Brook Madregot runs between

James Wynn · 11 Aug 2010, 15:08 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:08:45 -0500
Subject: (urth) Brook Madregot runs between
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W35EFDDF5560F7F35ACEF30CF960 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W35EFDDF5560F7F35ACEF30CF960 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4C62BCFD.5090208 at gmail.com>

>> I said:
>> Lee,The problem is much bigger than this single phrase. As I detailed, that
>> entire passage makes the construct that Yesod is in our chain of
>> universes untenable, however much I am viscerally inclined to that model.
>>      
>
> Lee replied:
> James, I went back and re-read your post and again I couldn't find anything
> that makes Yesod as successor to Briah as untenable. Perhaps you can explain?
>
> For, example the bit about vantage point, looking both forward and back. I don't
> see the need for leapfrogging universes. As I see it the Hiero race created Hierogrammates but perished in the destruction of Briah. Hierogrammates were able to escape to the next universe, Yesod. They are parked at the beginning of Yesod. Hence Severian doesn't have to travel far to reach the Yesod planet. With this "machine planet" Hierogrammates are in the process of constructing the future planets of Yesod, including, eventually, Earth (not Urth).
>    

But Lee, there's no reason for the Hierogrammates to get involved in 
Briah if they came from there. The event that led to the creation of 
their race has positively occurred there without their help. Let me 
repost the passages again:

 >>"I was not told what became of the Humanity of that cycle. Perhaps it 
survived until
 >>the implosion of the universe, then perished with it. Perhaps it 
evolved beyond our
 >>recognition. But the beings Humanity had shaped into what men and 
women wished to
 >>be escaped, opening a passage to Yesod, the universe higher than our 
own, where they
 >>created worlds suited to what they had become. From that vantage point
 >>*they look both forward and back*, and in so looking they have 
discovered us."

There is simply no reason at all for the Hierogrammates to "look back" 
to Briah if they were created there. And they would hardly have to 
search hard to find Severian. And by your model. there's no reason 
believe it is especially easy for them to look forward at all. But by 
your model, they aren't looking forward. Only back.

> Thus from this early Yesod vantage point they are able both to work forward to construct the future of Yesod and send agents back to Briah to ensure their own creation. Does this work?

No. Let me explain. Before the passage quoted above, Severian says:

 >>"The hammer they wield is their ability to draw their servants back, 
down the corridors
 >>of time, and to send them hurtling forward to the future. *(This 
power is in essence the
 >>same as that which permitted them to evade the death of their 
universe--to enter the
 >>corridors of time is to leave the universe.)*"

If the power to move into the Corridors of Time  is the same as escaping 
a universe, one would have to conclude --by your model-- that those 
weird corridors are just a mundane location in early Yesod. But then why 
should not everyone in Briah be able to easily move through Time in 
Yesod and Abbadon as well? Additionally, Yesod would be useless for 
traveling in Time within Yesod.

So this is why I say that Yesod being a meta-universe beyond Briah and 
Abbadon and the next universe is the only tenable model.

u+16b9

>
>
>    

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