Time, Not Cloning

David Stockhoff · 01 Aug 2013, 02:10 · from 2013-July.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 22:10:18 -0400
Subject: (urth) Time, Not Cloning
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On 7/31/2013 9:00 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> On Wed, July 31, 2013 18:22, David Stockhoff wrote:
>> On 7/31/2013 7:03 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>> On Wed, July 31, 2013 17:18, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>>> Severian's real-time mother and the projection machine are separated by
>>>> chiliads at least.
>>> 1. Not necessarily, there are any number of still-functional ancient
>>> machines around the Citadel and the House Absolute and other places,
>>> plus
>>> "new" installations overseen by Typhon and Inire that still do their
>>> thing.
>> You mean that are capable pf projecting NEW eidolons? That's what I
>> meant. Katherine is not exactly likely to be "new"---she's part of an
>> ancient ritual. But if the machines can project new eidolons, Katherine
>> can be switched out at intervals.
> It's possible the ancient machine is set to project an eidolon of what the
> audience expects to appear, so of course an archetypal Katherine is
> produced when the Brothers are gathered in the ruined chapel to see her
> appear. I don't recall anything that would require projectors to use
> pre-recorded images, though it is possible the misty phantasms in
> Baldanders' castle are the result of an incompletely-repaired projector
> that is laboring to project it's last imprinted aquastors that dissolve as
> fast as they materialize, thus the mist and the inhuman shapes.

i see. I guess I was thinking that Urth machines would be cruder than 
Yesodi machines. But this makes more sense, and that they would "read" 
minds as well. Katherine could well change over the years and no one 
would notice, but there would be a certain conservatism to her 
appearance. This would also make her more like a goddess of the Whorl 
and less like the Wizard of Oz, i.e., fake, since she would actually 
live in the Brothers' imaginations.

If Severian has come before, as well as time-looped, has he influenced 
Katherine more than his fair share, explaining why she resembles his mother?

>
>
>>> 2. Whenever the projector is, Malrubius and Triskele are within range,
>>> and
>>> they only lived 5-15 years later than Sev's birth mother.
>> Do you assume they are projected by Urth projectors, or Yesodi?
> They could be either at different times. The archipelago dedicated to
> Urth's galaxy is said to be short on resources and Aquastor-Malrubius
> remarks that the ship he arrives on was not easily obtained IIRC. It makes
> sense that Inire and henchmen might be using ancient Urthly gear where
> they can. If the projector was made by thinking machines to communicate
> with thinking humans by thought, it may be that the projectors can pull
> eidolons from one another's memory stores as well as from living minds, so
> Malrubuius and Triskele could indeed be passed from one projector to
> another, like the cell tower idea I mentioned.
>
> It also strikes me that the curious apes that Severian sees watching him
> are readily identified by him and I don't recall him encountering any
> unknown apes other than the man-apes in the mine at Saltus. This makes me
> think he is familiar with them from the BeastKeepers' tower and their
> murals and dead piles, the same as Triskele. So perhaps Inire et all uses
> the ancient projetor(s) at the citadel to make living ape aquastors to spy
> on Sev. They are not exactly covert, but presumably much less outsanding
> than a three-legged-dog or an old man dressed as a torturer, and apes'
> hands are about as good as human in adjusting other old machinery for
> whatever nefarious or blessed purpose.
>
>
>

Well, this certainly seems a rich vein.

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