(urth) Typhon & Whorl

[thalassocrat at nym.hush.com]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:58:00 +1100 Pedro Pereira 
<domus_artemis at hotmail.com> wrote:
>The reason why Typhon had two heads is explained in TBotNS. He 
>needed a new body, but just tranfering the brain would not do any 
>good, because a Leader is recognized by his Face. Thats why he had 

>his own face grafted to the body of a slave. 

Sure - I was just talking about what I think you'd know or infer if 
you only had LS/SS, not NS.

> 
>As for the FTL. Some people mentioned here that there was FTL 
>technologie available and that Typhon even brought doctors from 
>far away places. Now, I don't remember (please confirm this) that 
>those doctors were brought from outside the solar system. If they 
>were brought from inside the Solar System (say Venus, the birth 
>place of Typhon) then there would be no need for FTL travel. 
> 
>Also, even if they were coming from outside our system, they could 

>have been brought by ships that were not part of Typhon's empire, 
>even by the Tzadskiel ship. Don't forget that the hierodules, 
>hierogrammates, etc,  help the New Sun AND the New Sun's enemies 
>at the same time, for uncertain reasons, which could mean that 
>they could provide the means for bringing Typhon's doctors to him 
>for whatever reason (even if they destroyed the First Empire). 
>Typhon's reign is not the peak of the Empire. He WANTS to create a 

>new empire. Much of the technology comes from other planets, its 
>not produced on earth anymore like it was during the peak of the 
>First Empire. The reason why the Whorl is STL can be simply 
>because there are no FTL technology easily available to Typhon.

Again, my point is that I think if you just had LS/SS, you wouldn't 
have any reason whatsoever to suspect that FTL technology existed 
at all for Typhon (which it clearly does in NS), and on the other 
hand you would have every reason to think that Urth was the only 
planet, as far as humans go (which it clearly isn't, in NS).

> 
>As for the reason for constructing the Whorl, the major reason is 
>that Wolfe wanted to write a story about a generation starship. 
>The second is that Typhon wanted Immortality, he wanted to be 
>Remembered. He was a megalomaniac. He wanted to be worshiped for 
>Eternity. So he built the Whorl. Wolfe states so as the main 
>reason in one of his interviews. Whith the whorl he installs a new 

>colony in which people adore him as a god. As his empire grows, so 

>does his cult. His name will not be a distant thing of no 
>importance to people on the fringes of a nominal-only empire. 
>People will actively worship him even if he never pays a visit in 
>100 years. 

Sure, that fits perfectly with the internal evidence in LS/SS. In 
NS, Typhon has a history on worlds outside the solar system 
already. In fact, he ruled them, probably as some kind of faux-god, 
if his behavior when Sev "resurrects" him is any guide.

The two series are definitely inconsistent on many points and on 
several levels, IMO. I don't think you can harmonize them really 
without adding in something major (eg, two quite different 
iterations of the universe cycle), and quite likely they're not 
supposed to be harmonized. (But again - then why the tie in?)

You mention the hiero-dudes. How do you fit them into LS/SS? Does 
Alphetta have a giant bureaucratic moth-person colleague who's 
supervising the Neighbor world? Is there a Neighbor-Tzadkiel? 
Maybe, but it doesn't feel right to me.