(urth) Severian's miraculous eclipse

[thalassocrat at nym.hush.com]

On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:32:11 +1000 I wrote:

>I tend to side with the Tzadkiel ship explanation, but it is 
>interesting to think about what it was doing there & at that time. 
>
>
>Maybe it was dropping a black hole into the sun? This would be a 
>nice touch, I think: the beginning of the end of the Old Sun and 
>the distant birth of the New, at about the same time. 
>
>I've always assumed the black hole thing happened around the time 
>of Typhon, but is that necessarily the case? 
>
>The death of the Old Sun is clearly a long, long process: how long 
>
>must have the black hole been eating away at it, for the effects 
>to 
>be noticeable by Typhon's time?

FWIW, a long time from black hole insertion to noticeable effect on 
Urth is consistent with solar physics. Eg from the often-reliable 
Wikipedia: 'Estimates of the "photon travel time" [from core to 
photosphere] range from as much as 50 million years to as little as 
17,000 years.'

In story terms, I don't have UOTNS here, but isn't there a 
reference to the death of Apu Panchu being the death of the Old 
Sun? Or something like that.