Subject: (urth) Old now is Urth, and none may count her days

From: Charles Dye <raster at highfiber.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 13:14:48 +0000

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

>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.

And the geological changes are trivial compared with the selenographical!
The terraforming of Lune appears to be complete even in Typhon's reign.

>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.

Severian drops numerous hints of an ancient Urth.  Unfortunately, most are
in throwaway lines that are easy to miss, easy to forget, and difficult
to locate again when you want 'em.  (Now where's that reference to
"polychrome sand" again?)

For instance, at the end of chapter 13 of "Sword" Severian mentions the
cessation of plate tectonics.  The physician in chapter 36 of "Urth"
seems to support this:  earthquakes are much less frequent in Typhon's
day than they had been previously, infrequent enough for the commoners
to have largely forgotten them.

Is two millenia long enough for the oceans to cover beaches with
powdered cokebottles?  Maybe, but I don't see it.  Could human beings
degenerate to phosphorescent cave-apes in two thousand years?  (Jonas
and Severian agree that they have not been tampered with.)  Worse,
Jonas suggests that the man-apes predate Typhon.  Stephen Jay Gould,
watch out!  Our equilibrium is about to be punctuated!

Wildest suggestion of antiquity:  Severian's careless hint in chapter 1
that the universe no longer expands.  File this one in the tens-of-
gigayears-to-never range.

raster at highfiber.com

---

From: CRCulver <crculver at aol.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 21:22:33 +0000

Someone, I think Dave, said:
>there was enough power and energy to

     I don't think the face of the Earth was entirely rescupted. We have
little evidence in the form of graphical topography to substantiate this
claim. We know that Korea is underwater, and Urth has seven continents, both
due to Jonas' comments in _Claw_.
     The first few messages in the Urth Archive discuss a map. If someone
would be as kind as to send that to me, or give me an URL for it, I would be
grateful.

Charles Dye said:
>Severian's careless hint in chapter 1 that the universe no longer expands.
 File this one in the tens-of-gigayears-to-never range.<

     That's news to me. Would you mind typing that sentence or paragraph in?

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

---

From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 22:18:40 +0000

Surely it is rather obvious that Wolfe's reference to 1 or 2 thousand
years is not from "our" time to Severians, but from Typhon's.
	Now, how old is it? Mantis says not as old as often thought, because of
the black hole in the sun. I've asked him for evidence that this black hole
was artifically introduced.
	In Dr. Talos's play, Gabriel tells Nod that he has arrived 50 million
years too late. So, when did human beings appear on earth/urth? You get
human culture not much farther back than 6000 BC, being generous. I think
the idea that human beings lived before then -- humans as we know them --
is pretty fantastic. People are builders, and also create generations. But,
let's nod to ideas that Wolfe himself probably does not believe, and say
that "Adam and Eve and Nod and Cain" lived a million years ago! We still
have 49 million years to go to get to the time of Severian -- no matter how
the black hole got into the sun. (Assuming Talos is correct, of course.)
	Nope. Until convinced otherwise, I'm assuming a Vancean "Dying Earth" in
both scenario AND chronology.

Contentiously, nay, outright viciously,

Nutria

---

From: Charles Dye <raster at highfiber.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 11:06:49 +0000

CRCulver at aol.com asks:

>>File this one in the tens-of-gigayears-to-never range.
>

A more useful reference wouldn't hurt either, huh?  That's chapter 1 of
"Urth."  Severian, recalling his determination to launch his manuscript
entirely out of his universe, ponders:

   ... And I marveled to recall that all this had seemed too small for
   my ambition, and wondered whether it had grown (thought the mystes
   declare it no longer grows) or I had.

At first I figured that this is what comes of receiving your "scientific"
education from leeches.  But Severian credits "the mystes" for this tidbit,
not Mal & Pal.  He's either picked this up from a book, or during his years
at the House Absolute.  (Still can't be right, though.  Can it?)

raster at highfiber.com