What's So Great About Ushas?

Jeff Wilson · 13 Jun 2008, 14:48 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:48:28 -0500
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas?
In-Reply-To: <485254FF.8080200 at gmail.com>
References: <484E4968.2090907 at io.com> <485254FF.8080200 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <485288BC.2060505 at io.com>

Dave Tallman wrote:
> Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> The worldwide upheavals may have been considered necessary to do away 
>> with Abaia, Erebus, and their ilk. It makes sense that something 
>> catastrophic would be required, and you'd want to do them as a batch 
>> to prevent the survivors of a first strike to grow stronger by taking 
>> up the resources of their dead rivals.
>>   
> The Ushas upheavals probably didn't destroy Abaia. Juturna, speaking as 
> the White Fountain arrives, says he is still planning to "tame" 
> (enslave) the human race (Urth XLIII). The religion predicted that the 
> New Sun would "kill Abaia" (Sword XXI), but that was probably wishful 
> thinking. It is unlikely that a flood would kill a being whose element 
> is water. 

Please recall, it's not a conventional top-down raining flood, but 
involves oceans slopping out of their basins to cover the land, and 
eventually the land turning over, continents sinking and new ones rising 
to take their place, which implies many of the deep trenches where Abaia 
and his forces might lurk will close up or be flushed out. Everything 
that lives on Urth has a near-certain chance to die, and it's not likely 
there's a special Yesodi effort to preserve Abaia in his own botanic garden.

> (However, it was a setback for Abaia's plans in some way, or 
> he wouldn't have sent Idas to try to wreck Severian's mission on the Ship).

Given the Ship's nature, we have no way to be sure when Idas was sent or 
from which version of Severian's history they boarded.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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