Subject: (urth) is Terminus Est really just a simple piece of hardware?

From: Cliff Judge <transentient at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 16:03:44 +0000

I plan on keeping my eye on descriptions of Terminus Est throughout the New
Sun books, but something about how Dorcas described it when she was
recounting to Severian what happened when he went down during the duel was
interesting.

I am wondering if the sword might be an artifact of much higher technology
than Severian gives it credit for. Certainly it must be cleaned, oiled, and
sharpened at various times in the book, but the description of a channel of
liquid metal inside the blade seems to ring with the general "lostech"
descriptions of many of the devices in the Mataquin Tower. When I get my
hands on the book I will transcribe the passage where Dorcase describes
using it to cut the avern that was about to bite Severian, it sounded like
more was going on then simply a transfer of weight inside the blade.
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From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 01:52:07 +0000

On 5/17/2010 11:03 AM, Cliff Judge wrote:
> I plan on keeping my eye on descriptions of Terminus Est throughout the
> New Sun books, but something about how Dorcas described it when she was
> recounting to Severian what happened when he went down during the duel
> was interesting.
>
> I am wondering if the sword might be an artifact of much higher
> technology than Severian gives it credit for. Certainly it must be
> cleaned, oiled, and sharpened at various times in the book, but the
> description of a channel of liquid metal inside the blade seems to ring
> with the general "lostech" descriptions of many of the devices in the
> Mataquin Tower.

The preparation of the blade's metal and the mercury is within the means 
of a medieval society, but drilling the channel down the finished center 
and fitting it with a threaded stopper would require something like a 
drill press, which would not be particularly unexpected in a place like 
Nessus, where enough old technology remains useful that mechanical limbs 
are not particularly remarkable.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >