(urth) Abaia and the undines

[Jeff Wilson]

Dave Tallman wrote:
> 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.

They could have been in hiding somehow, and then didn't bother with the 
shielding or whatever after he was dead.

> 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.

good guess, though small black holes are sometimes characterized as 
"kernels"; I'd say we've got even odds.


> 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.

If you mean Erebus, Mt Erebus is far from the pole on an island off the 
Antractic coast. Still lots of geothermal power for nefarious schemes, 
and if the eternal smoke were to suddenly stop when roofed over, that's 
a symptom to be mis-interpreted as cooling of Urth's core.


> 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.

seeding with monsters would, I guess. The rocket captains must have been 
foreward thinkers.

> 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.

I agree, though the indefinite life span and freedom of the seas 
probably sells more dupes.


-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >