The Apu-Punchau Eclipse

Roy C. Lackey · 12 Jun 2008, 05:09 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:09:16 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Apu-Punchau Eclipse
Message-ID: <001001c8cc4a$795021c0$06cf4a0c at rclackey.stic.net>

b sharp wrote:
>>>At the beginning of UotNS, while on the Ship deck, Severian specifically
notes his weight has been reduced by 7/8. So Roy's assertion that the Ship
is of planetary size is a bit exaggerated but not by so much. A bit smaller
but of similar size to our Moon, and thus surely capable of causing an
eclipse.<<<

These are the facts:

Dan'l said: "Tzadkiel's Ship -- *counting its sails*, is significantly
bigger than a mile in diameter, at least for purposes of shadow-casting.
Solar sails have to be (a) very very large and (b) quite opaque in order to
be effective." [his emphasis]

I backed him up with dimensions cited from the text, and said: "The Ship's
overall size has to be on a planetary scale."

Both our statements concerned the Ship's physical size, not its mass, so
Sev's weight is irrelevant.

-Roy

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