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This question is raised many times at the history. But I couldn't find why the young, injuried, and not so experienced, cyberspace cowboy, needing extremly expensive medical interventions whas choosen for the operation.

What Wintermute wants is to maintain Neuromancer unattached from him, so he could be more free and powerful. Is this correct? But why Case?

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What Wintermute wants is to maintain Neuromancer unattached from him, so he could be more free and powerful. Is this correct? But why Case?

Not sure what you are trying to say here by using the word maintain...

Wintermute and Neuromancer are separated in the start of the book, and all actions taken are towards uniting them. The Turing police agency and hardwired password implies a heavy distrust of AI entities by all powerful governmental and business organizations, so Wintermute has to find people outside of normal lawful channels to act on its behalf. Case was chosen because he could be easily controlled; he already had a medical condition which required a huge investment to correct, and the same procedure was invasive enough to allow the poison sacs to be attached internally while he was under aneasthetics. Obviously he had the necessary skills to accomplish the job as many others would have also had, but he may have been the only unique hacker at the time who could be manipulated because of this medical condition...

Good enough for the job, and with a rage and self-destructive streak big enough to push him through any last minute tricks Neuromancer could put him through.

I believe Linda was not randomly killed, but to cast him adrift, and to make him even more angry. And W already counted on him arousing Molly's "maternal" spirit.

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Not sure what you are trying to say here by using the word maintain...

I mean "to keep". What I thought was:

1. Besides Wintermute and Neuromancer was on differents places(Switzerland and Brazl), they are some way connected.
2. The purpose of Wintermute was to be independent from Neuromancer or, at least, control him, merge with him, but maintaning the Wintermute "consciouness".



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Wintermute and Neuromancer are separated in the start of the book, and all actions taken are towards uniting them.


As I said above?



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Case was chosen because he could be easily controlled; he already had a medical condition which required a huge investment to correct, and the same procedure was invasive enough to allow the poison sacs to be attached internally while he was under aneasthetics.



This is a good point, also.
At the end of the history, it's said that the Case's wish to be healed made his brain generate the antidote.
Are we talking about transcendental, meta-physical stuff here, related to the Matrix conception of mind transposition, reality and stuff?

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At the end of the history, it's said that the Case's wish to be healed made his brain generate the antidote.

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from NEUROMANCER...
On the way back, in Babylon Rocker, Molly had explained what the voice had told her about the toxin sacs.
"Said it was taken care of. Like it got so deep into your head, it made your brain manufacture the enzyme, so they're loose, now. The Zionites'll give you a blood change, complete flush out."

Literally, the poison sacs are attached internally to the inner lining of arteries. Towards the end of the book, Case is connected to the Matrix but the connection is intercepted by Neuromancer and Wintermute, who both exist inside the Matrix. However, the same neural pathway that allows Case to experience the Matrix allows the AI's to experience Case's brain. In essence, they hack Case's brain into producing the required enzyme needed to detach the poison sacs from the arterial lining, and then the Rastas flush his blood out to completely remove the sacs from his body before they dissolve.

As to your other question, I think you are asking what motivates Wintermute?

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from NEUROMANCER...
Marie-France must have built something into Wintermute, the compulsion that had driven the thing to free itself, to unite with Neuromancer.

i've sometimes wondered whether the sacs were ever really there, the point was, case couldn't risk it. a placebo effect?

Thanks a lot for your explanation, Electric Dragon. As you can see, I've read a bad translation.

I must get the original.

Misty, in some point of the history, there is a dialog like that:

Case: Is this talk about sacs real?
Molly: May be so, may be not. It works, anyway.

But he need to change the blood. So the question remains answered for me.

Or maybe he just thinks he needs to change his blood, although I actually belong to the sacs-were-real camp.

I think the evidence that the sacs were real is pretty overwhelming. Wintermute is the one who profiled case, picked Case, had Case sent to the medical clinic, so Wintermute must have ordered the poison sacs to be attached knowing this was a viable method of control. Wintermute knows exactly what chemical is required to detach the sacs, indeed, probably ordered them attached using a specific methodology whose reversal would require an enyzme that the brain is capable of manufacturing...

Certainly there is the offchance they were fictitous, but then you have to wonder why Wintermute/Neuromancer would have bothered telling Molly the sacs had been removed and the Rastas would need to flush his blood...

