Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod

Jeff Wilson · 11 Aug 2010, 07:20 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:20:30 -0500
Subject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim6jOz_axQZAVNfejFxZ89GBTPny4UkJrOuUBNE at mail.gmail.com>
References: <AANLkTimtje8G4LpT=Xd3S1TV2AmiG-+azChLzds0gH6D at mail.gmail.com>
	<AANLkTim6jOz_axQZAVNfejFxZ89GBTPny4UkJrOuUBNE at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4C624F3E.8040905 at io.com>

On 8/10/2010 1:41 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Tony Ellis
> <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>  wrote:
>
>> In chapter XXII of UotNS, when Severian is in Yesod, he says: "They
>> were people I'd known... Thecla, Agilus, Casdoe... Perhaps they're all
>> dead now, all ghosts, though I didn't know it."
>> Apheta corrects him: "They are unborn. Surely you know that time runs
>> backward when the ship sails swiftly. I told you myself. They are
>> unborn, as you are."
>
> H'mmmm.
>
> This seems to imply that Briah and Yesod share a common timeline, and
> that Yesod is either before or simultaneous with Briah (so that one
> moment in Yesod can be meaningfully prior to another in Briah). Which
> pretty much kills Yesod as our Universe...
>
> So we have two possibilities. (1) Yesod is entirely prior to Briah, or
> (b) Yesod is contemporary with Briah, and is in some way descended
> from a previous Briah-like Universe.

They only have to be narratively parallel, not literally. Later on 
Severian refers to leaving Yesod as leaving eternity, and I believe that 
he means it in the strict sense of a condition that is not subject to 
the passage of time.  The unborn business can be explained by the Ship's 
backward travel in time as a consequence of its FTL, so that the 
wormhole into Yesod connects to Briah at a very early time in Urth's 
cycle, almost certainly before Urth herself has formed.

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

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