{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/970",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 970,
    "subject": "1000 Pardons",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-12T22:20:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-12T22:20:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0016-0064@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-12T22:20:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) 1000 Pardons",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Adam,\n\nA thousand pardons!  I was confused.\n\nYour initial post of 9 Jul is entirely focused on how Valeria\ncouldn't be regent and how Severian has abdicated.  There is no\npositive model asserted, just a negation of the existing model.\n\nOr so it seemed to me--and raster, too, I think, since his 9 Jul post\nsays that he agrees with you but for different reasons, since he\nbelieves that Inire was selected as regent.\n\nYour post on 11 Jul again focuses on the term regent, stressing that\nthere is no regent, neither Valeria, nor Inire, nor anybody else.\nThus arguing strenously against raster as well!  But then the part I\nmissed, written almost, it seems, as an afterthought, that Inire is\nSeverian's chosen \"successor.\"  (Which of course is quite an\nobjectionable term, since it is used in the text passages we've been\nquoting to designate genuine Autarchs.)\n\nThat is to say, you =agree= with raster, but with qualifications!\n(And I thought you disagreed entirely: no regents and no Inire.)\n\nNow in your recent post all is made clear: Inire under whatever\ntitle, followed by Valeria.  Hooray!\n\nThe funny thing is: you are as adamantly opposed to the apparantly\nflippant use of the term \"regent\" as I am about the flippant use of\nthe term \"autarch\" (divorcing title from Multiversal Mandate; hence\n\"pseudo-autarch,\" since Valeria cannot be genuine autarch)!\n\nAnyway.\n\nBack to the Test and Severian being permitted to reclaim the Phoenix\nThrone.\n\nAs I understand it:\n\nThe autarchy was created/recognized by Yesod.  Yesod has the ability\nto lift the curse on the Old Sun, but Yesod will only do so when an\nautarch has passed the Test.  Autarchs can choose to take the Test or\nnot.\n\nThree autarchs took the Test: Ymar, Appian, and Severian.\n\nSo whatever caretaker government setup there is, (regency,\nstewardship, Inirearchy [oh dear, that would be \"Patriarchy,\"\nwouldn't it?], etc.), it (presumably) exists as a precedent and was\n(presumably) exercised for Ymar (in legendary times) and Appian (in\n[human] living memory).\n\nThe prize of success is the New Sun.  The penalty for failure is a\nloss of ability to procreate (and by slight extrapolation, the loss\nof ability to establish a bloodline dynasty; presumably those\nautarchs who chose to avoid the Test, the vast majority of autarchs,\nthen each tested their own ability to found a dynasty, with varying\ndegrees of success).  Losing the throne oneself would not appear to\nbe an option, unless it is a hidden consequence of the unknown\nconditions following \"success\" at the test (since nobody has\nsucceeded before).  (If you can find additional pointers towards\n\"abdication of autarchs taking the Test\" and/or \"success at the Test\nmeans you lose the throne which you've already abdicated anyway,\" I'd\nbe most interested in seeing them.)\n\nYmar lost, but (presumably) returned to the Throne.  Appian lost, but\n(definitely) returned to the Throne.\n\nPlease note: I am not denying the Severian quote, I am not even\nopenly questioning the context you have attributed to it, I am only\nexplaning the background of the Test's system of rewards and\npunishments as I understand it.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}