{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1469",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1469,
    "subject": "The Whorl's Calendar? Directions? Shade Rotation?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-09-02T18:24:24+00:00",
    "last": "2001-09-02T18:24:24+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0913@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Talarican",
        "address": "exultnttalarican at mindspring.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-09-02T18:24:24+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) The Whorl's Calendar? Directions? Shade Rotation?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I have been rereading BLS and BSS to look for answers for various\nquestions related to the passage of time for the _Whorl_ and its voyage.\n\nHas anyone perchance picked up on any clues regarding the length of the year\non the _Whorl_? Would it perhaps be equal to an Typhon-era Earth year - and\nwould that be substantially the same as that of twenty-first century Earth?\n(no, I'm not asking about relativistic time dilation here; this would be\nstrictly the subjective time as perceived by the Cargo)\n\nWhat determines the length of the year on the _Whorl_ — I thought I read\nsomewhere that the Shade actually narrows and widens in a cycle to vary the\nlengths of day and create seasons.\n\nHas anyone figured out the Whorl's calendar, and what determines the\n\"months\", given the lack of anything like Lune?\n\nAre years and months in the _Whorl_ just arbitrary groups of rotations of\nthe Shade, to mimic the diurnal rhythms of Typhon's Earth? I saw one named\n\"month\"(?) (\"Nemesis\", of all things) in _Calde_.\n\nMantis, in _Lexicon Urthus_ describes a lunar, 13 month x 28 day = 364 day\nUrth calendar; if this was Typhon's calendar, there shouldn't be any problem\nwith installing it in his generation starcrossers.\n\nOtherwise, I suppose we are to assume an Urth or _Whorl_ year is essentially\nthe same as that of Earth of your time; besides, spacefaring cultures might\nbe more interested in true orbital periods.\n\nAlso, does anyone have any insight as to why the direction toward Mainframe\nwas named \"east\", rather than \"north\" or \"south\"? (Because the Long Sun\n\"originates\" there? I think it actually would originate in the \"west\", at\nthe reactor, if anything) One would think \"west\" would be the direction in\nwhich\nthe Shade rotates, so that \"east\" would be \"toward\" Shadeup (i.e. sunrise),\nhence \"North\" is to the left of east. But Wolfe chose to do otherwise.\n\nFor that matter, in which direction does the Shade rotate?\n\nTalarican\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}