Triskele The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 23 Nov 1999 https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1976 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. ============================================================================== Roy C. Lackey — 23 Nov 1999, 01:25 > > Ron Hale-Evans wrote: > > Speaking of which, does anyone agree with my assessment that (a) Triskele > > was already dead, and is an aquastor from the moment Sev touches him and he > > opens his eyes, and that (b) it is likely that it is the aquastor Malrubius > > who is caring for Triskele on his forays away from Sev?<< Yes, Triskele was already dead, but he wasn't an aquastor after Sev touched him. An aquastor is rather like a solidified hologram, created and maintained by machinery which has a limited range. Its mental properties are derived from machinery scanning some entity for memories to supply its personality. Aquastors are only created by folks from Yesod. When Sev reanimates someone he is doing something else. They are truly alive and are then independent of him for continued existence. This ability to bring back the dead is apparently something the Hieros cannot do themselves. When Sev died on the ship and was brought back by Tzadkiel, it was as an aquastor. Sev then took on a life independent of the animating machinery. Sev's ability to bring back the dead is what causes Famulimus and Barbatus to fall down before him and kiss the ground at his feet in the tomb of Apu-Punchau. After recounting to Sev how Tzad had brought him back to life as an eidolon, Sev complained: "Why couldn't Tzadkiel have called me back as I called back Zama? Healed me as I healed Herena? Why did I have to die?" I have never been more startled than I was by what happened next: Famulimus knelt and kissed the floor before me. Barbatus said, "What makes you think Tzadkiel wields such power? Famulimus and Ossipago and I are nothing before him, but we're not _his_ slaves; and great though he is, he's not the head of his race and its savior." (V, L) It can be argued, and someone probably will, that Sev's power comes from the Increate, but it was at Sev's feet that the Hierodules prostrated themselves upon hearing from his own mouth that he could do something that the High and Mighty of Yesod couldn't. I hesitate to parse the religious implications of that act. Roy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alex David Groce — 23 Nov 1999, 11:32 follows, by subject match Roy C. Lackey > It can be argued, and someone probably will, that Sev's power comes from the > Increate, but it was at Sev's feet that the Hierodules prostrated themselves > upon hearing from his own mouth that he could do something that the High and > Mighty of Yesod couldn't. I hesitate to parse the religious implications of > that act. I'll give it a shot. Nutria's suggestion about Sev's ho-hum career as Conciliator being remembered because it reminded humanity of an earlier and considerably more significant Conciliator seems relevant here--I've argued before that Severian's "non-tech" miracles that the hieros are impressed by are possible because Sev. is, in some weird way, like Silk, an apostolic figure--not in the original sense of being a witness to the resurrection, but something like that. The Increate/Outsider is granting this power, and the New Testament letters are full of statements that post-Penecost, the apostles will be able to do things and know things that even the angels don't dream of. (much less angelic seeming aliens from another universe who may or may not be supposed to actually be angels.) Oh, BTW, William -- how about Vodalus = Sir Roderick Spode? "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32 -- Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu) Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department 8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce ------------------------------------------------------------------------------