is Terminus Est really just a simple piece of hardware?

Jeff Wilson · 18 May 2010, 01:52 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 20:52:07 -0500
Subject: (urth) is Terminus Est really just a simple piece of hardware?
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTilGKkQfgMw6wVBbKPql6ntHJb4Xy2ffI1tup2DA at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTilGKkQfgMw6wVBbKPql6ntHJb4Xy2ffI1tup2DA at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4BF1F2C7.9060309 at io.com>

On 5/17/2010 11:03 AM, Cliff Judge wrote:
> I plan on keeping my eye on descriptions of Terminus Est throughout the
> New Sun books, but something about how Dorcas described it when she was
> recounting to Severian what happened when he went down during the duel
> was interesting.
>
> I am wondering if the sword might be an artifact of much higher
> technology than Severian gives it credit for. Certainly it must be
> cleaned, oiled, and sharpened at various times in the book, but the
> description of a channel of liquid metal inside the blade seems to ring
> with the general "lostech" descriptions of many of the devices in the
> Mataquin Tower.

The preparation of the blade's metal and the mercury is within the means 
of a medieval society, but drilling the channel down the finished center 
and fitting it with a threaded stopper would require something like a 
drill press, which would not be particularly unexpected in a place like 
Nessus, where enough old technology remains useful that mechanical limbs 
are not particularly remarkable.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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