The Ship

Lee Berman · 11 Jan 2012, 06:04 · from 2012-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:04:12 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Ship
Message-ID: <SNT123-W46BF647E2581323BED7C4ACF9E0 at phx.gbl>

>Jeff Wilson: So you are of the opinion that none of the improbable occurrences that
>happen around Sev are connected to him? Despite his own,cosmically-enhanced perception 

>that they are?

I'm not comprehending this post. I am suggesting that most/all the improbable occurrences 

are connected to him, including the eclipse. That perhaps it is Severian's doing and not 

Tzadkiel's Ship. That if he is really an Incan sun god then he ought to be a real one who 

caused an eclipse, not a fake one. 

>Why does he (Tzadkiel) arrange the show trials? Why does he do anything? To preserve
>the carefully fiddled timeloops that allow Sev to have the adventures
>necessary to bring Ushas. The few hours of parking is relatively trivial
>next to the centuries of sailing back and forth from Briah to Yesod as
>well.

Yes, it is possible he went through this trouble. If you believe that, perhaps you also

believe (as I tend to) that Tzadkiel also arranged 1000 years of Commonwealth history,

placed/allowed Inire and the Cumaean and the sea monsters on Urth, created the Torturer's

Guild, set up the Ascian war, duped Vodalus, duped Agia, etc. etc. to position Severian 

in his proper place. Or would that be too much trouble? Remember, if Tzadkiel's Ship caused

the eclipse, his/her travels span tens or hundreds of millenia not centuries. A puny 1000

years of manipulation of one measly planet is indeed trival in comparison.

But I still think the eclipse could have been caused by the moon.

>Dan'l Danahey-Oakes: ...but more cataclysmic than you apparently
>understand.  If Lune were to alter its orbital velocity so that it was
>stationary relative to the surface of Urth -- it would have consequences 

>immediately noticeable in the phases of Lune -- the tides would not merely 

>"maintain" but pile up, pushing first the oceans and then the crust of Urth into 

>increasingly (with, admittedly, limits) distorted forms. Earthquakes and floods _would_ be
>the result. 

Hm. I'm not sure what research has been done in this area. But it sounds like you are

talking about a permanent cessation of moon movement causing these cataclysms. The story is

only talking about a few hours for Severian's eclipse. My sense is that the moon doesn't

have that great an impact on earth that a few extra hours of lunar gravity would wreck the place.

But I think some complex astrophysical computations would be necessary to hazard a truly educated guess.

>by the way, an unimaginably immense amount of energy would be required to do this

>Gerry Quinn: think about the power needed to stop and restart the Moon in its orbit.

Yep, a lot of energy. But not unimaginable to me, if you have the entirety of planet Urth to draw upon.

Consciously or not, isn't Severian a god? (actually he calls himself a "godling" at the end of the

story). If Atlas and Hercules can shoulder earth, I think it is comprehensible that Severian can halt 

the moon for a while, when needed. How much energy is needed to launch a human body to time travel? I'm

no Einsteinian mathematician, but converting and reconverting that much mass to tachyons and back

seems like it would require one heck of a lot of energy.

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