Subject: (urth) re: 5H Star Hunt

From: Robert Borski <rborski at coredcs.com>
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 02:03:47 +0000

mantis wrote:

"Hey, Cerberus-heads!

"Let's find the star of Saint Anne/Saint Croix!  Let's work out the
other planets in the system!"

Frankly, mantis, I believe you did a very nice job of scoping out the more
pertinent details, but I do have a few comments.

"1.  We are told that Marsh aged "20 years Newtonian" in his trip,
suggesting that the star is within 20 lightyears of Sol (since the
ship would seem to be travelling sublight)."

Actually, Marsh "aged" only six months, still being in his early 20s when
he makes planetfall. Twenty years Newtonian have passed, but apparently the
starcrossing travelers are placed in some sort of biostasis, where aging is
much diminished. (Mrs. Blount, in "V.R.T," mentions being "put to sleep.")
She also mentions that the trip from Earth took 21 years, suggesting either
St. Croix - St.Anne are galactically further at this time or improvements
in star-travel propulsion have taken place since her ship left. Mrs. Blount
also tells us, "Both our worlds remained unknown when planets more distant
from Earth had been colonized for decades," hinting at perhaps some sort of
astronomical obscurity or deviation from normal (i.e., in terms of
potentially hospitable worlds) .

"3.  We are told that one local year on St. Anne is 402 days . . . do
we have any hint as to the length of the local day?  (This can be
used to calculate orbital distance for St. A/St. C around their star,
which in turn can give a hint as to stellar class, etc.)"

Apparently, the day is also somewhat longer--at least if we are to trust
Marsh's initial observations. Early on, in his journals (p.140), he cites
the "too-long days and stretched nights" of St. Anne, suggesting they are
lengthier than what he is used to on Earth. Disappointingly, however, Wolfe
never indicates how the extra 37 days of the Annese year are apportioned.
Both Marsh and Number Five utilize the imported Terran calendar, referring
to actual specific months, but not whether these have a few extra days (3
would work, giving us months of 33-35 days) or whether a new month itself
has been invented.

Re: "Shadow Child (with "two bright star eyes")"

Is "Shadow Child" with "two bright star eyes" how it's listed in your
edition of 5TH HEAD? The Scribners edition shows "Shadow Children" and "two
pairs of bright eyes." Also, since Marsh can no longer find them in their
usual place (p.154), might it/they possibly be either paired planets or
moons, rather than stars?

Might not Fomalhaut also refer to the piscine half of Thousand Feelers and
the Fish, with one of the more local nebulae (Eagle, Lagoon, Trifid?)
compising the Thousand Feelers half?

One last possible clue: the gravitational attraction of St. Croix on its
sister planet is powerful enough to produce 15 foot tides. (What this
portends I have no clue--the last time I delved into matters astronomical
we only had 8 planets, though now that Pluto has been declassified, at
least in non-Disney systems...<g>)

Personally, if Wolfe did have an actual star in mind, I'd like to believe
it adhered to one of the etymological conventions he used in FIFTH HEAD.
i.e., religious (St. Anne), French (Port-Mimizon) or lupine (#5=Wolfe).
Given also that there are at least three prominent astronomers named Wolf,
and one actually being French (C.J.E. Wolfe, co-discoverer of Wolf-Rayet
stars), I'd like to cast my vote in favor of 
Wolf 294 (though the Shadow Children supposition might augur a multiple
star system).

Robert Borski

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 14:15:00 +0000

Robert Borski,

Re: Newtonian vs. biological.  Right, I didn't mention the biological
time dilation because it is a bit ambiguous and doesn't directly
address the distance issue.  Said dilation could be due to a
near-lightspeed velocity of between 0.999 and 0.9999c; or, as you say
and the text alludes, it could be just a side effect of hibernation
rather than "suspended animation."  If we knew the mile-long
starships were using Nearly As Fast As Light drives, then we'd also
have a better idea of how far the star is.

Excellent point re: hidden/overlooked nature of the star.  If
overlooked, then an M type star is more likely--but an M-star with a
long year like that, hmmm, that causes problems.

Re: longer local day.  So let's ballpark it--48 hour days would be
much longer; how about 30 hour days?

Re: "Shadow Child" with "two bright star eyes," in truth my notes are
pretty bad, lacking even page numbers, but I managed to find this one
because it is close to the beginning of "`A Story'": "When morning
came the sun would rise in Fever; but sisterworld, whose great blue
disk now showed a thin paring above the encompassing trees, obscured
the two bright stars, the eyes, that were all that could be seen of
The Shadow Child" (Ace paperback, p. 87).

Re: Thousand Feelers and the Fish.  This makes me think of those sea
monsters, like Hydra, Draco (starry sea), and Cetus.  Cetus would put
us right next to Pisces, but yeah, that's Fishes not Fish (of the
South).

Re: 15 foot tides, a good datapoint for the separation of the twin
worlds.

=mantis=