Subject: (urth) bsharp's Inire theory

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:10:05 +0000

>And where is it writ that Inire is a member of T's race?

I think Severian identifies Inire and the Cumaean as hierodules to B, F 
and O and gets no argument.  Does that count?

Jeff Wilson writes:
>Suppose I am Inire, and too busy doing transcendent things to date. How
>does it help me quench my desire for a young lady's company to bud off a
>boatman who departs, perhaps to reunite in 50 or so yeasr, perhaps not,
>especially when I am already in close cahoots with the owner of a
>youth-oriented clone bordello?  Surely he could keep a really young one
>on hand, perhaps in return for a new section of the Botanical Gardens
>for he and his bees to enjoy?

That is SO unromantic! A guy is supposed to replace several lifetimes of true
love with a string of prostitutes? ;-)

Anyway, I wouldn't think the budding off of a boatman (of course he wasn't 
necessarily a boatman then) was for the purpose of meeting Dorcas. Probably 
the opposite, she was an accident and a distraction.

I'll note that my version of this theory relies on the idea that Wolfe patterned
the superhumans inhabiting Urth on the pre-Christian gods and monsters we 
find in ancient mythology. I glean from interviews that Wolfe likes the idea that
ancient gods and monsters were not just baseless fantasies but representations
of real beings back then.  

And the Bible seems to provide a suggestion that there were supernatural beings
who could change their form, present themselves as false gods and mate with 
humans, corrupting our race-  these being fallen angels or demons- superhuman
offshoots of God who diverted from his purpose. Similar to what some of 
the cacogens of Urth were doing, I think.

-bsharp

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:28:22 +0000

> and O and gets no argument.  Does that count?

Since Tzadkiel is a Hierogrammate rather than a Hierodule, no it doesn't 
count.

> love with a string of prostitutes? ;-)

What kind of true love is he getting by lying about his species, or by 
trying to impress pre-pubscent Chatelaines? You've repeatedly painted 
him as a xenopedophile.

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

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:10:40 +0000

Jeff Wilson says in response to the suggestion that Hierodules are of the race 
of Hierogrammates:

>...no it doesn't count.

Where DO hierodules come from?  The larvae of Tzadkiel would seem to be involved
in sexual reproduction.  Tzadkiel herself engages in asexual budding and compares the
process to that of Porifera sponges which reproduce both sexually and asexually.  Are 
hierodules completely separate from these processes? I think they say a couple times
they don't serve Tzadkiel but rather the Increate directly so perhaps that is the case.

>trying to impress pre-pubscent Chatelaines? You've repeatedly painted 

Cheeky chap! Fancy judging the gods' morality by contemporary Western standards. The 
legends seem to portray a range of devotion levels between gods and mortals. Some are
true and sincere such as Cupid and Psyche or Diana and Camilla. Others are midrange like
Aphrodite and Adonis or Apollo and Hecuba. Then we have Zeus who appears to have been 
the Bill Clinton of Mount Olympus, seducing or raping a long line of human females (I think
Europa was 12) in the guise of a bull, a swan, a golden shower of light etc... And (shades of 
Typhon) there were even a few pretty boys in the mix. But Bill does truly love Dorc..
..um, Hillary, yes?

-bsharp
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From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:10:20 +0000

> they don't serve Tzadkiel but rather the Increate directly so perhaps that is the case.
Sev says in Citadel XXXIV:
"...they (the Hierogrammates) look both forward and back, and in so looking
they have discovered us.... The Hierodules they have found too, and formed
more quickly, to serve them in this universe. On their instructions, the
Hierodules construct such ships as the one that bore me from the jungle to
the sea, so that aquastors like Malrubius and Triskele may serve them also."

Humans have been found, and are to be formed into Hieros. Hierodules seem to
be another species that was found and "formed more quickly" into usable
entities by the Hierogrammates.  It doesn't look to me like Hierodules are
budded-off like little Tzadkiel or a larval form like Apheta.