Toxin sacs= micro explosive charges?

dont forget that the "young, injuried, and not so experienced, cyberspace cowboy, needing extremly expensive medical interventions" was traned by the cowboy that was flatlined by the AI before so mabey there is the link and mabey it was random chance from a list of cowboys or that he so self distrucktiv that he chudent say no



post no1 nice to be here

Nah. It wasn't that he was that good. Its, as Pschyphant alludes, that his psychological make-up had sufficient self-hatred to drive him though that last wall.

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Originally posted by electric dragon:
[QUOTE]Towards the end of the book, Case is connected to the Matrix but the connection is intercepted by Neuromancer and Wintermute, who both exist inside the Matrix. However, the same neural pathway that allows Case to experience the Matrix allows the AI's to experience Case's brain. In essence, they hack Case's brain into producing the required enzyme needed to detach the poison sacs from the arterial lining, and then the Rastas flush his blood out to completely remove the sacs from his body before they dissolve.

Theres no evidence in the book that either Wintermute or Neromancer caused Case's brain to manufacture the necessary enzyme to release the toxin sacs, though it is an interesting idea. I generally stick to the idea that unconsciously Case himself was able to generate the necessary enzyme to release the toxin sacs.

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Nah. It wasn't that he was that good. Its, as Pschyphant alludes, that his psychological make-up had sufficient self-hatred to drive him though that last wall.

I think the reason that Case is chosen has not so much to do with his self hate as it has to do with Case being easily manipulated. Case is essentially a weak human being, he succumbs to stealing from his employers, becomes addicted to speed, and is unable to drag himself out of his somewhat self inflicted position in life. Wintermute is all about the contructs on the main human players, his choice of Case is as much to do with being the exact opposite move to what an enterprise like this would normally take as it is to do with Case's easy manipulation. Wintermute believes the contructs, where as Neuromancer is far more intuitive about people. Wintermute's contructs dont always get it right though, for example when Case gets the Dixie Flatline to find out where Molly is when they are up on Freeside.

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Originally posted by SonOfMosh:

Theres no evidence in the book that either Wintermute or Neromancer caused Case's brain to manufacture the necessary enzyme to release the toxin sacs, though it is an interesting idea. I generally stick to the idea that unconsciously Case himself was able to generate the necessary enzyme to release the toxin sacs.

well, actually there is. as ED quoted above:

"from NEUROMANCER...
On the way back, in Babylon Rocker, Molly had explained what the voice had told her about the toxin sacs.
"Said it was taken care of. Like it got so deep into your head, it made your brain manufacture the enzyme, so they're loose, now. The Zionites'll give you a blood change, complete flush out.""

spontaneous generation of the necessary enzyme seems far less likely to me.

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Nah. It wasn't that he was that good. Its, as Pschyphant alludes, that his psychological make-up had sufficient self-hatred to drive him though that last wall.

I think the reason that Case is chosen has not so much to do with his self hate as it has to do with Case being easily manipulated. Case is essentially a weak human being, he succumbs to stealing from his employers, becomes addicted to speed, and is unable to drag himself out of his somewhat self inflicted position in life. Wintermute is all about the contructs on the main human players, his choice of Case is as much to do with being the exact opposite move to what an enterprise like this would normally take as it is to do with Case's easy manipulation. Wintermute believes the contructs, where as Neuromancer is far more intuitive about people. Wintermute's contructs dont always get it right though, for example when Case gets the Dixie Flatline to find out where Molly is when they are up on Freeside.

i agree with your description of the two AI's operating styles. however, i think if case was chosen simply because he was weak, he would end up folding like a house of cards. his weakness makes him malleable, but his self hatred spurs him to action, albeit to cause his own destruction. like the man says:

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He came in steep, fueled by self-loathing. When the Kuang program met the first of the defenders, scattering the leaves of light, he felt the shark thing lose a degree of substantiality, the fabric of information loosening.
And then – old alchemy of the brain and its vast pharmacy – his hate flowed into his hands.
In the instant before he drove Kuang's sting through the base of the first tower, he attained a level of proficiency exceeding anything he'd known or imagined. Beyond ego, beyond personality, beyond awareness, he moved, Kuang moving with him, evading his attackers with an ancient dance, Hideo's dance, grace of the mind-body interface granted him, in that second, by the clarity and singleness of his wish to die.

