Subject: (urth) Blue still ain't Ushas

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 22:42:16 +0000

I argued, last spring, that Blue is not Ushas. If those arguments weren't
heeded then, there's no point in repeating them now. Those arguments were
from the text and/or Physics, so I don't know how it can be claimed "all
your reasons for Urth not being Blue AREN'T valid ones", as was recently
stated here. Be that as it may, the mass of textual evidence against Blue
being Urth/Ushas overwhelms the theory that it is. I have also argued that
Silkhorn's astral travel is spatial, not temporal. The only text-based
argument for astral time-travel that I am aware of is the appearance of Silk
and Oreb in Salica's story. That is evidence that the *story* was changed,
just as Fava's story was influenced by Silkhorn, not that the past had been
changed.

Proponents of the Blue=Urth/Ushas theory have also claimed that the
Neighbors were far-future descendents of the people who repopulated Urth
after it became Ushas. Where the Green Man fits into that evolution, I don't
know. At any rate, the text contradicts the theory that the Neighbors were
some future evolutionary stage of humanity on Blushas. When Silkhorn went to
ruined Nessus with Rigoglio and others, he spoke to Mora:

------------------------------------
    "I was trapped in a pit in a ruined city of the Vanished People once," I
remarked to Mora. "Have I ever told you about that?"
    She shook her head.
    "I've been thinking about it, and about the City of the Inhumi on Green.
Those were ruins left by the Neighbors' ancient race; these were left by
ours, I believe--we are as ancient as they, or nearly." (IGJ, 315)
-------------------------------------

This means that humans and Neighbors are roughly of equal antiquity, and
implies that the Neighbors' race may even be *older* than humankind.
Elsewhere it is stated that humans and Neighbors were molded by the Outsider
from different soils. If the text means anything to this argument, then the
above quote is a dagger in the Blushas theory.

-Roy

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From: Don Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 04:25:18 +0000

>When Silkhorn went to

Don replies:
Sorry Roy, but that dagger just don't cut for me.  Silk's opinions on the
origin or age of the Neighbor's are just as likely to be wrong as right.
He's an unreliable narrator.  And as for the Quetzal as a late arrival on
the Whorl, what exactly does that mean?  The Chems were the original beings
on the Whorl, so he could be a late arrival after them, or he could be the
last being on the Whorl after everyone else but before it left the Urth
system.  It is not the killer it seems to be.

On another note, I have decided on a Vironese name for myself.  It should
have been obvious to me.  In honor of my favorite literary character, you
may or may not address me as

Monkey

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