The business of the Hierodules constructing ships under the command of the
Hierogrammates contrasts with what Father Inire says of his own ship
problems in his letter in Citadel XXXV. He says: "You will perhaps consider
the ship I summoned to aid my master, the autarch of his day, inadequate --
as for that matter do I -- yet it was the best I could obtain, and I was
hard-pressed to get it. I myself have been forced to travel south otherwise,
and much more slowly; the time may come soon when my cousins are ready to
side not just with humankind but with *us* -- but for the present they
persist in viewing Urth as somewhat less significant than many of the
colonized worlds..."

I take "the ship I summoned" to be the birdlike aliens who attempt to rescue
the Autarch and Sev from the Ascians at the end of Citadel XXV. They fail,
and the two are carried off by Agia and Hethor instead. It seems these alien
"cousins" don't have the Hierogrammate point-of-view about the importance of
Urth. If Inire were a Hierogrammate (or even a high-ranking Hierodule) then
he should be able to do better than this. He could be lying, but making
lying excuses doesn't seem like a good way to win the confidence of the new
autarch.

Still, Inire is of a "short-lived race" (Citadel XXXVIII), and the B,F,O
Hierodules are said to live "a score of years, like dogs" (Sword XXXIII).
There has to be a connection. Probably both are creations of the
Hierogrammates from the same original life-forms. Their shorter lifespans
may have made it easier to accelerate their evolution. Multiple types of
Hierodules seem to have been made, with different roles.
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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:23:45 +0000

Let's try to make this as simple as possible...

Hierogrammates (whom some here call simply "Hieros") are the human race of the
previoius cycle of the Universe, or their descendants.

Hierodules are beings of the same cycle as Severian, bred up to help in the task
of raising Humanity to Hiero-status.

Their relationship is something like that of the Overlords to the Overmind in
Clarke's _Childhood's End_.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
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---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:40:12 +0000

Dave Tallman wrote:
>and the two are carried off by Agia and Hethor instead.

The *ship* Inire summoned was the Hierodule ship that carried Malrubius and
Triskele, and eventually carried Sev from the jungle to the ocean. Inire had
no way of knowing that the Old Autarch's flier had been shot down. The Old
Autarch had sent out a message after the crash to Vodalus, and the message
was received. Vodalus sent the pteriopes under the command of Agia and
Hethor. They rescued the autarch and Sev from the Ascian evzones. Agia to
Sev: "and in the end you will come into my hands again, as you did when our
pteriopes took you from the evzones." (CITADEL, XXX)

Inire was the jungle shaman who was trying to help the Old Autarch. When
Agia and the Green Man arrived at the tent, they didn't know the Old Autarch
was dead inside, and they worked together only after they arrived. Agia was
already at the jungle camp and the Green Man got there by way of the
Corridors, as did the Hierodule ship. As the Green Man said, "However, you
ought to know that I was not alone: There are others questing there -- I
shall send two of them to you." (ibid.) This was more than a week after the
flier was shot down.

> It seems these alien

Immediately before reading the letter, Sev spoke to Rudesind of Inire: "We
know your master is what the people call a cacogen, and that for whatever
reason, he is one of those few who have chosen to cast their lots entirely
with humanity, remaining on Urth as a human being. The Cumaean is another
such, though perhaps you did not know that."

Fuel for the fire. Obviously, Inire is an alien of some sort, not a human
being. But he is capable of taking on the form of one.

-Roy

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:25:36 +0000

>> Hierodules seem to have been made, with different roles.

It seems like a stretch for Inire to serve the Autarchs for a thousand 
years when he only lives for 20 himself, even using time travel to skip 
over the boring parts but still create the Second House and the 
Botanical Gardens.

> being. But he is capable of taking on the form of one.

