{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/676", "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": 676, "subject": "Blue's Races; etc.", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-10-12T11:53:08+00:00", "last": "1999-10-12T13:40:14+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1999-10-12T11:53:08+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Blue's Races; etc.", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 05:51 PM 10/5/99 -0700, you wrote:\n\"Gaon\" is Hebrew, meaning \"genius,\" according to printform OED." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It needs to be something in Hindi.\n\n\tOkay, Han are Chinese, Gaonese are East Indians, the tribes along the\nriver are Amerinds, and Wijzer (sp?) is Scandanavian.\n\tWhen are we? Evidently Typhon ruled the whole earth, and picked up people\nfrom all over, not just Latin Americans and Iranians (Trivigaunti - ?). If\nwe're millions of years in the future, would such groups still be around?\nI'd originally thought the Spanish-culture Vironese and the Trivigaunti\nwere simply far-future cultures whose folkways and language were being\n\"translated\" by Wolfe into something familiar to us. That's what he says he\ndid when he \"translated\" the Severian narratives. Is that still the case?\nAre we to assume that the Han ARE future Chinese, or that Wolfe is just\ntranslating things in such a way? \n\tThat's the problem. Urth is not our Earth, but part of a previous\nuniverse. Thus, everything is being \"translated\" by Wolfe, who somehow has\ngotten hold of these manuscripts. My guess is that all we can say is that\nWolfe the translator has decided to various cultures in various ways\nfamiliar to us, based on similarities he perceives in the original\nmanuscripts.\n\tAs for Blue's being Urth, this is way too early for that. Typhon sent out\nthis ship long before Severian brought the New Sun. During this whole\nperiod, the moon was orbiting the earth, wasn't it? In Ultan's library\nSeverian sees an Urth-equvalent of the photo of America astronauts on the\nmoon before it was greened. No such moon, grey or green, orbits Blue. We'd\nhave to assume that somehow the Whorl travelled back in time millions of\nyears, before Urth-Blue captured Moon-Green, and that Moon-Green became the\nairless dead world that it was at the time the photo in the Library was\ntaken. Wolfe could do all this, I'm sure, and we'd love it -- but I think\nwe'd better wait for more information. I'm happy with two planets out in\nspace.\n\t'Course, maybe Green is ancient Urth, because it is inhabited by\ndinosaurs. In that case, Blue will die and possibly become the Moon of\nGreen. But this will all still have to be millions and millions of years\nbefore the time of Typhon and Severian.\n\tAnd it cannot be Ste. Claire and Ste. Anne, since those two planets were\nmoons to one another, while Blue and Green have different orbits and\ntriennial conjunctions.\n\tSince we have lost the clever notion that the inhumi forced Typhon to send\nthis ship, and we now know that Quetzal, and others I guess, came onto the\nship when it arrived in their system, a couple of things: Was the\nBlue/Green system the original destination of the Whorl, or was the ship\ncaptured en route? It's starting to look that way to me, for this reason:\nThe Whorl was in the B/G system for a long time, several decades, before\nthe exodus was forced. I'm assuming that the exodus was on a timer, and\nthat the Whorl was designed to last until it arrived at its destination. If\nit was stopped en route by Quetzal & company, that would explain why the\ntimer did not force the exodus upon arrival. Or am I missing something here?\n\tAnd in terms of missing something: Were we given any reason why the inhumi\ndeparted from the skies at the end of the book and did not attack Horn?\n\tHorn-Silk has lost an eye, but he has gained one from Olivine for Maytera.\nA swap? And if not a literal swap, clearly a literary one: He's lost an eye\nin the process of gaining one for someone else.\n\tI don't think the inhumi drove out the Neighbors. Quite the opposite. The\nNeighbors finally learned to live in love and harmony, and defeated the\ninhumi. But by the same token, having matured to that point, they were\nready to move on to some kind of \"plane of being.\" Recall that this Urthine\nuniverse has levels in it, like the Qabbala.\n\tQuadrifons is a cherub. Biblical cherubs are sphinx-like and have four\nfaces. Combine this with Greek sphinxes, and you have the guardian of\ncrossroads. Just like your domestic cat, who positions himself/herself in\nyour house where he/she can look down all the halls and see everything. \n\tNow, cherubim are archangels, and creatures. But they are so close to the\nthrone of God (Revelation 4-5) that they are practically possessed by Him,\nand might be considered manifestations of Him. Some interpreters of the\nBible regard the cherubim as not actual angels at all, but as merely\nsymbols for God. Wolfe can play with this in a variety of ways, and we'll\nhave to read more to know what direction he wants to go in. \n\tAlga writes: \"Horn seems to have a natural military bent, like Mint and\nSeverian. (Well, I guess Mint's is not entirely natural.) \" Probably Horn's\nis not entirely natural either. Remember how Silk's genetic heritage\nenabled him to become an expert swordsman overnight. Notice how Horn never\nmisses when he shoots -- being Silkified, he always \"catches the ball.