names, Blue is Urth..

ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus · 13 Dec 2002, 04:10 · from urth-v0212.mbox · original

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From: "ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus" <zibethicus at hotmail.com>
Subject: (urth) Re: names, Blue is Urth..
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 04:10:48 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0212-2411 at digest.urth.net>
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Well, I'm quite happy to trudge along as Zibethicus if everybody else can=20
live with it - I have no wish to occupy somebody else's `muskrat'. =20
Zibethicus might sound like a silly name to many, but I'm generally known b=
y=20
it on the Net and in divers other quarters.  So, can we live with that?  Zx=20
or ->Zx<- will do for short...

I judiciously snipped my sig., too - dunno whether I can live with changing=20
it, but I'll try to remember to snip it.  Get stuck into me if I forget.

`Urth is Blue' theory; as far as I remember, the Long Sun Whorl is stopped=20
at the Blue/Green system for repairs.  There is no explicit statement of ho=
w=20
quickly it was designed to travel.  I suppose that it is _just_ possible=20
that, given that it was sent out during Typhon's initial reign, several=20
hundred years at least before Severian's advent as Autarch, if it travelled=20
at an appreciable percentage of the speed of light, the Whorl would=20
experience some time dilation.

If I remember correctly, the inhabitants of the Long Sun Whorl apprehend=20
that three hundred years have elapsed since departure.  _If_ it was=20
travelling rapidly enough for time dilation to occur, their three centuries=20
would have been - who knows? millions of years by Urth standards.  Long=20
enough, at any rate, for the people seeded by Severian's activation of the=20
New Sun to evolve on the New Urth into, perhaps, the Vanished People, and=20
then to tactfully depart when colonists arrive from the Short Sun whorl. =20
(Any reader of Olaf Stapeldon knows that body forms can take on all sorts o=
f=20
other forms over the kaplas - and, speaking as an arthritic with a bad back=20
and bad knees, I would put my hand(s) up for two extra legs anytime!  More=20
stable...)

This putative lapsation of time would allow for the jungles of the Moon=20
mentioned in the Book of the New Sun to evolve further into the gigantic=20
trees of Green.

That's one way to explain it, if an explanation is what you are seeking. =20
How the Long Sun Whorl is, in that scheme, supposed to have found its way=20
back to Urth I have no idea whatsoever.  You'd have to ask Mr. Wolfe...

->Zx<-

(bereft of sig.!)

_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* =20
http://join.msn.com/?page=3Dfeatures/junkmail

--=20

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