{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1689", "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": 1689, "subject": "The Power Behind the Phoenix Throne", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-06-16T07:14:29+00:00", "last": "1999-06-16T12:34:11+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-06-16T07:14:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: The Power Behind the Phoenix Throne", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mitchell,\n\n I enjoyed your Inire posts and have no substantive arguments with them,\njust a couple of sidebars.\n\n" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "and as a bonus vanquish the “megatherian” enemies of mankind and escape\nthe icy fate of a prematurely dying sun.<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " If you are referring to Robert's Undines, at least one of them survives\nthe flood.\n\n" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "He goes on to lament that his “cousins” help only reluctantly and do not\nseem to regard Urth, still less the Commonwealth and its Autarch, as\nworthy of special consideration. It was Inire’s job to plead on behalf\nof Urth to seemingly indifferent ears until the Epitome was prepared.<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It is easy to see an emissary of the Hierogrammates on a mission here,\ntaking a very personal interest in the fate of the peoples of Urth.<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " No argument; just curious: Just _what is_ Inire's interest in Urth? Why\nshould _he_ care? (And don't tell me \"little girls\": they could be had on\nthousands of other worlds in the universe for a lot less trouble. ) And\nhow/why is it that he is exempt from the short lifetime of others of his\nkind?\n\n If the Hieros put the hoodoo on Urth's sun -- in this cosmic game of\ncrime and punishment -- then the punishment is merely symbolic, at least for\nthe overwhelming majority of mankind, who are scattered on untold numbers of\nplanets throughout the universe. Urth, as the birthplace of mankind, becomes\na scapegoat for the rest of the species, which makes the drowning of Urth's\ndenizens all the more pointless, since they are no more \"guilty\" than all\nthe other people on all the other worlds, who escape the wrath of the Hieros\nunscathed.\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey", "address": "mab at lindau.net" }, "date": "1999-06-16T12:34:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: The Power Behind the Phoenix Throne", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nThanks, Roy\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "and as a bonus vanquish the “megatherian” enemies of mankind and escape\nthe icy fate of a prematurely dying sun.<<... " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " If you are referring to Robert's Undines, at least one of them survives\nthe flood." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...\nWell, of course the 'megatherians' I had in mind were really Erebus,\nAbaia, et al, themselves more so than their creatures. \n\n\"Vanquish\" need not necessarily mean slay, anyway. Their opposition to\nthe New Sun has, in the end, been defeated. If that doesn't kill them,\nthey'll just have to deal with it.\n\nIn fact, like some other Urthlings (and Severian!) I seriously wonder\nhow the New Sun is in fact detrimental to the 'megatherians'. It has\nbeen suggested that they derive their power from the Sun; possibly on\nUshas they would have more power available. And I hardly think they\ndrowned!\n\n(or, conversely, as has been suggested and noted in the N&A of LexUrth,\nthey are responsible for whatever hyperdimensional \"sun tap\" was\nsickening the Sun to begin with, in which case the remaining Megas on\nUshas are a bunch of hurtin' puppies)\n\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "It is easy to see an emissary of the Hierogrammates on a mission here,\ntaking a very personal interest in the fate of the peoples of Urth.<<" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " No argument; just curious: Just _what is_ Inire's interest in Urth? Why\nshould _he_ care? ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good point. My nebulous idea was basically that he was appointed (by\nTzadkiel?) for this mission. And perhaps his capacity for empathy for\nthe Urth peoples, and his thaumaturgy, qualifies him." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And how/why is it that he is exempt from the short lifetime of others of his\nkind?..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wondered that too, but it seems to be the case. Over the millenium of\nthe Age of the Autarchs, any way you cut it, he has lived several\ncenturies or more. Even if he can duck into some kind of stasis every so\noften when he's 'off duty', his lifetime on Urth would still\nsubjectively have to add up to centuries over the course of his\nstewardship.\n\nIt appears to me that not all the Hierodules are of the same race from\nwhich Famulimus and Barbatus come. Wolfe seems to indicate that\ndifferent races have different functions. The Cumaean obviously is alien\nand is as different from F&B as she is from us, and very ancient to\nboot. It would appear that Inire, who clearly has lived a millenium by\nSev's time (or by Ymar's time, if you subscribe to the time-in-reverse\nmodel) is by all of the evidence not of F&B's race and is not\nnecessarily limited to a lifespan of about 20 years. Ossipago is\nconsidered to be a Hierodule, and it's an automaton! Apparently\n'Hierodule' \"holy slave\" is a distinction of allegiance and purpose,\nnot of species identity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " If the Hieros put the hoodoo on Urth's sun -- in this cosmic game of\ncrime and punishment -- then the punishment is merely symbolic, at least for\nthe overwhelming majority of mankind, who are scattered on untold numbers of\nplanets throughout the universe. Urth, as the birthplace of mankind, becomes\na scapegoat for the rest of the species, which makes the drowning of Urth's\ndenizens all the more pointless, since they are no more \"guilty\" than all\nthe other people on all the other worlds, who escape the wrath of the Hieros\nunscathed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now that's a great point, and a topic worthy a series of monographs in\nitself. Let me throw out a few ideas on this:\n\n1) How do we know the other human colonists are not 'punished' in some\nfashion, or have their own peculiar challenges? We don't get to observe\nthem.\n2) Wolfe suggests (in the Saltus mine, on the Ship) that the descendants\nof human colonists have altered in the intervening millenia. They could\nbe so far sundered as to not share responsibility with Urth.\n3) It is strongly suggested that the \"hoodoo on the Sun\" was the result\nof the sins of imperialistic expansionist Earth colonists in the Age of\nMyth, but I don't claim to know whether it was implemented by deliberate\naction on the part of the Hieros, or simply a \"reap what you sow\"\nnatural consequence, e.g. the sin made it possible for the megas to\ninflict this on Urth for their own selfish purposes.\n4) I suppose you could put a \"sin makes redemption possible\" sort of\nsummation on the whole situation. Urth, having been the birthplace of\nthe sinful imperialists, with the coming of the New Sun becomes Ushas,\nthe birthplace of the regenerated harmonious green humankind who won't\neven hurt a plant. Once Ushas is established, I suppose it is possible\nthe blessings could be distributed from there to the rest of the human\ngalaxy." } ] } ] }