\" His\nreflexes are well-nigh perfect.\n\tAnd now we understand his Silkitude. Since Silk was copied and downloaded\ninto Mainframe, so that the Silk-programme joins with Pas, that\nSilk-programme can now be downloaded onto Horn. \n\tNow, when did this downloading occur? Do we have any contrasts between\nHorn's abilities in the pre-trip part of the narrative and his obvious\nSilk-like abilities in the post-trip part? It was before he left Blue that\nhe shot and killed the bull-thingie, evidently a very remarkable feat. Was\nhe Silked when he was at Mainframe, and has he been Silked for 20 years?\nOr, did this ability come not from Silk but from the Neighbor? I.e., first\nfrom the Neighbor, and later amplified by being downloaded with Silk.\n\nNutria\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com" }, "date": "1999-10-12T13:23:30+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Blue's Races; etc.", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 11:53 AM 10/12/99 -0700, Nutria wrote:\nThat's the problem. Urth is not our Earth, but part of a previous\nuniverse. Thus, everything is being \"translated\" by Wolfe, who somehow has\ngotten hold of these manuscripts. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It was my understanding--and it's possible that something has superceded\nthis--that Urth *is* our Earth, so far in the future that languages which\nhaven't even been born are now ancient (as in the language which is\ninscribed on the sword Terminus Est). There are specific artifacts of our\nEarth which surface in _BotNS_, most notably the photograph of Buzz Aldrin\non the moon mentioned (though not that clearly, obviously) in _Shadow_. \n\nSeverian pitched his manuscript, in its lead coffer, back into a\ntime-vortex; it could have gone anywhere. \n\nThe language spoken in Viron is not Spanish or any variant of it; it's a\nlanguage which hasn't been born yet. \n\nWombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com" }, "date": "1999-10-12T13:36:59+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Blue's Races; etc.", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[I should have read the *entire* letter before responding. Oops.]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 11:53 AM 10/12/99 -0700, Nutria wrote:\nAs for Blue's being Urth, this is way too early for that. Typhon \nsent out this ship long before Severian brought the New Sun. During this\nwhole\nperiod, the moon was orbiting the earth, wasn't it? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The theory is that perhaps Blue is Urth and Green is Lune knocked out of\nits geocentric orbit by the coming of the New Sun. That actually makes some\nsense to me; two planets in as close conjunction as are Blue and Green do\nnot, I think, make for a stable system. \n\nWe don't know how long the _Whorl_ was in transit. I'm very bad at finding\ntextual references, but I have a distinct memory of Maytera Marble trying\nto remember how long it had been since she saw the Short Sun Whorl [in\n_Calde_], and there's a reference to her having misplaced a decimal. \n\nEven if only 300 subjective years passed on the _Whorl_, relativistic\ndistortions could mean that any arbitrary number of years have passed since\nthe _Whorl_ was launched. \n\nNote that I don't actually think that Blue *is* Urth, just that it could be. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Quadrifons is a cherub. Biblical cherubs are sphinx-like and have four\nfaces. Combine this with Greek sphinxes, and you have the guardian of\ncrossroads. Just like your domestic cat, who positions himself/herself in\nyour house where he/she can look down all the halls and see everything. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, cool. " }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": " Kevin Maroney | Crossover Technologies \n kmaroney at crossover.com | (212) 777-1190\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-12T13:40:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Blue's Races; etc.", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I understand it the \"Urth=Earth\" arguments tend to boil down to \"Yes, this\nis the future of OUR universe\" or \"This is the future of a Universe Very Much\nlike ours, but we are the previous/next cycle in the recursive Heiro loop, so\nthere are 'improvements'.\"\n\nThe first seems most likely, but only from an Occam's Razor type \"why assume\nthis is a different iteration\" standpoint.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }