the Epitome

Roy C. Lackey · 06 Apr 2005, 13:12 · from 2005-April.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Wed Apr  6 13:12:28 2005
Subject: (urth) the Epitome
Message-ID: <000c01c53ae4$f3f4fa40$b03ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Chris wrote:
>I thought that what you are calling the creation of the Hierogrammates was
a
>"shaping", that is, the men of the previous universe influenced their
>development rather than created them from whole cloth. And in turn the
>Hierogrammates were influencing the humans of Severian's universe to return
>the favor. Rather than being a great sin I thought this was something that
>was supposed to elevate each in turn.

It's true that the H's were shaped by man; it's also true that the H's were
doing unto man what had been done unto them. Man usurped the prerogative of
the Increate, a great wrong, and in the process caused great suffering,
which the H's never forgot. It makes no sense for the H's to keep repeating
that wrong unless it is for a greater good than their own notions of revenge
against the race that created them, a race they also are in awe of. That
'greater good', I maintain, is that the human race "advance my some minute
step" with each repetition, to something nearer the desires of the Increate.
And the H's might benefit also, I would add, by losing their awe of man and
learning to revere the Increate.

I didn't want to have to do this, but maybe I should quote the whole
relevant passage from chapter XXXIV of CITADEL.
-----------------------------------------------------------
These men encountered many beings on other worlds who had intelligence to
some degree, or at least the potential for intelligence, and from them -
that they might have comrades in the loneliness between the galaxies and
allies among their swarming worlds - they formed beings like themselves.

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 were 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.

The hammer they wield is their ability to draw their servants back, down
the corridors of time, and to send them hurtling forward to the future.
(This power is in essence the same as that which permitted them to evade the
death of their universe - to enter the corridors of time is to leave the
universe.) 0n Urth at least, their anvil is the necessity of life: our need
in this age to fight against an ever-more-hostile world with the resources
of the depleted continents. Because it is as cruel as the means by which
they themselves were shaped, there is a conservation of justice; but when
the New Sun appears, it will be a signal that at last the earliest
operations of the shaping are complete.
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-Roy

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