{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3574", "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": 3574, "subject": "Blue as Ushas", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-11-17T09:11:29+00:00", "last": "2002-11-17T11:30:24+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-11-17T09:11:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Blue as Ushas", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let us posit--strictly for the sake of argument--that Blue is Ushas. How\ndoes that affect the overall picture Wolfe has drawn in the 12 SUN books?\nThat is, is it consonant with the religious underpinnings Wolfe has given\nthe extended series?\n\nTaking the long view, let me summarize: God created the world, didn't like\nthe way things turned out, wiped the slate clean with a big flood and\nstarted over. Enter Noah. Things still didn't turn out right. Strike two.\nEnter Jesus. Things still didn't work out right. Bad Man was worse than\never; he spread his corruption to other worlds. What to do, what to do? Wipe\nthe slate clean again with a big flood. Strike three. Enter Severian, the\nNew Sun. Well, hell, things *still* didn't work out right. Odilo's flock\nevidently evolved into the Neighbors (or was supplanted by them), who had\ntheir own foibles. They were so plagued by the inhumi that they fled the\nplanet (and Lune), leaving behind, not exactly a clean slate, but one wiped\nof mankind. Strike four. The Outsider hijacks Typhon's Ark. Enter the\nMoses/Christ-like, latter-day Noah/Pas with an ark full of goodies. Within\n*one* generation, the new peoples of Ushas-come-Blue are at it\nagain--feuding, fussing, and fighting--rotten sinners, every bit as bad as\nthose who got snuffed in the first flood. What to do, what to do? \"Let's get\nMoses/Jesus/Noah/Pas down here to set things right.\" Enter Silkhorn. He\nsamples a few of Blue's settlements, conducts a couple of wars, consorts\nwith an old nemesis of Urth, realizes he is Silk, wrings his hands, and\nsays, nope, this ain't for me; I'm outta here. Then he adjusts his halo and\nsails off in a worn-out starship for ports unknown with his former\nstudent/alter ego's wife and girlfriend.\n\nMeanwhile, the Neighbors, some iteration or other in mankind's evolution\nwithin God's creation, dodged the bullet. They seem to have escaped the\nOutsider's wrath when they abandoned Ushas for other worlds. And the\nOutsider is left in the awkward position of having the same damn planet\nsteeped once again in iniquity, and so soon! Did he hijack Typhon's ship for\nnothing? Didn't he see it coming? What to do, what to do?\n\nParts of the above scenario we are stuck with, such as twice-flooded Urth.\nAfter that point, even an atheist's sense of righteousness gets offended.\nHow are the Neighbors any less morally culpable than the ignorant, hard\nworking, innocent peasants who got drowned in the second flood? If Blue is\nUshas of the far future, what was accomplished by the wounding of the old\nsun and the coming of the New? Nothing. Mankind is still as rotten as ever,\neven on the home planet. The descendants of the First Empire are still\nspread all over the galaxy. The Neighbors are out there, somewhere. And Silk\nis on his way to . . . spread mankind's sins around to more worlds? This\ndoesn't make sense to me.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2002-11-17T11:30:24+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Blue as Ushas", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks for the welcome, Roy\n\nI agree with your point here, though perhaps for different reasons. The \nreligious aspects are open to a very wide amount of interpretation, and \nwhether you believe Blue is Ushas or not you can choose to take it \nnegatively and nothing stops you.\n\nI look at the question like this: asking if Blue is Ushas is somewhat akin \nto asking if Ushas is Urth. Perhaps, in a sense, they are? But in the most \nimportant sense they're different, and have different meanings, which go \nalong with the different names. This, to me, is far more important than the \nargument over the means of how Blue might be Ushas. In this sense I feel \nyou're dead on in bringing the \"higher\" level into it.\n\nTo Don: Thank you for your welcome as well.\n\nUnfortunately I think your red star is another red herring. Silk did see \nthis star at least once, in the enlightenment given him by the Outsider, \nalong with a lot of other knowledge of history, etc. One can easily argue \nthat Silk's enlightenment is false or partially mistaken (certainly Crane \nwould agree). But to attack that is to attack a lot of other things, some of \nwhich are integral to all of our understanding of the novels.\n\nCP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Let us posit--strictly for the sake of argument--that Blue is Ushas. How\ndoes that affect the overall picture Wolfe has drawn in the 12 SUN books?\nThat is, is it consonant with the religious underpinnings Wolfe has given\nthe extended series?" } ] } ] }