Abaia and the undines

John Watkins · 09 Dec 2008, 21:23 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 16:23:58 -0500
Subject: (urth) Abaia and the undines
In-Reply-To: <493EE060.6080708 at gmail.com>
References: <493ED04C.7060202 at verizon.net> <493EE060.6080708 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <93d4039f0812091323t5ee5a336o557fe150e71a4f87 at mail.gmail.com>

This seems dead-on to me, except that I can't quite square the black
beans with Apheta's claim that the Hieropeople were behind the black
hole in the sun (or, in my pet Wild Theory, the off-hand comment that
the black panther in Soldier of Sidon is "the thing that eats the
stars.")

Maybe the Hieropeople gave Cilinia the Megatherian embryos?


On 12/9/08, Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com> wrote:
> David Stockhoff wrote:
> > My assumption has always been that the undines, Abaia, Baldanders, and
> Idas were all the same race but different ages, and Abaia is merely an
> ancient, huge, undersea humanoid. Which is the same as saying he is Poseidon
> and the undines are his nymphs---but with a rational explanation.
> >
> >
> Abaia can't be all that ancient. In SotL, Typhon wakes up and tells Severian
> that he detects the monsters for the first time. They are new to Typhon,
> though he must have possessed mental powers sufficient to sense them before
> his "death," if they were there and powerful enough at that time.
>
> If we connect the "black bean" story with Abaia and company, we also know
> that they arrived during a rule that was more harsh than the autarchs, and
> that the woman who introduced them was torn to pieces for attempting to use
> them to seize power.
>
> One possible story, tying in with things we learn later in the BotSS:
> 1) Cilinia, Typhon's daughter, was involved in plotting with the monster
> Syclla.
> 2) She died a few years after being scanned for the Whorl.
> 3) She was power-hungry, since her personality also plotted against Pas on
> the Whorl.
> 4) Thus, she could be the woman who used the black beans -- embryo
> Megatherians drawn from space by interstellar travel or by specula.
> 5) She was probably executed by Typhon for this crime.
> 6) In the early stages the minds of the monsters might not be strong enough
> to detect by Typhon's mental powers.
> 7) They would need a power source to thrive and grow, and the image
> connection between "black beans" in the sea and a black hole in the Sun is
> hard to ignore. They probably didn't just grow by eating fish -- one of them
> is under the ice at the South Pole, after all.
> 8) Something caused the people controlling Typhon's rockets to abandon the
> planet. Typhon called it a "disaster," and mere slow cooling of the Sun
> wouldn't be enough.
> 9) Undines were probably people recruited and corrupted by Abaia, just as
> Juturna tried to recruit and corrupt Severian. They were given the power to
> breath underwater and grow without limit.
>
>
>
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