{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/34",
    "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": 34,
    "subject": "Early Urth & Other Writ",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-05-16T01:07:00+00:00",
    "last": "1997-05-16T01:07:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0001-0055@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-05-16T01:07:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Early Urth & Other Writ",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Reply:  Item #8311763 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET01#\n\nJoel,\n\nSlow down a second.  You've truncated my point: I didn't write\n\"earliest days of the White Fountain,\" I wrote \"earliest days of\nWhite Fountain =starlight= on Urth.\"  You apprehend the difference,\ndon't you?  The White Fountain is brought into existence somewhere\nfar away in the galaxy, perhaps in the galactic core itself.  It\nsaunters along toward Urth at some relativistic speed, that is,\ntaking years, decades, or centuries of real time to cross each light\nyear--but at the same time, its light is \"racing\" across space at one\nyear per light year.  Obviously the starlight hits Urth long before\nthe White Fountain is in the neighborhood--and this is important\nbecause the starlight is the physical (physics) link between the\nWhite Hole and Severian.  The presence or absence of the starlight upon\nSeverian's body, to be most precise, determines whether or not Severian\nhas his super powers.\n\nRe: \"The earliest days of the White Fountain's existence stretch back\nto the earliest days of humans on Urth\"--does the text support this\nclaim?  I can see where Famulimus says, \"Thus surprised are we,\nSeverian, to find you here where men have scarce begun\" (V, ch. , p.\n354).  Is that the quote that informed you?\n\n\"Here where men have scarce begun\" can be taken in many ways: scarce\nbegun civilization, for one example.  But I myself doubt the sense of\n\"homo sapiens sapiens has just arrived on the scene.\"  If that is the\nsense in which Famulimus means it, I would take it figuratively rather\nthan literally.  But for those who take it literally, here is a handy\nchronological milestone (35,000 B.C.) to work into the posthistorical\nages of Urth!\n\nFWIW, I have a few factoids that point to that scene taking place in\nCuzco, South America circa AD 1200.  Of course, this is obviously\nbased upon the perhaps fatally flawed viewpoint that Urth is\nliterally an evolved form of Earth after a period of less than one\nmillion years from today!\n\nYes, posthistory =is= a fascinating subject!\n\nMeanwhile, Harrison's THE PASTEL CITY, first of the Viriconium\nsequence, was first published in 1971--nine years before THE SHADOW\nOF THE TORTURER.  (BTW, didn't Ranjit have a separate place for\npeople to list Wolfe-ish books?)\n\n(And hey--where is that Ranjit?)\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}