Green is Urth Redux

Gerry Quinn · 12 Jan 2011, 13:56 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:56:34 -0000
Subject: (urth) Green is Urth Redux
References: <SNT123-W2518E8420D6FCC3EAA593ACFF10 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <30CF4729AB0C46F99B3FAE6583F087B8@jill>

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>David Stockhoff: But we could just as well posit that in Severian's 
>>"parallel" universe the moon is bigger.
>
> Given Rudesind's words, this seems like the best interpretation of the 
> text to me, with the fewest reader
> additions.

The most probable explanation, I think, is that Wolfe has got his orbital 
mechanics wrong and assumed the Moon will come closer to Earth over time. 
(In fact it will drain energy from the rotation of the Earth and get farther 
away.)

>>Jeff Wilson: If the moon were bigger in his cycle, the surface would be 
>>different in
>>the astronaut pictures, and there would be a native atmosphere to make the 
>>flag wave.
>
> Not if the astronaut picture was from our/earth's cycle. Which I've always 
> thought was the case, since the
> alternate universe explanation popped up. I can't say what process bridged 
> the universes to allow it but
> I assume it was the same process which brought earth stories (and perhaps 
> Jonas) to Urth.

All this stuff about bigger Moons seems to me like an extreme set of 
hypotheses.  Urth's Solar System is plainly intended to be analogous to ours 
with the recognisable planets Verthandi and Skuld.. Urth's Lune was a desert 
until it was irrigated.  The picture is from then just as Rudesind tells us, 
not from some other universe or some other book.  In the picture Lune has no 
atmosphere ("a strange, stiff banner").

If the picture *had* come from some other, different universal cycle [how 
easy literary criticism would be if we could freely avail of such concepts 
to explain anomalies in our theories] how come Rudesind tells us it's from 
Urth's cycle?

>>You could say most of the same things about the Whorl; are there no 
>>forests there?
>
> But Whorl forests are internal, as is the atmosphere. They are maintained 
> by a functioning power source.
> From the outside, the Whorl shines with a white reflected light.
>
> Lune's forests are external and it shines with reflected green light. 
> There is no mention of a functioning
> power source to maintain the trees.

Hello?  What power source maintains trees in the forests of Urth:?

> Hypothesis 1: Lune is Moon-sized and we can assume there is an unmentioned 
> power source.
>
> Hypothesis 2: Lune is Urth-sized and we can assume its forests are 
> maintained by the same power source as
> Urth's forests- the sun.

A Lune covered in greenhouses, domed or otherwise, would be about the same 
temperature as Urth.  Why would the size matter?

> Seem to me we could at least agree that both are  possiblities. #1 is what 
> we might expect in general for
> an SF story.  #2 is what we might expect given that this is a Gene Wolfe 
> story (and his previous
> invention of St. Croix and Ste. Anne and his future invention of Blue and 
> Green).

There's no particular evidence for the second possibility, and indeed it 
seems quite inconsistent with the indications that the geography and history 
of Urth's system are pretty much identical to ours, different cycles or no. 
It is also inconsistent with the notion that Lune was a desert until it was 
irrigated - if it was as big as Urth, why should it not have naturally 
developed a similar atmosphere and its own life forms (as happened in the 
cases of the twin planets from other books)?.

- Gerry Quinn

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