Cumaean???

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 14 Dec 2007, 22:51 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:51:08 -0800
Subject: (urth) Cumaean???
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Message-ID: <1f7617370712141451la8ff869lc37786d0e1f0daf3 at mail.gmail.com>

Pedro,

Forgive me, but do we have any clear evidence that the continent where the
Commonwealth lies is actually "the same" as modern-day South America? We
have plenty of evidence that it's a continent in the Southern hemisphere, with
at least one huge river running through it, but for all I can tell
that river could
be a descendent of the Nile or the Mississippi a great deal of tectonic activity
from now.

I realize that this  would put the timescale an order or two of magnitude
larger than "a million." But then, I'm arguing that "a million" is the *minimum*
span between our time and Severian's.

What would argue most strongly for the relatively "near" future would be if
we saw a lot of contemporary species still living in the Commonwealth.
Unfortunately, Severian's (Wolfe's) tendency to use the names of modern
species for created or recreated species makes it hard to know. There are
a few *domestic* species that we can recognize, but the human influence
might have stabilized, e.g., dogs. Horses, on the other hand, have been
modified into the fanged "destriers."

One thing we do know is that it's enough into the future that "Lune" has not
only been terraformed, but developed an ecology suited to its gravity and
(presumably) relatively-thin atmosphere, capable of remaining green and
"forested" at at time when humanity (bound to Urth) is no longer maintaining
it. That seems to me as if some serious evolving has gone on there, if not
on Urth.

As for human artifacts subducted and uplifted into mountains -- well, see
Sev's journey through the mountains, is all I can say. It's there.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com
I am miserable, he is miserable,
We are miserable.
Can't we have a party? Would he rather have a party?

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