# "1-2-3 For Me" as crypto-Urth story *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 12 Mar 2000* > 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. --- ### Michael Andre-Driussi *12 Mar 2000, 13:33* > Talarican wrote: > Did anyone else get the impression Jak's story in "One-Two-Three For Me" > could have taken place on the world which would become Urth, during the > forgotten millenia of the decline of the great stellar empire, chiliads > before Severian's time? > > To begin with, it's apparent that Jak's world is dominated by thinking > engines, and that these have an attitude, as that crack by his 'bot about > the numbered cell phone buttons illustrates. > > Clearly, their milieu is in a serious state of decline. Earth is now an > archaeological site for bored students. To quote Cyriaca (Sword, VI) "But > though the empire dissolved, the worlds were a long time dying...nor could > they build more cities, because the cities that remained were nearly empty". > While she doesn't state that old Earth's own urban civilization suffered > such extreme decadence the population committed suicide, it can't be ruled > out either. > > In both stories, there seems to be a strong element of selfishness and > self-absorption on the part of the humans. Why didn't Jak call or check on > JoAnn after the weird little visitor vanished? (for that matter, why didn't > her 'bot take some sort of protective action?(waves claws and turns > side-to-side shouting "Danger! Danger! Run, JoAnn! Highly toxic alkaloid > detected!" )). > > What is Jak's real problem at the time he tells that story and gets angry > with the youngers over their stick trick? He's not afraid the "pusher" will > return. It's pretty clear the world on which Jak told his story wasn't > Earth, and the "pusher" clearly wouldn't force the drug on him in any case. > He's not merely grieving for JoAnn, although she didn't consciously mean to > commit suicide, and Jak didn't consciously know the danger at the time. He's > suffering a guilty conscience now because of his failure to exercise caution > in an unfamiliar situation, resulting in JoAnn's death, due to his own > self-absorption. > > Even if "One-Two-Three" isn't a New Sun story, I think we can still agree > that its extinct peoples of Earth have much in common with the inhabitants > of the nearly forgotten decadent stellar empire ages before Urth. And that > enigmatic story title suggests selfishness. My impression: I had thoughts along the same lines. It is much more satisfying to think of this story as something like what you are saying, rather than taking it as a "Planet of the Apes"-style, straight "realistic" archaeological finding story. In "Planet of the Apes" they find a "doll" that really is a doll, and it says "Mommy" or whatever, and that pretty much shatters the world--revealing that the planet itself is dear old Earth. If we read "1-2-3" in this vein, it seems weak: a cell phone, buried in some tell mound, still works? (I think I saw some comment about this either here first or here, reported from elsewhere.) The drug connection still delivers the heroin, crack-cocaine, name-your-demon-powder? Now see, if it were not something that looked to us like a cell phone, things might be different. Say it were a metallic conch shell, covered with intricate runes and redolent with the odor of burnt asparagus; say that it summoned a swarm of flying beetles, who delivered a pair of eye glasses that had rose-colored lenses. Then it might seem less a "just say no" story, and more a fairy-tale type story about the perils of mucking about. Or if it were the Rod of the Cumaean. Or some other artifact seen through the filter of Severian's sense. I agree that the robots are in charge, and this does seem like something we see hinted of in posthistorical time. And because the dingus seems more like a cell phone than it seems like a horn of demon summoning, there is a feeling that it is closer to our time than anything in Severian's narrative (with the possible exception of the Apu-Punchau gig ). ---