Don't the heirodules already have humanlike faces, under their "scary 
alien" masks? I don't see Inire as a shapeshiter so much as an actor, he 
puts on a hood and robe to hide his nonhuman proportions and carries a 
walking stick for support in Urth's gravity and passes as a wizened old 
man. Urthers see the hood, the robe, a few sparkly doodads of vague 
function, hear the archaic speech he learnt from colonials long 
departed, and call him "Father Inire" on the assumption he's a priest; 
he doesn't deny this as he is most certainly a servant of the higher 
powers in heaven/Yesod.

---

From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:46:45 +0000

> Let's try to make this as simple as possible...
As Einstein once said, "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler."
> previoius cycle of the Universe, or their descendants.
I've made this mistake myself, but Hieros and Hierogrammates are not the 
same. Hieros were human-congates of the last universe cycle who formed 
the Hierogrammates from another race of beings, making them better than 
humans. The Hierogrammates plan to use the humans of Briah to form the 
next iteration of Hieros.
> Clarke's _Childhood's End_.
"Childhood's End" is an interesting reference. I wonder if BotNS was 
partly inspired by it, because it also involves an attempt to raise 
humanity to the next level which is catastrophic to Earth.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:09:42 +0000

>over the boring parts but still create the Second House and the

Nevertheless, the line Dave referenced reads: "[...]old Father Inire, alive
so long beyond the span of his short-lived kind[...]". Whatever the
explanation, that's the way it was, and that's what we have to work with.

>alien" masks?

Barbatus and Famulimus do. After taking Sev to their cabin on the Ship they
removed their masks:

"Famulimus's falsely human face was gone, revealing
some huge-eyed horror with needle teeth; she pulled that
away as well, and I saw (for one last time, as I then
believed) the beauty of a goddess not born of woman."
(URTH, V, 35)

Barbatus is described as "handsome, inhuman".

> I don't see Inire as a shapeshiter so much as an actor, he

A "holy slave" need not be restricted to only one race of beings.

-Roy

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:49:19 +0000

> humanity to the next level which is catastrophic to Earth.

There's no "attempt," the transcendence is a natural process. The 
Overlords intercede only to prevent the human race from destroying 
itself before the transformation can be completed.

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:42:36 +0000

I think Roy makes some good arguments that the summoned ship is Malrubius'
and Triskele's.  At least that is a ship rather than a creature or open top flyer. My 
concern is that if it was summoned for the old Autarch, Malrubius and Triskele
shouldn't be there. It seems clear aquastors are assigned to one person and
can only be seen/heard by that person. Would Appian see his aquastor, Paeon,
flying the ship?

>A "holy slave" need not be restricted to only one race of beings.

True, but I can't help but think Inire and the Cumaean are fundamentally
different than Famulimus and Barbatus. 

The latter are so tall, so graceful so beautiful.  They are short-lived.  They wear
 a couple uncomfortable masks and are careful to work only tangentially with 
the human race.  Their true nature seems above human.

The former seem old and ugly. They live a very long time. They don't wear masks
and are capable of shape changing and they interact directly with the human race.
Their true nature seems animalistic.

When Severian says: "know your master is what the people call a cacogen, and that 
for whatever reason, he is one of those few who have chosen to cast their lots
entirely with humanity, remaining on Urth as a human being. The Cumaean is another
such.."

I assign a lot of meaning to the disclaimer, "for whatever reason".  I don't see these 
two working for the New Sun. I think they have developed some bad habits.  Inire his
exo-pedophilia I think Jeff calls it? And the Cumaean trying to raise the dead and 
collecting souls , represented by the faces Severian sees on her snake-like body. 
(Dave Tallman do you really see The Cumaean as a kindly old woman in contrast
to Mme. Prisca?)

Barbatus and Famulimus clearly eschew the  debauchery of these two, remaining
above it. I think if Inire and the Cumaean are of the race of angels they have clearly
fallen (the play does happen to have two demons). Maybe broke they broke the other 
Edenic taboo and ate from the Tree of Life? While perhaps these two are not "evil" 
(Ava warns us against the dichotomy) I think maybe they corrupted the human race 
necessitating a cleansing. Surely neither Inire or the Cumaean survives on Ushas.

