{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/418", "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": 418, "subject": "Kimleesoong and the Dating of the Autarchy", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-03-12T21:55:56+00:00", "last": "1998-03-13T21:00:30+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "C R Culver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-03-12T21:55:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Kimleesoong and the Dating of the Autarchy", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Fellow Urthers:\n\nThere has often been talk on this list of how far in the future the\nCommonwealth of Severian's time is. I was perplexed, however, at the personage\nof Kimleesoong (Kim Lee Soong) that Jonas mentions in the antechamber of the\nHouse Absolute. Jonas says that he is seven generations removed from the\ncurrent generation. Unless the prisoners there were extremely long-lived, this\nwould place him after the reign of Ymar and Typhon. We saw in UotNS that the\ndays of Ymar and Typhon are far removed from ours, and there are no names\nreminescent of modern times like the obviously Korean name of Kim Lee Soong.\n(Jonas also mentions that Korea has been under the ocean for ages).\nHow do we solve this problem, where a man from our time is present in a future\nperhaps 1 million years away? Here are my hypotheses:\n\n1) the Antechamber is somehow connected to the Corridors of Time, and our\nKorean man stumbled upon them. This is possible, but I am not sure it\nhappened.\n\n2) Kim Lee Soong was a sailor just a Jonas was, from a few decades or\ncenturies after our time, who came back to Urth millions of years after his\ntime, and was then imprisoned. Indeed, Jonas appears to be in much the same\ncircumstances, considering that, feverish, he babbled in Korean in the\nantechamber (Korean is a nasal, monosyllabic language. I am sure it was Korean\nand not Chinese, because Severian does not speak of tones). Strangely, this is\nthe only place I can find where Jonas is culturally identified. Severian never\nseems to remark on any Asiatic features with Jonas, however. This is the\npossibility I most strongly support.\n\n3) The Urth of the Autarchy is not so far in the future as we suspect, a\npossibility I will, however, reject. \n\nWhat do you all think?\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Parmenter", "address": "dan at lec.com" }, "date": "1998-03-13T10:35:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Kimleesoong and the Dating of the Autarchy", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: C R Culver \nThere has often been talk on this list of how far in the future the\nCommonwealth of Severian's time is. I was perplexed, however, at the personage\nof Kimleesoong (Kim Lee Soong) that Jonas mentions in the antechamber of the\nHouse Absolute. Jonas says that he is seven generations removed from the\ncurrent generation. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Isn't it the prisoners who make this claim? And isn't it also\nmentioned that some of the previous generation also claimed to be\nseventh generation descendants of the original prisoners? I don't\nhave the book with me so I'll have to double check that. Maybe it's\njust part of their lore: \"We're all seventh generation prisoners...\"\n\nD" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "C R Culver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-03-13T21:00:30+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Kimleesoong and the Dating of the Autarchy", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan Parmenter said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Isn't it the prisoners who make this claim? And isn't it also\nmentioned that some of the previous generation also claimed to be\nseventh generation descendants of the original prisoners?<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But still, the fact that they would remember that ancient name from our time\nis staggering and improbable. I still think Kim Lee Soong was a sailor who\nreturned to Urth at just about the same time Jonas did, which would have put\nhim in the Monarchy/Autarchy.\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] } ] }