You have the wrong creation you ninny - eschatology and genesis

Gerry Quinn · 10 Sep 2014, 14:42 · from 2014-September.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 15:42:13 +0100
Subject: (urth) You have the wrong creation you ninny - eschatology and
 genesis
In-Reply-To: <BLU175-W110EC81FB33256F91A81F0CFCF0 at phx.gbl>
References: <BLU175-W110EC81FB33256F91A81F0CFCF0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <54106345.6050508 at bindweed.com>

On 10/09/2014 15:28, Lee wrote:
> The Yesodi characters of Apheta, Venant and Tzadkiel have not been 
> introduced in Citadel of the Autarch. In fact, Wolfe did not have 
> plans to write UotNS while Citadel was being written. It is Malrubius 
> who tells Severian about the multiple universe structure of the cosmos 
> but we are given no reason to think that he or B, F and O come from 
> another universe. They are just "aliens" not of Urth. So I find the 
> only reason to introduce such an outr? concept as multiple universes 
> so late in the story is not to explain where the characters are from 
> but to explain where we, the Earth readers, are from and thus where 
> Urth really is.

The Yesodi are mentioned here. They were responsible for the creation or 
modication of the Hierodules, who in turn created aquastors such as 
Malrubius:

"It was not done swiftly or easily. Uncountable billions suffered and 
died under their guiding hands, leaving ineradicable memories of pain 
and blood. When their universe was old, and galaxy so far separated from 
galaxy that the nearest could not be seen even as faint stars, and the 
ships were steered thence by ancient records alone, the thing was done. 
Completed, the work was greater than those who began it could have 
guessed. What had been made was not a new race like Humanity's, but a 
race such as Humanity wished its own to be: united, compassionate, just.

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. Perhaps we are no more than a race like 
that who shaped them. Perhaps it was we who shaped them?or our sons?or 
our fathers. Malrubius said he did not know, and I believe he told the 
truth. However it may be, they shape us now as they themselves were 
shaped; it is at once their repayment and their revenge.

The Hierodules they have found too, and formed more quickly, to serve 
them in this universe. On their instructions, the Hierodules construct 
such ships as the one that bore me from the jungle to the sea, so that 
aquastors like Malrubius and Triskele may serve them also. With these 
tongs, we are held in the forge."

- Gerry Quinn

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