The Mobiles and Wizardry

[Polly6]

I'm confused near the end of HW Dairine "becomes" like the computers and is able to do things in the computer time but after this it's never mentioned again.Does anyone know why?

[Polly6]

I'm confused near the end of HW Dairine "becomes" like the computers and is able to do things in the computer time but after this it's never mentioned again.Does anyone know why?

This is a guess more than anything, but...

Dairine "became" a computer because Gigo gave her a connection to the motherboard on the planet. To begin with (I'm thinking of a reference made in Abroad) Dairine probably still had that connection, but as she's aged and started to lose her initial power, perhaps her connection to a planet that was far out of our galaxy has been dimished or even lost completely.

[Rysade]

[EWizard11]

Mad King Soup- Are you thinking of the reference where it's said that Dairine has "the power of a whole race of sentient wizards to draw on"? Because that would imply that she still had the connection. Is this why she's so much more powerful then she might have been?

*Ella*

Ella, that's exactly the quote I was referring to, thanks for finding it! (My copy of Abroad has gone walkies. If found, please bring it home... all is forgiven!)

WARNING: Some very vague references to A Wizard Alone follow - nothing that will spoil anything, but if you haven't read it and don't want any spoilers at all, skip it.

Well, yeah, if memory serves me correctly, Dairine has enough power to drive a timeslide back to, well, if not the Dawn of Time, certainly the Breakfast of Time. However, in Alone she's learning about losing that initial rush of power, and while her relationship to Quicklife is still there (Nita mistaking the "robot" as being someone looking for Dairine), her mobiles aren't mentioned at all. I guess that means that either the mobiles are also collectively experiencing the loss of power, or she's losing that connection with age, and that's making the loss harder than usual.

[Quill]

WARNING: Some very vague references to _A Wizard Alone_ follow - nothing that will spoil anything, but if you haven't read it and don't want any spoilers at all, skip it.

Well, yeah, if memory serves me correctly, Dairine has enough power to drive a timeslide back to, well, if not the Dawn of Time, certainly the Breakfast of Time.

*snort* LOL!!

However, in _Alone_ she's learning about losing that initial rush of power, and while her relationship to Quicklife is still there (Nita mistaking the "robot" as being someone looking for Dairine), her mobiles aren't mentioned at all. I guess that means that either the mobiles are also collectively experiencing the loss of power, or she's losing that connection with age, and that's making the loss harder than usual.

I don't know...perhaps the mobiles and her connection to them simply hasn't been important as part of the plot, and they will come up again later.

Inside every cynic there's an idealist desperately yearning to be let out, and when they are let out they're usually a real pain and cause all sorts of trouble. --Chris Boucher

[Polly6]

The breakfast of time [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] hehehehe

The way I figure it is that she always will have the connection. Ithink that they don't mention it again is because its a piece of information that we already know. I also think that as she gets older her connection gets weaker but it will never deminish.

[bassethoundbeagle]

If Dairine is so smart, why can't she find another way to get power? ANd how come she is always depressed?

"Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them."
-Walter Kerr

[Birdhead]

Well, she's dpressed becuase, uh, her mother just died? That would depress me, I don't know about you. And it seems like she wasn't really close to many people; she doesn't have the support Nita has in Kit, for example.

As for the connection, I think D's probably still got it; in Abroad, Nita says/thinks "...Nita was reminded that, since her Ordeal, Dairine had in many ways become the Manual."
It doesn't sound like something you'd lose; I think it's more likely she jus doesn't have the raw power any more, that she used to have, to drive the slide all the way back. (I think it's a bit earlier than Breakfast. maybe the Morning Shower of Time? It's definitely not Dawn though; Privacy issues. )
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[wizFAN]

Completely off-topic(just like my life) but really, computers are very inconvenient as you always need to have a chair and be in a sitting position!!

Perry, the mentally challenged odd weirdo

Depression isn't a choice, it just happens.
I think the connections still there but growing weaker as the computer sentients begin to become more confident and less dependent on Dari (ie maturing)

[Rysade]

Hopefully, the growing trend of science fiction asserting itself over reality will continue, and we won't have to deal with computers that you need to sit at. I've read a book where the computer is a simple display grafted to your inner eye, and it's linked to the internet and your personal space. Just blink at what you want. NEAT! Brain Plague

Also, books by William Gibson

[PK]

Actually, if you look at the excerpts for Wizard's Holiday, I think Dairine's connection to the quicklife does come up again. Possibly it hadn't in the intervening books because she's had more of a supporting role....