."

"Even today there are diehards - not a majority, despite the noise they make, but a significant minority - who deny that evolution has ever occurred. Most of them are American, because a quirk of history (coupled with some idiosyncratic tax laws) has made evolution into a major educational issue in the United States."

"Creationists, in contrast, seem not to have appreciated that if they pin their religious beliefs to a 6,000-year-old planet, they are doing themselves no favours and leaving themselves no real way out."

"...where [evolution] is sometimes known as "evilution" and generally viewed as the work of the Devil."

[=Tamar]

Applause!

[Jan Van Quirm]

Nice find, Jano, but hardly a code though, is it darling?

Oh dear - talk about tunnel vision...

Just because he's not homosexual and his name isn't an anagram of Allys or Lewis or Carroll doesn't mean it doesn't fit. The Scarlet Pimpernel rescued people from a hierarchical type of genocide (kill the aristos) and the LE Percy gets rescued by the 'Russian' trolls who in turn are being 'persecuted' by the 'migraine', First Person Singular and probably humanity away from Happy Landings. Evolutionary persecution is the code and the Tea Party/Fundamentalism is but one facet of that

Ask yourself why there are no humans at first in any of the other Earths and why humans appear to have started stepping during Roman times, arguably the most pervasive of empires in earlyish Homo Sapiens historic times - why were the Elves and Trolls keeping away from Datum?

I look forward to seeing more of the East earths in the next instalment...

[poohcarrot]

Um...are you agreeing with me Jano?

why were the Elves and Trolls keeping away from Datum?

As Datum's population increased, the trolls stopped coming because of too many humans, but coz of the Gaia monster causing troll migration, the trolls were again coming to Datum, as chapter 27 clearly demonstrates.

[Jan Van Quirm]

I wasn't disagreeing with you, merely saying there's a wider picture

Yes - the trolls are fleeing back to Datum (or the worlds in between) from the High Meggas, hence the next book will explore the Eastern path and the final one will be Lobsang's solution with FPS to re-align the hominid hegemony (including Datum sapiens) in some manner

Funny thing though - if the Gaia monster/FPS is the big threat why did Joshua's migraine/sense of pressure/foreboding that he apparently shares with the trolls stop when the crew of the Mark Twain met her? Surely it should have got even worse? If the trolls get the same thing as Joshua then are they really running away from her, or is there something else further on? Are there trolls on the East (of Datum) Earth side?

In fact, is the Long Earth a left brain/right brain thing? Why do people in the 'western hemisphere' style cultures seem to step west more? Do left-handers fight a compulsion to go east and not westwards?

[poohcarrot]

Did I say you were disagreeing with me? I'm pretty sure I didn't. I only asked if you were agreeing with me.

The Gaia monster could be like a hurricane. In the eye it's calm - hence the lack of headache.

People in the west (the US) go west because they live in the west, and ingrained in their psyche is the desire to go west when pioneering. A desire that originated in 1620 on the Mayflower. Being left-handed has nothing to do with which way they are programmed to go.

Several times it stated that Sally was looking for her father. As her father can't step, why didn't she spend all her time looking on Datum Earth? Why go to the High Meggas?

And the family that left their son behind were a bit selfish, don't you think? I wouldn't do that, would you?

[Jan Van Quirm]

Ah - but left handers are right brained so perhaps it's natural for them to go 'left' which is west on most atlases. Actually you're right, but not culturally necessarily - it's a solar thing. People tend to want to face the direction of the movement of the sun for some reason, which is why turnwise (clockwise) is one of the cardinal points of the compass on the Disc...

Sally's father invented the Stepper - why can't he get to the High Meggas too even if he didn't use the 'soft' places?

Agree with you about the kid who got left behind - if I had a kid I couldn't do it either, but it's not unknown in nature for even really great parents to sacrifice some or all of their young if there's some great imperative to do so. On the other hand I wouldn't use being left behind as an excuse to be a bomb mule - especially if I'd been left well provided for, which he had been. And, has been observed on many occasions, as a species we ain't that nice

[poohcarrot]

Sally's father invented the Stepper - why can't he get to the High Meggas too even if he didn't use the 'soft' places?

True! It was a spur of the moment comment that I didn't think through before posting.

Page 62/63
Hermione has a song lyric engraved on the inside of her ring (page 62).
When Hermione leaves (page 63), she left a song lyric as a note. What's the title of the song which that lyric came from?

BTW half way down page 62, does it say "It's never stopped before", or "It's never stopped US before?"

[Jan Van Quirm]

Oooh - I wanted to know more about her! Will look that up when it's bedtime

[Who's Wee Dug]

Going to start it tonight, but when I read that about the song, Fleetwood Mac popped into my head.

[Quatermass]

Now, I've heard Johnny Depp and Stephen Fry as Lobsang, but (although he's been dead since 1984), I actually have to admit that, although I didn't actually hear his voice while reading, John Dearth would have made a good Lobsang, if only for the fact he plays a not dissimilar, albeit villainous role in the Doctor Who story The Green Death, aka The One With The Giant Maggots. He plays the Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor, aka B.O.S.S.

[poohcarrot]

For some reason I think of Rimmer's voice from Red Dwarf as Lobsang.

[Quatermass]

For some reason I think of Rimmer's voice from Red Dwarf as Lobsang.

Actually, what I did hear when reading was something between Chris Barrie (Rimmer) and Norman Lovett (Holly Mk 1).

[poohcarrot]

This is the bit that started making me think of Rimmer.

Invite her to the ship! Tempt her! We have superb cuisine, somewhat wasted on you, I must say. Offer her sex! Whatever you do, get her on this damn ship!