How Far in the Future is Urth?

John Smith · 01 Dec 2008, 18:30 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: jsmith2627 at att.net (John Smith)
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:30:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) How Far in the Future is Urth?
Message-ID: <260958.42436.qm at web180009.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

People seem to have significant differences of opinion as to how far in the future Severian's Urth is.   Is it a few thousand years in the future or a few hundred million?

I lean toward one million years for these reasons:

1.  The moon has been irrigated and now supports vast forests.  Changing a barren rock into a place that supports life would take a long time.
2.  Mining is done by digging up forgotten buried cities.   
3.  At some point in Claw, Severian climbs down a cliff, passing by layers of sediments that must have taken ages to lay down.
4.  Enough time has passed for star-faring civilizations to have arisen and fallen.
5.  Against the idea of hundreds of millions of years having passed, I would point out that there are still seven continents.
And North and South America seem to still be in the same relative positions.

However, I could change my mind if people have evidence for longer or shorter periods.

Best wishes,

Jack

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