Perhaps Severian is successful in Yesod because unlike previous autarchs he is able to
transcend the stagnating influences these two have been perpetrating: war, incest, 
witchcraft, alzabo-type soul collecting etc.

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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:00:22 +0000

> Their true nature seems animalistic.

Can you point out the shape-changing incidents for Inire and the Cumaean?

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:26:12 +0000

>Can you point out the shape-changing incidents for Inire and the Cumaean?

Depends. What is the purpose of your question?  If you are asking for obvious,
clear text descriptions I suppose it is obvious there isn't much of that. Was that
the point you wanted to make?

I'd say the closest we get is the old woman Cumaean revealed to be in an endless 
snake form on the roof in the Stone Town (Uroburos? Hildegren says she is on the
 other side of the world from Nessus, perhaps she wraps all the way around the world?)

Roy offered a Severian quote a few posts back that implies a similar human/
non-human shape shifting ability for Father Inire. Aside from the various human
characters I suspect Inire is playing, I suspect he is also the baboon who 
checks on Severian in the hospital after the avern fight and the uakari who 
looks like a little old man watching Severian after his House Absolute visit.
(well, all uakaris do look that way, plus they have Fechin-like red hair: 
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=uakari&gbv=2 )

The Cumaean might be some of the snakes peeking at Severian on his trip here
and there but from the secret knowledge (raising the dead?) he hopes to glean in 
the Ziggurat working with Severian's blood, I wonder if the Old Leech is another 
version of her.  I tend to think the roof seance in the Stone Town was more about
experimenting with Severian than Apu Punchau. If she is the provider of alzabo fluid 
to Vodalus and if she is also Ceryx then she has mastered a number of ways to raise
 the dead, none of them very nice, like Severian's power, which she might deeply covet.

-bsharp

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:00:38 +0000

>>I think Roy makes some good arguments that the summoned ship is Malrubius'
and Triskele's.  At least that is a ship rather than a creature or open top
flyer. My concern is that if it was summoned for the old Autarch, Malrubius
and Triskele shouldn't be there.<<

Inire's letter said he summoned a ship to aid his former master, the Old
Autarch. The Hierodule ship is the *only* ship of any kind in the jungle
after the flier was shot down. While the group was on the march, Sev saw the
old shaman (Inire) sneak into the mortally injured autarch's palanquin.
That's why he told Rudesind "We even know that your master was with us in
the jungles of the north, where he tried until it was too late to rescue my
predecessor." The Hierodules were slow to respond with a rescue ship,
probably because they wanted Sev to become autarch. With the Old Autarch
dead and Sev then autarch, the plans changed. They sent Malrubius and
Triskele to sway Sev and carry him from harm's way.

>>I assign a lot of meaning to the disclaimer, "for whatever reason".  I
don't see these two working for the New Sun. I think they have developed
some bad habits. Inire his exo-pedophilia I think Jeff calls it? And the
Cumaean trying to raise the dead and collecting souls , represented by the
faces Severian sees on her snake-like body.<<

There is absolutely no way I can fit that idea into what I thought was your
basic theory about Inire.

-Roy

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:54:25 +0000

> the point you wanted to make?

Dare I ask for something that indicates they are shapeshifters, regardless
of the point being made? Y'know, objectively?

Jeff

---

From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:10:15 +0000

b sharp wrote:

> to Mme. Prisca?)
The Cumaean seems quite compassionate -- she nursed Jolenta, a stranger she
had no reason to help. I don't know if the face patterns on her snake-skin
represent stolen souls -- all of them are rapt in contemplation, so they may
just be aspects of her mystical nature.

Prisca is known to be very cruel, not just for the trick she played on Sev
but also the fact that Ymar kicked women out of the guild for going beyond
the punishments mandated by law. That must have been based on what Ymar saw
Prisca doing, as well as any other women who followed her lead.

