Subject: (urth) Merryn and Triskele

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 20:54:21 +0000

Andrew wrote:
>But there is one glaring difference which I find very difficult to
>ignore: Merryn. When Sev meets her & the Cumaean in Stone Town,
>they don't recognize each other. But in Long Sun, Sev fetches
>Merryn to meet with Jahlee; after that, at any rate, they *must*
>know each other. Something has definitely changed.

I think what Andrew is getting at is the rather glaring lack of apparent
recognition between Merryn and Severian at the end of CLAW. From Sev's
personal perspective, the meeting in the stone town took place less than two
years after the time he first found Triskele. (I can elaborate on the time
frame with citations from the text, if necessary.) Presumably the interval
was the same for Merryn. During the time he had Triskele was when Silkhorn &
Co. made their astral visit to him. Seeing someone walk through a steel wall
should have impressed Merryn, and it did. I don't think she would be likely
to ever forget her experience in the torturers' tower, or the young
apprentice who caused her to be there.

For the record, Sev had Triskele for only a week. (SHADOW, chapter IV, p-31,
Timescape hb.)

-Roy

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:54:31 +0000

On Thu, 06 Apr 2006 06:54:21 +1000 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>For the record, Sev had Triskele for only a week. (SHADOW, chapter 

>IV, p-31,

I posted this back in 2003:

-------------------------------------------------------------

Quite a lot more time than a week must separate Silk's visit to 
Urth
from Dorp (RTTW Ch 13) & his final visit from New Viron (Ch 19). 
But in 
both passages, Sev has Triskele, whereas in Shadow Sev tells us he 
only 
had the dog for a week - Ch IV: "A week after I had carried him 
down, I 
found only Triskele's hobbling footprints in the mud..."

Either:

(1) Wolfe made a little mistake.
(2) Silk can & does astral travel through time as well as space.
(3) Silk's first visit somehow changes things, so that Triskele 
stays
longer (the blankets he has in RTTW aren't mentioned in Shadow ...)
(4) Some other thing.

I pick (1).

------------------------------------

I can't remember the detqails of the longer-than-a-week conclusion, 
but I recall it was pretty obvious. Now instead of picking (1) I'm 
suggesting that (3) is worth thinking about.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:35:54 +0000

> from Dorp (RTTW Ch 13) & his final visit from New Viron (Ch 19).

Is it clear that more than a week passes _for Sev_? I ask because
we know that at least some of the Narrator's astral travels are also
travels in time...

> suggesting that (3) is worth thinking about.

If it is "clear" that more than a week passed on Urth between the
Narrator's visits, then I would go for 3.

--Dan'l

--
I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.
                        -- St Teresa of Avila
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:54:01 +0000

On Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:35:54 +1000 Dan'l Danehy-Oakes 
>we know that at least some of the Narrator's astral travels are 

Do we know that? Not denying it, but I don't recall anything which 
suggests time travelling.

---

From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:13:57 +0000

On Apr 5, 2006, at 10:54 PM, <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>  

> suggests time travelling.

I'm deeply suspicious that the accelerations allowable in the Whorl  
(without the lakes sloshing all over everywhere, etc) would give you  
sufficient relativistic compression to make a thousand-year journey  
only last 300.  Michael Andre-Driussi and I have batted this one  
around a little, and the question comes down to, "how fast can the  
Whorl accelerate."

So, uh, SilkHorn would seem to be going into the *future*.  Not  
merely outside the light cone, but into the future even if there IS a  
Universal Time (me, I don't see what's wrong with regarding the  
comoving frame as Really At Rest and thereby declaring time, relative  
to the comoving frame, to be Real Time, and applying relativistic  
shrinkage to everything else).

Adam

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From: aramini1 at cox.net <aramini1 at cox.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:26:35 +0000

<thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
> >> wrote:

You must know I'm a huge proponent of the idea that Silk can become unmoored in time, if he focuses on location.  The biggest argument against time travel is that that tyrant guy who was a sleeper on the whorl obviously says that a lot of time has passed on Urth and he no longer recognizes his city.  

The best argument for time travel is more easily dismissed: when Inclito's mother tells of the man who dies from the snake tooth in her youth, somehow Silkhorn and Oreb (or a darned good facsimile of them) show up in the story, something that definitely happened in the past.  Maybe Silk heard the story, and that night when he fell asleep he went off to live it.  Or maybe, as those against time travel would say, she just told him into the story to screw with him.  Either way, it's weird.

Aramini

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:29:27 +0000

> shrinkage to everything else).