I've always thought Wintermute picked Case because he looked like Johnny, thereby ensuring an extra level of personal attention from Molly.

I never thought he looked like Johnny. I thought he was like Johnny and Molly being preceptive noticed that. he was a vunerable kind of guy, wounded physically and then emotionally when Linda died. Wintermute knew she would feel protective. Also, wintermute knew that case would do as much as he could to protect Molly, given that he was unable to help Linda. ... or was her name lisa? It has been a long time.

Only Wintermute knows why.
I'm afraid he'll never tell us .

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Originally posted by subject:

well, actually there is. as ED quoted above:

"from NEUROMANCER...
On the way back, in Babylon Rocker, Molly had explained what the voice had told her about the toxin sacs.
"Said it was taken care of. Like it got so deep into your head, it made your brain manufacture the enzyme, so they're loose, now. The Zionites'll give you a blood change, complete flush out.""

spontaneous generation of the necessary enzyme seems far less likely to me.

The quote above from the book tells of how the voice tells Molly how the enzyme was created, not that that either Wintermute or Neuromancer actually tapped into Case's brain and created the enzymes in Case's head. It reads to me like the thought of the enzyme cutting the sac's loose got so deep into Case's psyche that his brain did the work. I've read of cases (no pun intended) of where people have been able to cure themselves of fairly drastic diseases (cancer being one disease I heard of being cured by a method of meditation), so to me the creation of the enzyme isnt so much spontaneous, but a product of a drive for survival. I stand by my interpretation.

I'd forgotten that second passage... thing is that even if he really hated himself so much, I wonder why he worked so hard to get the toxin sac's out. Case's problem is probably fear more than self hate, fear of what is going to happen next. In the end, once the job is all done, he goes back to Ninsei, and is told by Ratz that it's not a place to return to. He get's a new pancreas to use speed again, but that doesnt addiction doesnt seem to take root again. He finds another woman, and then quits being a cowboy after a few decent scores, has a few sprogs, and settles down. Hardly the actions of someone who really, truly hates themselves.

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I've always thought Wintermute picked Case because he looked like Johnny, thereby ensuring an extra level of personal attention from Molly.

Tigerstripes, you've said this before in another thread, I dont buy it. The way I interpret the passage where Molly is climbing into Straylight is that Molly is reminded of Johnny by Case by his attitude, not his appearance. I'm not even sure Molly's interest in Case is anything remotely maternally protective, more a "you get my back and I'll have yours" commercial type of arrangement. When the job is done, Molly takes off, and never see's Case again. The next mention of Case by Molly is when 3Jane is manipulating Molly in MLO. She asks about Case if he is being manipulated by 3Jane, but I think its because she wants an old ally back, someone who was there at the time and can help fight 3Jane off.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SonOfMosh,

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I'd forgotten that second passage... thing is that even if he really hated himself so much, I wonder why he worked so hard to get the toxin sac's out. Case's problem is probably fear more than self hate, fear of what is going to happen next. In the end, once the job is all done, he goes back to Ninsei, and is told by Ratz that it's not a place to return to. He get's a new pancreas to use speed again, but that doesnt addiction doesnt seem to take root again. He finds another woman, and then quits being a cowboy after a few decent scores, has a few sprogs, and settles down. Hardly the actions of someone who really, truly hates themselves.

Oh, I think Case hates himself at the beginning of the book. He is taking a roundabout approach to suicide, struggling to survive while at the same time taking risks that make that survival less and less likely. It's not entirely simple. He wants to die, or maybe he doesn't. I don't think he would be the first person (or at least character) to do that.

After his experience in Straylight, I think he achieves some kind of peace with himself. Maybe that's a bit cheesy, but I think that's what happened.

I don't think it's so important whether it was looks or something else that made Case remind Molly of Johnny. Something does; she said so herself. And maybe maternal is not quite the right word, but it is implied that Wintermute chose Case, with his Johnny-like something, so that Molly would have more of an emotional investment in the job.

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When the job is done, Molly takes off, and never see's Case again.

Well, not exactly. I believe in the book it is suggested they stay together for a while. A few months anyway. But after the job Case has, as I said above, found a bit of peace, and this leads him away from "the edge" (more cheese). Molly likes the edge, so she leaves him to stop herself from going soft (as she sees it).