In the name of Christ Jesus

[Marcus]

Yes or no, do the foregoing sentences need a comma.

Simply contemplating that question is enough to put me into a comma.

[Physics Guy]

Jack Vance was a prolific science fiction and fantasy author whose depiction of magic influenced Dungeons & Dragons. He becomes hard to keep reading once you notice how consistently his female characters are mere minor victims, but if you can manage to bracket this out, then he's interesting, because his main thing was inventing weird but believable human societies. He was good enough at this that you can maybe even get past the sexism by considering it as just one of the weird features of his weird human communities. It kind of works, because plenty of real human societies have been like that, though it's still tedious, if nothing else, that Vance could be so inventive in other things and so unimaginative in this.

Anyway, one of his most famous short stories is "The Moon Moth". The moon moth is not an actual moth, but a mask, or rather one particular style of mask, in a society in which everyone wears masks all the time, and showing one's real face in public would be far more horrible and embarrassing than being naked in public in our society. There are many different mask styles. Which style or styles do you wear? The coolest ones that you can get away with wearing, of course. What it takes to get away with wearing a really cool mask is the whole big deal in this society—and the crux of the plot in the story.

The Moon Moth is a humble mask, worn by nobodies. The Sea Dragon Conqueror is a very impressive mask. It probably takes a gifted artist years just to make an authentic one. If you somehow find one, you can try wearing it, but if you can't walk the walk of a Sea Dragon Conqueror then you won't last very long. Someone will literally kill you.

In this mask-wearing society, impersonation would seem to be trivial. You can kill someone and start wearing their masks, and no-one will even actually care—if you can successfully carry on their role. Personality still shows, however. There can be tells, even when no-one ever shows anything but their masks.

I think of Jack Vance's "The Moon Moth" now and then, reading things on this board.