Subject: (urth) Re: q: "How Old Mount Typhon?" a: "Old Mount Typhon fine!"

From: CRCulver <crculver at aol.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:43:54 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Said Vizcacha
>My suspicion is that there is either more time between Typhon and
Severian than 1000 years (more like 10,000?)<

     Woah, Gene Wolfe himself has said that there are only 2 chiliads between
our present time here inA.D. 1998, and Severian's time. (I think it is in the
People interview).

Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html
------------------------------------------------
"Ignorance, that light of fools steers a wayward path"
-Brendan Perry

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From: David_Lebling <david_lebling at avid.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 17:09:40 +0000

> our present time here inA.D. 1998, and Severian's time. (I think it is
in the

Even Jove nods.

Unless someone (Dr. Talos? mantis?) is faking the geological and
archeological evidence, there's a _lot_ more time than that.

The only out I see for the geology is that during the era of starflight
(as described in the "Pandora's Box" story -- remarkably like Cordwainer
Smith's future, by the way), there was enough power and energy to
resculpt the entire face of Urth, and someone did.

The only out I see for the archeology is that a Trantor-like world-city
grew and then died before someone started twiddling the geography.

But I still don't see this happening in two chiliads.

     -vizcacha
     (david_lebling at avid.com)

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From: David_Lebling <david_lebling at avid.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:34:04 +0000

> Vizcacha said:
> >How much time elapsed between Typhon's reign and Severian's?
> 
>      Mantis has said that about a chiliad (1000 Urth years) passed
between
> the reign of Ymar and the Reign of Severian. Typhon was the last of
the
> Monarchs, Ymar was one of the first, or the first, of the autarchs.
Thus,
> about 1000 (Urth) years have passed between Typhon's reign and Sev's
reign.

This is a mantic or even lupine opinion have a lot of trouble with.
Primarily, I look at the mountains, all or most of which have been
carved in the likenesses of rulers.  In _Sword_, we are told (as a guess
by Severian) that Mount Typhon must have been the first of them, and (I
think) this is confirmed in _Urth_, when Severian-as-Conciliator meets
Typhon. So we have a space of 1000 years in which the entire
future-Andes have been carved. Every ruler post-Typhon is an autarch:
did they each carve a mountain? If each reigned 10 years, we only have
time for 100 mountains, assuming that they _all_ did one...

My suspicion is that there is either more time between Typhon and
Severian than 1000 years (more like 10,000?), or there's an
inconsistency between _TBONS_ and _Urth_.

     -vizcacha