But the main reason I don't like the Cumaean/Prisca theory is that the
Cumean is highly mystically aware. She seems to be able to read minds and
foretell the future. As Myrrn says in Sev's dream, dreams allow visions
outside of time, and the Cumaean never wakes.  Allowing Sev an opening for
an attack at close range was really dumb -- showing a lack of awareness of
his capabilities. Please don't say that this was a faked death scene, staged
so that the Conciliator could have another miracle. We have too many
theories where it's all a show for Sev, to the point where his life is
almost like solipsism.

> necessitating a cleansing. Surely neither Inire or the Cumaean survives on Ushas
>
>
There's definitely a competition for resources among the Hierodules, if
Inire is telling the truth about how difficult it was to get the ship. Inire
seems more invested in the success of the Commonweath, where A,B, and O stay
above it (just as they stay out of the fight between Baldanders and the lake
men). Perhaps Inire is letting Sev know that just because he has connections
to powerful aliens does not mean they will lend him much aid in fighting his
wars. They have a bigger picture in mind.
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From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:57:40 +0000

>of the point being made? Y'know, objectively?

I think there may be a difference in interpretation. I've noted before I tend
to interpret the story more from an artistic perspective than scientific.  Because
art has a Creator, the process ends up being closer to theologic. Since Wolfe is a
man of science I think it is certainly useful to make hypotheses and scour for objective
evidence which makes logical sense within a scientific model. But I find that approach
to be incomplete without also relying on intuition, allusion and inference, where parables
and dreams are just as important as events in the "real" world.  in trying to divine the 
Creator's intention.

I am willing to consider shape shifting as an explanation for wtf is going on underneath
this story. Shape shifters are prominent in 5HoC (as is cloning and the resulting identity
issues from these two processes) and I sense a connection between that story and this
one.  Shapeshifters are found in some of the stories within this story and in some of the 
dream sequences.  I see those as important hints to what is going on in the main story
but if others don't I'm not insisting they are wrong and I am right.

Jeff I am a bit unclear if you are being serious or specious on your mentions that you think
Juturna is Severian's sister.  I can see some evidence she is a family member but what
are the reasons you are thinking sister?
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From: John Smith <jsmith2627 at att.net>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:41:16 +0000

I don't even see why Juturna is related at all to
Severian.   Is Juturna human?   Can someone enlighten
me?

Jack

--- b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com> wrote:

> evidence which makes logical sense within a
> scientific model. But I find that approach
> I am willing to consider shape shifting as an
> explanation for wtf is going on underneath
> _______________________________________________
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> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
> 

Best wishes,

Jack

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:09:08 +0000

b sharp wrote:
> to interpret the story more from an artistic perspective than scientific.

It doesn't have to be scientific evidence, just textual evidence.

> are the reasons you are thinking sister?

I'm serious in thinking she is a contender for sister, and I am serious 
that she is a candidate for shapeshifting dopplegangerhood, more so than 
Inire.

I'm still assembling my case, but to summarize:

  - Undine-hood accounts for any differences in coloring and height

  - sibling relationship explains J's inconsistent behavior as 
conflicting loyalty to Abaia and to brother

  - J doesn't just save Sev from drowning, but apparently passes on 
water-breathing gift, effectively saving him from *ever* drowning and 
explains how he is able to spend hours or days underwater late in URTH 
even when he has lost his mojo

  - Merryn is a stunted, land-raised changeling

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:15:36 +0000

> Severian.   Is Juturna human?   Can someone enlighten

Baldanders demonstrates humans can become enormous water-breathers. 
Juturna was likely turned at a very young age, and being from the land 
herself is better at manipulating air-breathers than the average bear.

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:58:24 +0000

>>The latter are so tall, so graceful so beautiful.  They are short-lived.
They wear a couple uncomfortable masks and are careful to work only
tangentially with the human race.  Their true nature seems above human.

