{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1464",
    "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": 1464,
    "subject": "The Far Future Theory: Petrification, Forgetfulness and a Cool Urth",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-03-31T15:06:37+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-31T15:06:37+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0117@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-31T15:06:37+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Far Future Theory: Petrification, Forgetfulness and a Cool Urth",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Matthew Malthouse wrote:\n\nMitchell A. Bailey wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Well, the conclusion is inescapable, given this many examples of\nconstellations of our time still recognized by Severian, that Urth's sky\nas described in BNS is not consistent with the theory that Sev's time\nlies in a \"far future\" millions or tens of millions of years hence."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I've seen this discussed more than once but remain unhappy with the \"sooner\nrather than later\" conclusion.\n\nHow can this be reconciled with:\n 1: The mining industry of Saltus\n 2: The cliff face Sev decends to Cas' cottage\n 3: The 'sharp' peaks of mountains thrust up after those older ones carved\ninbto the likenesses of Autarchs?\n\nI can't avoid the conclusion that geological ages have passed since our epoch.\nYet other thing otherwise (which is presumably the function of others. :))\n\nMatthew"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "...\n\nThanks, Matthew. I myself have always been a \"far future\" partisan\ntoo. It pained me to reach that conclusion, believe me! \nI'm glad you mentioned Casdoe's cliff - that seemed to me one of the\nmore compelling pieces of hard evidence in support of the \"far future\"\ntheory. Clearly, petrifaction and the burial of eons of civilization\noccured there in the same fashion as today we find strata of mineralized\ndinosaur bones. So, too, to a lesser extent, with the mine at Saltus.\n\nI would cite furthermore that practically all of history of our time,\nand of millenia to come, are forgotten or are rendered into legend (cf.\nthe \"legend of the Historians\" cited by the master curator Ultan, the\ntale of the \"lost archives\" related by Cyriaca). It seems to me that\nsuch a phenomenon would require both passage of much time, and\ntremendous social upheavals (occurence of which are implied in the\nlegends and in Typhon's story). Clearly a Kardishev Level III\ncivilization rose and fell millenia before Sev's time. \n\nTyphon's time, although near the decadent end of a decadent empire which\nsucceeded \"the [galactic] empire which was built entirely upon order\",\nwas itself practically forgotten by Sev's time. Or was Sev \"inattentive\"\nwhen Masters Malrubius and Palaemon covered the reign of Monarch Typhon\nin history class?\n\nNote that Jonas, a survivor of much earlier times, clearly remembers\nmany things we know. Also, the legend of the patroness of the Torturers'\nGuild, St. Katherine, is taken faithfully from the story of 4th century\nSt. Katharine of Alexandria, right down to the name of (Roman) Emperor\nMaxentius, her persecutor. I wonder over what issue the guild thought\nSt. Katherine was martyred, or of what they thought Maxentius was the\nruler?\n\nRegarding evidence of geologic activity, I would have pointed out that\ncooling and solidification of Urth's interior, occurence of which was\nstrongly implied in the description of the Lake of Birds and elsewhere,\nwould take billions of years naturally. However, I seem to recall some\nold letters in the URTH archives opining that an agressive program of\nexploitation of geothermal energy in the distant past (K-level I +?\nstage civilization?) might have greatly accelerated this process. Might\nbe worth exploring the ramifications of this idea."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}