{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1045",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1045,
    "subject": "Various Phenomenon",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-08-05T21:53:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-08-05T21:53:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0017-0091@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-08-05T21:53:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Various Phenomenon",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "GriffJon,\n\nRe: volcanos on Urth.  Nope, they've been only legends for a looong\ntime in Severian's birth-time.\n\nRe: stars visible during the day.  Right, the =easiest= solution to\nthis one is that there is little or no atmosphere on Urth--since on\nour own Moon the stars are visible around the 28 day clock.  (Of\ncourse, this makes it very hard to breathe.) Blue sky due to\nscattering of light in atmosphere.  Downgrade the star and add\nodd-yet-not-lethal gases to the atmospheric mix, you can get orangish\nskies, maybe greenish.\n\nThe more difficult solution is that the Old Sun is putting out energy\nin the \"dim and red\" end of the spectrum, i.e., the \"heater\"\n(ecosphere creator) is not a very good \"lantern\" (light source).\n\nFrom a literary/historical perspective, however, the effect of this\nmood lighting is very much like those medieval paintings and woodcuts\nwhere the daytime sky is dark (or midnight blue) and has stars.  So\nonce again we have TBOTNS acting as a literal fulfilment of medieval\ntraditions--just like the flame-like blades of medieval polearms\nspout real fire on Urth; or how all the bells ring by themselves when\nthe New Sun arrives (due to its gravity and their balance).\n\nThere is an interesting (perhaps even \"sly\") description of Urth\ncolors within the text.  I don't believe the term \"sky blue\" is ever\nused, but when Severian has some visions, the light is a \"celestine\"\ncolor not found, it seems, in the natural world around him, a tint we\nwould glibly call \"sky blue.\"  The same light cast by the Claw; the\nsame light seen on Yesod.  Maybe the same light used with Inire's\nmirrors in the Presence Chamber.  And celestine is a color from\nheraldry, like sanguine.\n\nAs for \"why put a black hole in the Sun?\"  No, I don't think it has\nanything to do with terraforming Venus, but I can see how you would\nmention it after I was just talking about ecospheres.  Myself, I\npersist in thinking that the reason is one or more of the following:\n\n1) Tapping energy directly from the Sun for all the usual uses that\ncivilizations and/or godlings use power for.  (Note how Severian's\nuse of the Claw, and later =any= available power source, points to\nthis sort of \"energy circuit\" scheme.  And if we take Severian's case\nas being typical of godlings like Thyme, Typhon, and Abaia, then\nwe can wonder where they get their various energies from . . . brings\nus back to that volcano detail--since natural vulcanism would not\nlikely end while Earth is still habitable, this =might= point to\nanother energy source being tapped to the max, feeding some chthonic\ndeity.  But if the Old Sun is an energy grid hook-up, who or what is\nit feeding?  Aside from Abaddon, that is.)  (This engineering\nstrategy is covered a bit in Martyn Fogg's TERRAFORMING.)\n\n2) Interrupting the natural evolution of the Sun so as to both\nlengthen its lifetime and avoid entirely the disasterous giant phase.\n(This is obviously very far-looking.)  (This engineering strategy is\ncovered a bit in Martyn Fogg's TERRAFORMING.)\n\n3) A vengence weapon with no positive applications.  (Launched by\nsomeone other than Typhon, since it messes him up and he doesn't seem\nto know what's going on.  Perhaps one of his rebellious children.  If\nplaced by Yesod for their own reasons, it might be more of a \"tire\nboot\" on the car for the probationary period of 1000 years within\nwhich Urth must evolve or die the slow death.  But if there is a\nYesodic tire boot, this sort of implies that the Old Sun's energy was\nalready being tapped for the First Empire and would fuel the Second\nEmpire and so on--that is, as a device to prevent Empire it seems a\nbit obsure to merely make farmers work harder as the growing seasons\nshorten, rather than break the [hypothetical] solar furnace power\nplant circuit that makes Empire possible.  It would be like spreading\nan ineffective defoliant over enemy farmlands rather than bombing the\nnuclear powerplants that supply energy to the factories cranking\nout war machines.)\n\n4) An explanation for why the scientists of mid-20th century could\nnot find the neutrinos that theory dictated should be pouring out of\nthe Sun, if it were a natural star and not some sort of artificial\ndingus.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}