# Blushas *The Urth list — 4 messages, 4 voices, 26 Nov 2002* > 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. --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *26 Nov 2002, 17:24* Okay, let's take this one step at a time. Suppose that Blue is Urth/Ushas and Green is Lune. Okay, let's suppose that. That means we have to allow astral time travel. Then we have the question, "Why, when astrally projecting with the Duko, did the Narrator wind up in the age of Severian?" Well, that seems a little difficult to me. To diffuse one answer -- the presence of the Duko will _not_ resolve the problem, because the Duko comes from the time of Typhon. Thus, if we extend the "you can only project to somewhere someone in your group has been to before" idea to time, you wind up having them project to the time of Typhon -- which, evidently, they don't. I challenge the supporters of the "Blue = Ushas" theory to come up with a good and reasonable explanation of why they wind up in Severian's time. I offer extra credit if it does not include any lame invocations of relativity. ("Oh, see, well, 1000 years have passed for the cargo of the Starcrosser, so they project to 1000 years after when the Duko left...") --- ### Jeff Veyera *27 Nov 2002, 01:24 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* : I challenge the supporters of the "Blue = Ushas" theory to come up with a good and reasonable explanation of why they wind up in Severian's time. I offer extra credit if it does not include any lame invocations of relativity. ("Oh, see, well, 1000 years have passed for the cargo of the Starcrosser, so they project to 1000 years after when the Duko left...") --Blattid: I thought that Pas/Typhon's daughter Scylla had possessed Oreb at that point. They went back to Urth as she had been born there. Do I get extra credit? : ) -----Original Message----- From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 9:25 AM To: urth at urth.net Subject: (urth) Blushas Okay, let's take this one step at a time. Suppose that Blue is Urth/Ushas and Green is Lune. Okay, let's suppose that. That means we have to allow astral time travel. Then we have the question, "Why, when astrally projecting with the Duko, did the Narrator wind up in the age of Severian?" Well, that seems a little difficult to me. To diffuse one answer -- the presence of the Duko will _not_ resolve the problem, because the Duko comes from the time of Typhon. Thus, if we extend the "you can only project to somewhere someone in your group has been to before" idea to time, you wind up having them project to the time of Typhon -- which, evidently, they don't. I challenge the supporters of the "Blue = Ushas" theory to come up with a good and reasonable explanation of why they wind up in Severian's time. I offer extra credit if it does not include any lame invocations of relativity. ("Oh, see, well, 1000 years have passed for the cargo of the Starcrosser, so they project to 1000 years after when the Duko left...") ``` -- ``` --- ### Don Doggett *27 Nov 2002, 04:35 · follows Jeff Veyera* " I challenge the supporters of the "Blue = Ushas" theory to come up with a good and reasonable explanation of why they wind up in Severian's time. I offer extra credit if it does not include any lame invocations of relativity. ("Oh, see, well, 1000 years have passed for the cargo of the Starcrosser, so they project to 1000 years after when the Duko left...") --Blattid" I'll take that bet, mister. If the person in the pit who revives Horn is Severian as a Vanished Person then there was a comingling of the two. Whether you accept that it was Severian or not, at least grant me that there was a mingling of "whatevers". Therefore the narrator is also part Severian in addition to being part Silk and part Horn, and could thus travel to Severian's time. The only invocation of relativity I will offer is that Silk is either Severian's half brother or his genetic father, but pretend I didn't say that as it has no bearing on this discussion. As for the inhumi travelling from Lune to Urth, they simply would have flown, like they do from Green to Blue. And there are plenty of instances where the inhumi could be on Urth simply through the connotations of Urth being Earth. Vampires, goatsuckers, etc. In one sense that's what they are - demonic bloodsucking shapeshifters. I'd argue it's only natural for them to be on Urth. Blattid, your subject heading leads me to something that has been preying on my mind for the last several days. This Blushas argument has been going on and off for quite some time and no one is really willing to give ground, nor should they. But what if what Wolfe has done is write a dual text, one that is ambiguous enough that you can read it either way and still not lose its basic meaning. I don't think that is beyond him at all. I'm not proposing some insipid "We're both right!" solution. I'm just saying that no one here is stupid or terribly careless and yet no one can seem to deliver the goods for either argument. Don --- ### Andy Robertson *10 Dec 2002, 22:10 · follows Don Doggett* The fact is that, while I don't believe that Blue/Green are Ushas/Lune, it does ring true on a deep level. I have been puzzling over this. All I can suggest is that Blue/Green are a new "Urth" but are not "Ushas", if that makes sense. Wolfe has to write about certain themes of redemption and of man's relation to God in a fallen universe. These themes drive, not merely the plot, but the *Physics* of the Lupiverse: and they also drve its (retroactively corrected) history I suspect that when he started the BOTLS Wolfe did not know where he was going, did not realise the Whorl was in orbit round a sun, and did not know about Blue and Green. At the end of BOTLS, Blue and Green existed, but most definitely were not Ushas and Lune At the end of BOTSS, I think Blue and Green have moved some way towards becoming Ushas and Lune. They are not there yet, no. But if Wolfe ever pens a fourth book in thebtrilogy, the doubters may get some suprises. (and of course, if Blue and Green become Ushas/Lune at the end of this fourth book, they will **always** have been Ushas and Lune) hartshorn ---