Subject: (urth) Astral travel in time

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 19:18:14 +0000

Dan'l quoted and wrote:
>> I agree with Andrew in that I see no evidence in the text to suggest that
>> 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 took the apparent changes in the inhuma's story to be the product of
Silkhorn's seeming ability, while awake, to influence her storytelling, not
that he was actually able to change the past, whether he did it
unconsciously or deliberately. To accord Silkhorn the ability to change the
past, as Andrew has already suggested, opens up a Pandora's box that, once
opened, not only can't be closed again, but potentially lets out more
possibilities than the box could ever have held to begin with. Where does
Silkhorn's power to change the past come from, and where does it stop? Why
shouldn't he go back in the past to change any number of outcomes he didn't
like, things that were a lot more important to him and the other humans who
came to the Blue-Green system than the particular inhuma sitting at the
table?

If Silkhorn has the power to change the past, then almost anything becomes
possible, there are no logical rules and we might as well be trying to find
meaning in nonsense rhymes.

I can't explain the appearance of the Silk-like and Oreb-like figures in the
old woman's story, but if Silkhorn traveled back in time to spook somebody,
he not only did it off-stage, he exercised his power, in my opinion, rather
trivially and arbitrarily.

-Roy

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 20:01:15 +0000

> To accord Silkhorn the ability to change the
> past, as Andrew has already suggested, opens up a Pandora's box that,
> once opened, not only can't be closed again, but potentially lets out more
> Silkhorn's power to change the past come from, and where does it stop?

Okay, to begin with, it probably isn't "his" power, but that of the
Outsider, Whom he serves. I doubt he even knows he does it.(The
Narrator is brain-numbingly good at not knowing stuff about himself:
not so much an unreliable narrator as an unreliable observer.)

> Why shouldn't he go back in the past to change any number of
> outcomes he didn't like, things that were a lot more important to him
> and the other humans who came to the Blue-Green system than the
> particular inhuma sitting at the table?

I have no doubt that he would if he (knew he) could. However, this
is not the Outsider's focus. The Outsider (Who is the Christian God)
is interested in individuals, souls, not mass movements.

> trivially and arbitrarily.

If he did it of his own volition - yes. If the Outsider/Increate/God did,
however, then it has some extremely important meaning in the lives
of the participants -- to which the Narrator is probably not privy.

--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

---

From: nastler <nastler at yahoo.dk>
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 06:42:53 +0000

Couldn't Silkhorns power here be described as changing
the memory of an event (inserting a new memory)
through story-telling, rather than to really change
the past? Wouldn't this have the same (desired)
effect? To alter the subjects future?

This would mean the past stays the past, now is now,
and the future (or one version of it) is yet
unwritten, but is influenced by our perception of (not
the reality of) past events. This in no way explains
the (instant) AT though. Unless SH is attempting to
use his power on us (readers of SS) to alter our
memory of what happened ten books ago.

And Dan, if SH is just a puppet then the only fun I
could have reading about him would be to find the
strings. These books have lots of strings, and not
many of then go up to Heaven.

nastler

--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> skrev:

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---

From: David Duffy <david.duffy at qimr.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 07:19:46 +0000

> memory of what happened ten books ago.
Hey, this is the conceit of Mitchell's _Cloud Atlas_.

David Duffy

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 09:53:24 +0000

On Fri, 07 Apr 2006 06:01:15 +1000 Dan'l Danehy-Oakes 
<danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Silkhorn's power to change the past come from, and where does it 

>stop?
>Outsider, Whom he serves. I doubt he even knows he does it.

Just in the context of SilkHorn & Sev, my Big Hypothesis is really 
based on Sev's "iterative" world-line, not on any specifically 
SilkHornian past-changing ability. 

In the New Sun context, the Sev we know has been constructed by the 
Hierogrammates or whoever by layering different histories on top of 
each other (at least two histories, anyway). Or if not layering, 
then replacing one history by another - but I like the layering 
image better, partly I guess because you see the same mechanism in 
Free Live Free.

My hypothesis is that SilkHorn astral-travelling to Urth launches a 
new future Sev world-line, perhaps radically different to the one 
in New Sun. The instigator of the change is no doubt the 
Outsider/Increate, intervening with SilkHorn as his agent. 

Totally making up stories: Perhaps the Increate also finds the 
eternal Hiero/human reproductive cycle distasteful, and from now on 
it will be replaced by something different - perhaps no longer a 
succession of universes, but just one, with a definite end. Etc etc 
etc. (Why he let things get out of hand in the first place - 
dunno!)

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:10:18 +0000

> image better, partly I guess because you see the same mechanism in

I also think "layering" is the right term. I don't know whether Wolfe
actually believes this or not, but these books seem to suggest something
I have long thought possible -- that God is an artist who revises His work
as He goes along.

The analogy I use is Tolkien writing <b>The Lord of the Rings</b>. When
he first got the Hobbits to Bree, they found there an odd, weatherworn
Hobbit named "Trotter." Nobody was more surprised than Tolkien when
"Trotter" turned out not to be a Hobbit at all, but Aragorn.

I suspect that this is something like what it's like to create a world
that contains creatures with free will. They come up with stuff you had
never expected and you wind up revising the world to fit it better. And
sometimes this revision leaves behind artifacts of the earlier versions.
(Thus Severian's awareness that there were other versions of him
before.)

> Outsider/Increate, intervening with SilkHorn as his agent.

Yes, that is precisely what I think also -- though, as noted, it could
also be argued that the O/I used the Narrator to make Severian what
he would become in NS.

(Side point: an alternate explanation for the inconsistencies ...
one that wouldn't involve wiping out the NS. We know that Severian
the Memorious nonetheless suppresses certain things and lies
about others. Perhaps there was something in the encounter with
the Narrator that he finds very threatening ... perhaps even something
that might give him a presentiment of his destiny?)

--Dan'l