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Titan Q4: Changes
Gaia - or more correctly perhaps, PARTS of Gaia - changed the crew of the Ringmaster in strange ways. What do you think it was trying to do? Why did it change what it changed? Why did Varley want these changes? What did they do for the story?
Comments
This was a part of the book I liked. I thought the changes were interesting, and making them psychological rather than physical was an unusual twist. (But there could also have been physical changes as well, making the crew able to live in an non-Earth-like habitat in Gaia.) I'm not sure that there was any particular in-setting reason behind the particular personality changes we saw. It did produce some fun bits of drama in the crew, so I enjoyed that.
Did anyone else think that Bill's amnesia was a result of his death by head trauma in the initial crash?
Interestingly, Jones didn't seem changed, and that was a trick missed by Varley. She could have become more driven to explore and understand than she was before, and that could have been a trait commented on by the others in the crew.
I'm with Neil in that I think it might have been interesting to have Jones changed more, mentally, after re-birth. Maybe Varley thought about it and decided that was a bridge to far for the reader. though. Hard to say - it's easier to second guess than to actually do, I think. The changes did add the the growing mystery and tension in the story, so I suppose they were effective. I think some of the changes - like being able to communicate with the local species, and making the earthlings so much a part of the ship that they didn't want to interact with the humans, was Varley's way of doling out answers to the mysteries and the pace he wanted.
Arguably the ability of Cirocco and Gaby to travel all the way up the cable was a transformation from their original condition. (As well as the language stuff, and some changes in sexuality). In passing, I found this journey the least convincing part of the whole, but more of that later. Also I think she did become more confident and assertive, especially when eventually meeting Gaia herself. The switch in language, where the centaurs' speech was much better suited to heroic declamation, reminded me of the languages in C S Lewis's SF trilogy, where some things could only be properly said in the right (ancient) tongue. But we already know that Varley consciously drew on multiple sources so there's no surprise here, and the overall theme of language-has-power is a common one (Earthsea, for one)
I'm sure that Cirocco was kept broadly the same as she was the reader's viewpoint character, and too big a change would have been simply confusing. So it was a writing choice rathe than a plot choice, I think.