Subject: (whorl) Flight of the Whorl

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at sirius.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 09:49:37 +0000

Rostrum wrote:
>And back then it was just speculation, I didn't see anyone discussing the
>fact that IGJ not only confirms the time-dialation, but pretty much
>quantifies it.  We get the subjective travel time of the Whorl in
>years; if you're right about the number of years between Tyhpon and
>Severian, we should be able to compute the Whorl's speed.

IIRC, both the numbers "around 300 years" and "around 1000 years" are from
the text of TBOTLS (the calendar gives the former in precise detail, and a
comment by a god gives the latter).  TBOTNS made it seem pretty clear (to
me, at least) that Typhon was about a thousand years before Severian (but
some folks prefer Agia's 30,000 year figure, or whatever it was, for the
Conciliator).

But yes, IGJ gave a hefty bit of validation/confirmation of all this, as
the two timelines begin to dovetail.

And yes, there are more details now available that can be plugged into the
Flight Profile model, which will help refine estimates on average velocity
and distance from Urth.  We have more factoids about how long the Whorl may
have been just hanging around in the system, for example (years not spent
travelling between stars).

Now please, please go read RTTW.

=mantis=

*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.
*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/
*To leave the list, send "unsubscribe" to whorl-request at lists.best.com
*If it's Wolfe but not Long Sun, please use the URTH list: urth at lists.best.com