(urth) Abaia and the undines

[John Watkins]

How many Megatherians are actually named in the text?  Four,
right--Abaia, Erebus, Scylla and Arioch?

If it's just these four, how plausible is it that all 17 megatherians
are similar godlike monsters--that there are 13 such monsters unnamed
in the text?

Maybe some of the so-called "megatherians" are otherworldly monsters,
and so are human or semi-human, like Baldanders or Typhon and his
brood.



On 12/9/08, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
> Hmmm.
>
> The black beans appear to be a tough knot to unravel. I don't see how 5
> beans can become 17 megatherians, nor how they can indicate both
> Abaia/Erebus and the black hole in the sun. I wonder if they have been
> connected to any old myths ... real ones, I mean.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:17:20 -0700
> From: Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Abaia and the undines
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Message-ID: <493EE060.6080708 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> David Stockhoff wrote:
>
>> > My assumption has always been that the undines, Abaia, Baldanders, and
>> > Idas were all the same race but different ages, and Abaia is merely an
>> > ancient, huge, undersea humanoid. Which is the same as saying he is
>> > Poseidon and the undines are his nymphs---but with a rational
>> > explanation.
>> >
>>
> Abaia can't be all that ancient. In SotL, Typhon wakes up and tells
> Severian that he detects the monsters for the first time. They are new
> to Typhon, though he must have possessed mental powers sufficient to
> sense them before his "death," if they were there and powerful enough at
> that time.
>
> If we connect the "black bean" story with Abaia and company, we also
> know that they arrived during a rule that was more harsh than the
> autarchs, and that the woman who introduced them was torn to pieces for
> attempting to use them to seize power.
>
> One possible story, tying in with things we learn later in the BotSS:
> 1) Cilinia, Typhon's daughter, was involved in plotting with the monster
> Syclla.
> 2) She died a few years after being scanned for the Whorl.
> 3) She was power-hungry, since her personality also plotted against Pas
> on the Whorl.
> 4) Thus, she could be the woman who used the black beans -- embryo
> Megatherians drawn from space by interstellar travel or by specula.
> 5) She was probably executed by Typhon for this crime.
> 6) In the early stages the minds of the monsters might not be strong
> enough to detect by Typhon's mental powers.
> 7) They would need a power source to thrive and grow, and the image
> connection between "black beans" in the sea and a black hole in the Sun
> is hard to ignore. They probably didn't just grow by eating fish -- one
> of them is under the ice at the South Pole, after all.
> 8) Something caused the people controlling Typhon's rockets to abandon
> the planet. Typhon called it a "disaster," and mere slow cooling of the
> Sun wouldn't be enough.
> 9) Undines were probably people recruited and corrupted by Abaia, just
> as Juturna tried to recruit and corrupt Severian. They were given the
> power to breath underwater and grow without limit.
>
>
>
>
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