# Blackouts and Deaths *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 27 Apr 1999* > 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. --- ### Tony Ellis *27 Apr 1999, 12:55* > Roy C Lackey wrote: > It is my contention that the proximate cause of the blackout was > Sev--inside Sidero--landing, at the terminus of his "fall", atop one of the > "cells" (one of the "two great machines" mentioned above) shorting it out. But we already have a much simpler explanation of what caused the blackout. Barbatus says "'you took power from the ship when you tried to raise your steward.'" Chapter L. No need to go bringing time paradoxes and second Severians into the picture. Does Sidero kill Severian? What an intriguing idea. The fall must certainly have injured Sev, because he has to be unconscious for Sidero to expel him. But then what? Sidero hits him, because when Sev comes around again the Old Autarch is talking "through my swollen lips" -- but has he actually injured him fatally, or was the unconscious Sev already dying of his injuries? When Severian confronts him about the matter, Sidero only says "I hurt you", and when Severian tells Famulimus and co. "The fall killed me, just as my people killed me here", they don't correct him, so I lean towards the view that Sidero struck an already dying man. But I don't pretend to be sure. ---