(urth) Sulpicius

[Chris]

It could be that, considering the white fountain as an "anti-black-hole" and 
some of the odd statements about time made by the cacogens, that Wolfe is 
attempting to describe the white fountain as coming into being *in* the sun 
at that moment, and then travelling out and away but in a backwards-time 
direction, ie, from the point of view of someone from Urth, it would start 
from far away and then proceed in toward the sun.

This is a little pseudoscientific and based off the quirky observation that 
anti-particles can be described as particles travelling backward in time. 
But I don't think it's beyond the realm of what Wolfe might do, especially 
since he's not writing hard sci-fi anyway.

>If you're looking for internal inconsistencies in the Urth Cycle, here's
>another. Aquastor Malrubius told Sev, "If you pass -- if our race is judged
>ready to reenter the wide seas of space -- such a white fountain will be
>created in the heart of our sun." (IV, p.214)
>
>That's not the way it happened in Book V, where a white fountain was 
>created
>at an unknown distance from Urth and took thousands of years to _travel_ to
>the Old Sun. It was the passage of this heavenly mass close enough to Urth
>on its journey to the sun to cause geological upheavals and massive tidal
>waves, resulting in the inundation of low-lying Nessus two days before
>reaching its destination.
>
>-Roy
>
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