>>The former seem old and ugly. They live a very long time. They don't wear
masks and are capable of shape changing and they interact directly with the
human race. Their true nature seems animalistic.<<

I find this hard to square with the exchange Sev had with B,F & O in Apu's
tomb.

"'... the Cumaean, she was a Hierodule, like you. Father Inire told me.'
Famulimus and Barbatus nodded."

Sev had already brought the New Sun and Ushas was a reality back in the
future Sev had fled from to the past, and B, F & O knew that; they said so.
Why would they acknowledge that the Cumaean was a Hierodule at that stage of
the game, but not point out that she had been some sort of corrupted agent
of the cause? The game was over.

A holy slave serves the Increate, not the Hierogrammates or humanity.

>>Barbatus and Famulimus clearly eschew the  debauchery of these two,
remaining
above it. I think if Inire and the Cumaean are of the race of angels they
have clearly
fallen (the play does happen to have two demons). Maybe broke they broke the
other
Edenic taboo and ate from the Tree of Life? While perhaps these two are not
"evil"
(Ava warns us against the dichotomy) I think maybe they corrupted the human
race
necessitating a cleansing. Surely neither Inire or the Cumaean survives on
Ushas.<<

If they didn't survive on Ushas, nothing that B, F & O said to Sev in the
distant past could change the fact of Ushas. Why not disabuse him of false
notions?

The human race had been corrupted, in the biblical sense, long, long before
the Cumaean and Inire arrived on the scene. And the sins of the First Empire
were ancient history, even in Typhon's time. No matter who was responsible
for the black hole or when it was put in the sun, it was there and required
a white hole to fix it. The campaign to repair the black hole in Urth's sun
began at the tail-end of Typhon's reign, with the establishment of the
Conciliator religion.

Even if you posit some sort of fallen-angel/demonic contamination of the
human race by sex-crazed non-humans of any stripe, I don't see that it has
any meaningful relevance. I don't see that lust, with or without incest, has
anything to do with a black hole in the sun, which is what would lead to the
"do nothing" future, the future of ice. I know of no evidence to suggest
that Inire was on Urth before Ymar's reign. At most, any hypothetical sexual
monkey business delayed the coming of the New Sun by a thousand years or so.
Given the Hierogrammates had all the time in the universe(s), that's no big
deal from their viewpoint, or the Increate's.

-Roy

---

From: b sharp <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:04:12 +0000

>Famulimus and Barbatus nodded."

Roy wonders why they don't tell Severian more details. I would say that,
as demonstrated with Baldanders, they are prone to divulge a bare 
minimum of information. Only what is needed. Perhaps the nod is only
to acknowledege "yes, that's what Father Inire told you".

Either way I don't see how this addresses my observation that Famulimus
 and Barbatus unveiled are super-humanly beautiful while The Cumaean
unveiled is a weird snake-being and I see no evidence that Father Inire is 
beautiful under his cowl.

But I'm glad Roy brought the quote to attention.  I hadn't noticed the
word "was" before. Why the past tense? Was she formerly a hierodule
but became something else? Or is that just an imprecise way for Severian
to say he hadn't seen her for a while?

Where do The Cumaean and more importantly Father Inire go during the
events of UotNS?  Has Wolfe casually dismissed them as too unimportant
to explain?  Severian figures Father Inire won't long survive the old sun's
passing, but why?  He lasted 1000 years (most of which Severian remembers)
why couldn't he hold out for another 60 years?

My own answer is literary/religious. I think those two plus Abaia and Erebus etc.
go to the same place Zeus and Hera etc. go after the time of Jesus. But if anyone
has other ideas about them, I am interested.

-bsharp

---

From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:23:59 +0000

b sharp wrote:
> go to the same place Zeus and Hera etc. go after the time of Jesus.

To an alternate universe with where their misguided worshipers suffer 
the inevitable consequences of idol worship like being forced to choose 
between celibacy and and early, painful death or being satisfied with 
only black and white television?