Unpublished Background Prt 2

This is a continuation from Unpublished Background. The information in this, and the previous page is from the Index Cards --- each card has an independent piece of information regarding the background of the Sime~Gen Novels, as well as some of the unpublished stories and early drafts. Each card entry can also be found in its corresponding topic page.
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(Source: Index card file. "Transfer" --- letter from Marion Zimmer Bradley to Jacqueline Lichtenberg --- October 3, 1975) Dozens of different modes of transfer --- over the generations every Householding had evolved its own, through trial and error. But the Tecton, as it developed, for excellent and practical reasons, had developed a strict code for transfer. Had been completely divorced from any kind of emotional dependency.
"How people can violate their deepest instincts because they are convinced it is for the greater good of other people for whom they feel responsible." ---- Digen
(Source:  Index card file.  "Tecton (psychology)"   --- Jacqueline Lichtenberg to Marion Zimmer Bradley --- October 28, 1975)  "Repressed hostiilties" under rigid, structured discipline (the Tecton) --- WOULD generate tremendous psychic energies.  A lot of this is what makes the Tecton work --- a sense of desperation is always there.  Also makes it self-perpetuating: the more you've suffered vicious repression of hostilities, the more you have invested in maintaining the system.  If you had to suffer, why should this generation get off easy --- "Suffering Builds Character!"
Why nobody seems sensitive to Digen's suffering --- everyone has endured so much themselves, anyone else's suffering seems right and proper.  Only suffering that is directly connected to channel's work --- life is made posh in all other ways.
Other channels can endure so long as the best (Digen) can --- and so long as no other way seems possible.
(Source:  Index card file.  "Tecton"  -- Jacqueline Lichtenberg to Marion Zimmer Bradley --- January 8, 1976)  Klyd sets up the Tecton as a goody-two-shoes of altruists.  Only most people aren't altruists.  What do you do with a channel who won't work with the Tecton?
Digen believes that to be a Tecton channel, you must be an altruist --- self sacrificing.  He has no self-sacrificing in him at all --- has always sought to get out of his channel's work and make his mark in the world, establish his identity, in another way --- surgery.  Instead, at Rior, he finds that the personal job of channeling is what he really craves.
(Source:  Index card file.  "Tecton"  --- Jacqueline's note typed on manuscript to Marion Zimmer Bradley -- Second Draft of Chapter 10 -- Unto Zeor, Forever)  Chapter 10, Imrahan Transfer -   "What I was trying to do was focus here on the inherent conflict between Zeor and Tecton morality.  That's why Digen here offers to take the burden he senses is too much for Im, the control of the transfer --- no matter what it costs him, it is his responsibility.
This is the essential weakness, the internal contradiction that when Digen discovers it, forces him to accept the Distect way.  (At least try to make himself accept it.)  The Tecton demands the sime take responsibility in transfer --- yet the Tecton makes a law that under these special circumstances, where the best channels can't survive without surrendering transfer control to a Gen, at least once in a while as a sort of sanctioned vice --- then it's okay to let the Gen control.
Again, here at the end, it is the conflict between Tecton (with its irrational laws that have to have exceptions to them to survive) and Zeor, which has in effect surrendered a good deal of its sovereignty to the Tecton."  
(Source:  Index card file.  "Sime/Gen Differentiation" --- Jacqueline Lichtenberg to Michael Amsden --- January , 1976)  GENETICS:  The children of two Gens have a 1/3 chance of being sime.  That's not 1/3 of fertilized zygotes, but 1/3 of those that survive puberty.  Infant and child death endemic; prenatal deaths, abortions very high --- the mutations are still evolving and there are a lot of unsuccessful recessives.  Likewise, children of two simes have about 1/3 chance of being Gen.
Does not hold as much for Farrises, who tend to be sime, mostly channels.  The few Farris Gens are terrific Donors.
(Source:  Index card file.  "Sime Culture" --- Attributed to Jean Lorrah --- February 22, 1977)  Simes celebrate their Conception Day, changeover, or First Transfer.
(Source:  Index card file.  "Fear" --- Jacqueline Lichtenberg to Karen and Dave L. -- December 26, 1977)  "As I see it, the emotional substance of the Sime Series is examination of the fear/compassion axis of emotion that can exist between symbiots.  The sime mutation brings evolutionary pressure to bear on otherwise rather ordinary human beings to develop compassion or die.  It is stunning how difficult it is to find true compassion untinged by fear in a human.  But when you do find it, it is more precious than life itself."
(Source:  Index card file.  "Naztehr" --- Attributed to a conversation by Jean Lorrah)  The Simelan for "wer-Gen."  Used by Gens originally in same spirit as they call themselves "Gens." (Simelan word for "those Pen animals.")
(Source:  Index card file.  "Ratings of Channel and Donor" --- Jacqueline Lichtenberg interview with L. Deneroff -- from the fanzine AMBROV ZEOR #3)  Jacqueline has written articles which explain how much power goes into the rating of TN-1 as opposed to any other ratings.
(Source:  Index card file.  "QN" --- Attributed to Jean Lorrah)   Probably a genetic code abbreviation used in the labs where the sime mutation was first (a) invented or (b) studied.  Dates from before the breakdown of civilization.
Category:Unofficial