{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2514",
    "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": 2514,
    "subject": "These planets we have discovered, there is something very peculiar about them, no?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-12-16T12:31:51+00:00",
    "last": "2000-12-16T12:31:51+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0206@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Talarican",
        "address": "exultnttalarican at mindspring.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-12-16T12:31:51+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) These planets we have discovered, there is something very peculiar about them, no?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "A bit of cross-posting occurred, as I should have expected.\n\n<quote>But what am I saying?!  You don't even have the book, and presumably\nhaven't read it yet!</quote>\n\nI have indeed read 5HC, years ago, the Ace edition which belonged to my late\nbrother and was nowhere to be found in his estate. I borrowed a public\nlibrary copy (Scribner's 1st edition) later, but I no longer reside in that\ncounty. It was indeed 5HC which led me to Wolfe and , by way of Mr. Borski\nand \"Cave Canem\", this list.\n\n<quote> Since some would argue that the dying sun [of Urth] is ...a\nsapient-modified luminary not a natrually-dying fireball, this hints\ntenuously that the C&A primary is a similar post-modification star....\nAt the very least it is a non-cannonical anomaly.  Like some of those stars\nin the neighborhood that are simply too dim ... </quote>\n\nThank you, that is indeed the conclusion toward which I was meandering ever\nso erratically. The difficulty I have, with just leaving it at that, is that\nI should think that the French interstellar explorers who (re)discovered the\nsystem would have done basic astrometrics as a matter of course and perhaps\nbeen put on guard by the evident fact that Messrs. Hertzsprung, Russell,\nNewton, and Kepler have gone on holiday so far as this system is concerned.\n\nIf the star is so nonconformant to the parameters of  the main sequence, who\nknows how unstable it might be? (and, if artificially altered, what would be\nthe ramifications of that scenario? What if the parties responsible return,\nprepared to weed from their garden any biological infestations which might\nhave occurred in the interim?) Would it be wise to colonize it, or even to\ninvest the effort of exploring it with an objective of possible\ncolonization? Or, perhaps, was the Great Anglo-Franco War already raging\nelsewhere in the galaxy, and were the French explorers/colonists in fact\ndesperate refugees disinclined to look a gift horse in the mouth? (rather\nremeniscent of Larry Niven's motley collection of flawed colony worlds in\nhis Known Space cycle.)\n\nAnd how could planets so wet be so full of pink dust suspended in the\natmospheres as to permanently color the skies, al la dessicated Mars?\n\n<quote>(in terms of writer's craft, 5HC is a dry-run for some of the\nhardware in Severian's narrative: sky darker than light blue; twin planets;\netc.).  </quote>\n\nAbout a year and a half ago, we revived the old alzabo=Annese ghoul-bear\nargument (my position being basically the \"writers tend to stick with and\nreuse favorite images\" line someone repeated recently), and you will find a\npost by my alter ego cataloguing a number of striking parallels between the\ntwo bodies of work.\n\nYou might also see the long rambling essay he did theorizing that the abos\nallegedly exhibit poor manual dexterity because they imitated real humans\nrather than evolved those hands naturally. One inspiration for that essay is\ncontained in _Urth of the New Sun_ ch. XII, where Severian considers Zak's\nevident plieomorphism and the implications for the sort of creature Zak must\nbe.\n\nIn fact, it is not at all far-fetched to suppose that 5HC takes place in the\nsame universe - much earlier - than BNS. In the Great Anglo-Franco War we\ncan see realized the statement made somewhere in the Urth cycle that the\nearly explorers took their old wars with them to the stars and kindled new\nones .\n\nTalarican"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}