Where did Abaia go?

Jeff Wilson · 19 Jul 2010, 21:48 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:48:45 -0500
Subject: (urth) Where did Abaia go?
In-Reply-To: <4C44A134.4030006 at gmail.com>
References: <SNT123-W643FBECEB278B9582D72D0CFBE0 at phx.gbl>
	<4C44A134.4030006 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4C44C83D.2080509 at io.com>

On 7/19/2010 2:02 PM, James Wynn wrote:
>
>> But for those who don't see Judeo-Christianity in this story, I will
>> offer a more
>> textual explanation. Perhaps Abaia doesn't really live in the ocean.
>> Abaia is the
>> name for a magical *freshwater* eel in Melanesian mythology. So perhaps
>> a flood could kill off Abaia simply via contact with salt water.
>
> Without followers, why would the Megatherians stay? Typhon surely would
> not have remained when the entire human population was reduced
> to....what a few dozen? I'm not sure why it would be the case, but one
> inference from Typhon's conversation with Severian is that he was unable
> to leave Urth at the end.
>
> ""It was a period of great confusion as well. My astronomers had told me
> that
> this sun's activity would decay slowly. Far too slowly, in fact, for the
> change
> to be noticeable in a human lifetime. They were wrong. The heat of the
> world
> declined by nearly two parts in a thousand over a few years, then
> stabilized.
> Crops failed, and there were famines and riots. *I should have left then*."

Typhon goes on to explain that his trusted ship commanders fled, leaving 
him without means of egress. He apparently did not believe in the 
personal escape craft, or perhaps was too proud to leave with a force 
too small to ensure him a return to power at his destination.

> Is there any evidence that the Megatherians could at last leave after
> the New Sun came?

The undines claim to swim between the stars, presumably they could bear 
some part of their masters with them, the parts small enough and manlike 
enough to be able to have "lives" recorded...perhaps it's them that are 
the Hierogrammates counterparts, or even literally their parts, exiled 
from the larger bodies like the little Tzadkerbell at the Brook Madregot.

Anyway, if they arrived as beans, presumably star-swimming undines could 
carry them away as beans, they might use their mighty powers of mind to 
command fliers to descend and take their spawn to nearby planets where 
further ships await...

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

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