City On Green

Lee Berman · 31 Dec 2010, 14:12 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 09:12:16 -0500
Subject: (urth) City On Green
Message-ID: <SNT123-w28772750C0E924CE466AACCF040 at phx.gbl>

>Roy C. Lackey: There is no doubt about it; the ruined City on Green was built by the
>Neighbors, for the Neighbors and used by the Neighbors before they abandoned
>it. If this is another "asinine" reading by me of the simple textual facts,
>so be it.

"Asinine" and "unimaginative asshole" are terrible things to call someone. Roy, you've 
received high praise for your contributions to the lupine world many times in the past
and present and I wish to join in that.

But is it possible for a bit of imagination to help?  Marc finds evidence that
the ruins on Green are like Nessus. Roy says this is impossible because the ruins on Green
were built by Neighbors. Must one be wrong and the other right?

James finds paradox. For me, understanding paradox is like understanding an optical 
illusion. Flip your perspective and recognize the truth in both views. What if Nessus,
on Urth was built (at least partially) by Neighbors?

Do we know when Nessus was first built? Is it impossible that it was built during a time
period when Urth was part of an interstellar empire with back and forth commerce and travel 
for both humans and aliens?

 Fomalhaut is a pretty close star. Could this be the source of the name "Neighbors"?

Gerry has noted that Fomalhaut is a red star in BotNS. But so is Sol. Both are young stars now; 
neither is red now. Perhaps Wolfe was hinting at a similar stellar history. Perhaps there is 
the suggestion that any Fomalhaut planets may have gone through periods of black holes
in the sun and the subsequent white fountain recovery + Flood. The Fish references only bolster
the idea that aliens on Urth may have come from a flooded planet.

Robert Borski has suggested that the multi-limbs (and heads?) of Neighbors is an auctorial clue
that Blue is the home planet of Typhon.  Father Inire and The Cumaean are supposed to be aliens. 
What planet do they come from? How could Typhon, Inire and the Cumaean (none of whom have saint 
names) come from the same place? They are so different. It might be possible if their home star 
had two planets and two species.

Is it possible the Neighbor-Inhumi conflict/interaction was played out in Urth's history as well
as on Blue and Green?

I'll leave it at that for now, just saying that I prefer such a synthesis of everyone's ideas to
each insisting they are correct and all others wrong. Gerry likes to insist that some ideas are
bad but I have respect for all the people (Roy, Borski, Marc, etc.) who have contributed their
well-thought out and researched ideas here.

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