What's So Great About Ushas

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 11 Jul 2008, 20:13 · from 2008-July.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:13:21 -0700
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas
In-Reply-To: <4877B2C8.6060505 at io.com>
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	<3e1fa2e90807110849p7e143749ne8487e847665b181 at mail.gmail.com>
	<4877A7BF.6060706 at io.com>
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	<4877B2C8.6060505 at io.com>
Message-ID: <1f7617370807111313ve3c4907mafd78e4639c23e42 at mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 12:21 PM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:

> I don't subscribe to the usual free will/predestiny dichotomy. You can't
> escape God's plan because He's eternal and outside of time and space, any
> more than A. Square can escape the observation and intervention of
> three-dimensional beings hovering over Flatland. Your choices still make a
> difference in how you will fit into His plan, and His delivered wisdom  as
> trickled down to you may influence those choices. Presumably, the closer one
> hews to righteousness, the less suffering all round.

I agree with everything you say here, wiht the possible exception of
the last sentence (God seems to like suffering and sacrifice an
awful lot).

I was pointing out that there are two ways to say that the Hiero*s' (or
Yesodis' or whatever) actions re: Urth are not morally wrong, or at
least morally questionable. One is to say that they are privy to God's
will; the other is to say that God predestined them to do it and that it
is therefore God's will.

Since I don't buy into either of these, at least pending some serious
textual evidence that God is talking to them (or that Wolfe is a
predestinarian), I regard them as morally questionable at best.

> I move that we adopt my term "Yesodis" to mean the current and former
> inhabitants of Yesod during the period of the Book and their non-human
> servants, including the Hierodules, Hierogrammates, and Hieros. It's
> certainly easier to spell and shorter.

Eh. It sounds to me like a terrorist group.

> I don't see much evidence that the Yesodis are the proximate cause. It's
> possible that they created the the White Fountain, but it seems to be
> Severian who draws it to Urth. They seem to work pretty hard to make sure he
> is there to keep it from striking Urth at the last second, too.

The source of the White Fountain is Severian's mating with Apheta. The
H/Ys knew that would happen, and brought Severian to Yesod specifically
to do this. Due to their freedom of time, they knew the results of creating
it. Ergo, they bear moral responsibility for its effects.

One can argue that they also know that this is better than the alternative,
but that still begs the question of not evacuating the planet when they have
been shown to have the capability to do so. They choose to let billions die.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com

I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a
restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand
Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce. -- T. Pratchett

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