Shrinkage works both ways, but when frames are brought back to relative 
rest, the one that has experienced greater acceleration has experienced 
less duration. However, I don't think GW really believes in relativity, 
or at least it doesn't have physical meaning in the New Sun books, and 
by extension, the Long and Short Suns.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:20:55 +0000

On Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:13:57 +1000 Adam Thornton <adam at io.com> 

>Whorl accelerate."

Seems to me you can get that compression with something less than 
0.01g, if your magic space-engine gives you constant boost up to 
0.95c or beyond. Or no? But anyway I have no idea how noticeable 
0.01g would be; would you get sloshing etc?

---

From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:25:40 +0000

> 0.01g would be; would you get sloshing etc?

A 1% grade is certainly enough to ensure you don't, say, put a ball  
down on a shelf.  And there's no indication in the Whorl that you  
have to build things on slopes to counteract the effects of  
acceleration.  I was figuring a thousandth of a G would be more  
reasonable.  But on the other hand....we really have no idea how the  
Whorl is powered, do we?

Of course one could say that of course Wolfe doesn't believe in  
relativity inasmuch as spacetime is a static rather than a dynamic  
concept, which does not appear to allow for free will.  Put another  
way, free will is a refutation of the notion that time is essentially  
spacelike.

Adam

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:28:27 +0000

> 0.01g would be; would you get sloshing etc?

no slosh, and the tiny acceleration would be swamped in the effects of 
the Whorl's spin gravity.

---

From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:35:09 +0000

> the Whorl's spin gravity.

How problematic would Coriolis effects be in day-to-day life on the  
Whorl, anyway?  Do we know how big it is?

Adam

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:48:47 +0000

> Whorl, anyway?  Do we know how big it is?

It should into present a problem with day-to-day living, but given the 
Whorl is of a size that towns are visible overhead, any activity 
involving flying objects will be visibly affected. For instance, a ball 
thrown or hit against the rotation of the Whorl will be seen to go 
farther than one hit traveling with the rotation.

---

From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 06:38:45 +0000

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com writes:
> 0.01g, 

remember gy = c 

One g for one year = speed of light 

one thousandth g would take a while 

hartshorn

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:52:44 +0000

>suggests time travelling.

Excuse me, but these speculations on the relativistic effects of
acceleration on the _Whorl_ have nothing to do with the astral travels Dan'l
mentioned. Silkhorn did his traveling while on Blue. How long it took the
ship to get from Urth to Blue, and how much time has passed on Urth since it
voyaged, is another subject.

I agree with Andrew in that I see no evidence in the text to suggest that
astral travel also involves time travel.

-Roy

---

From: Adam Thornton <adam at io.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:12:28 +0000

> voyaged, is another subject.

But it isn't: knowing whether Severian is in Blue's past light cone,  
its future light cone, or outside its light cone entirely *is* a  
relevant question.  It only becomes irrelevant if we take as a given  
that relativity doesn't exist in the New/Long/Short Sun universe, and  
even then we're left with the question of, if there is a Universal  
Now and astral travel is instantaneous, then is Severian in the same  
Now that Silkhorn is?

> astral travel also involves time travel.

Well, if it is instantaneous--and it must be, or Silkhorn would be  
gone a very long time on his trip to Urth--then either there's no  
relativity in Wolfe's universe, or it *does*.

Adam

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 16:21:24 +0000

> astral travel also involves time travel.

This is given to us during the storytelling context. The Narrator
travels into at least two peoples' stories that have already
happened -- and at least one of them is quite surprised at it,
in a way that shows that she perceives that her own past has
been changed.

I can't be much more specific, because it's been a couple
of years since I reread SS.

--Dan'l

---

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:56:18 +0000

Dan'l wrote (of time travel)

>of years since I reread SS.

Chapter 9 of In Green's Jungles, if people want a reference. Fava is
telling the story of what is clearly her own childhood on Green, and for
some reason brings Silkhorn into it. Silkhorn tells us that he starts to
imagine the scene vividly, and Fava then seems very surprised to find
herself describing how she was rescued by Silkhorn, as if that wasn't
what had happened. Silkhorn actually starts narrating the story directly
to us, as something happening to him.

But exactly what is going on here? Fava describes this person as
'stocky', which sounds like Horn rather than Silkhorn, and says that he
wanted to use her to frustrate his son's plans, which sounds like
something Horn would have wanted to do when he was on Green.

And why did Fava introduce Silkhorn (or Horn) to her story in first
place? Because that actually happened? Or was Fava's childhood too long
ago for Horn to have been there? I wonder if Fava genuinely did see Horn
while he was on Green, and in revisiting that time Silkhorn 'overlaid'
that self with his new self. A similar thing happens in Free Live Free.

But this topic needs a thread, possibly a website, all of its own.
Certainly Silkhorn demonstrates some sort of power to travel back in
time.