(urth) Abaia and the undines

[Son of Witz]

>Witz---
>
>Two thoughts:
>
>First, I am not sure Severian's thought needs to refer to a black hole. It sounds to me like what happens at the heart of a normal star. There is immense pressure and matter becomes plasma.

Ah, I was unaware of that.


>Second, it just happens to be true that Jerry Pournelle is a nutjob and his theory is impossible.

that as well.  but wacky theories are the bread and butter of SF, no?


>But it raises a good point, and what scraps of Lexicon Urthus I can read suggest parallel thinking. And that is this---that, IF Wolfe intended Urth to be of great age (millions of years) so that he could depict the sun as red and dying (as depicted in The Time Machine), THEN he would have had to deal with the problem of its ballooning into a red giant, eventually swallowing all 4 inner planets) in around 5 billion years---because that's the Main Sequence evolutionary path for a yellow star with the sun's mass, and that's how long it would take. He could have dealt with this in the following ways, by:
>
>-Ignoring stellar physics and making shit up, or convincing us that Urth is 5 billion years older 
>
>-Suggesting that humans or Hieros plugged a hole in the Sun to stop its evolution
>
>-Imagining that some unlikely event arose RANDOMLY to knock the Sun off its normal course of evolution
>
>-Appealing to myth to force some other kind of ending to the Sun

>But the last two work very well with one another and with the text. First, there is a Black Worm or Wolf or Panther or Dragon eating the Sun in every mythology. It's one of the main reasons for a hero to arise and go forth to die in combat with powerful beings to save the dying land. Second, there has always been speculation about the possibility of a spontaneous black hole developing in (or a very small one falling into?) the Sun. It's unlikely for it to actually happen, but it's a solid sci-fi explanation for bringing a mythical element into the story. And one way to summarize TBotNS is that it does exactly that over and over---not science fantasy but science MYTHOLOGY.
>
>Finally, it lets Wolfe set the story whenever he damn well wants to, and Urth can grow cold and die long before any stellar physicist can complain that the proper evolutionary track has been violated. 

I suppose the 2nd point, about the Hieros doesn't conflict with the 3rd and 4th points you make.  I think, yeah, Wolfe is working with a micrcosmic apocatastasis here, so the myth comes first, and anything else is just something to make that somewhat plausible.


>BTW, I have a mostly-cleaned-up PDF of all 5 books. Shall I send you this PDF?

Yes PLEASE.
~Witz



ate: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:21:44 +0000
>From: "Son of Witz" <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
>Subject: Re: (urth) Abaia and the undines
>To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
>Message-ID: <W4996120908111691228951304 at webmail9>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
>I too have a hard time buying any of the explanations of where the text clues us into any astroengineering.
>
>along that line of reasoning, the Old Autarch's dialogue could possibly add some support.  From the "Autarch of the Commonwealth chapter in Citadel:
>
>We know the Hierodules are behind the Autarchy.  When the Autarch says "we" he probably means the Hierarchs and the state.  So, it could be that the condemnation is that they were held in barbarism.  That they were 'condemned' to a lesser evil than that of Erebus's brand of evil.
>
>Also, Severian says in Urth XII
>"I felt my consciousness falling in upon itself as the matter does in the heart of a star" 
>
>the combination of these two bits of text may support the final potential explanation that the Lexicon Urthus gives for why a black hole might be in the heart of the sun.
>"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
>"Finally there is a theory of how there might already be a black hole in the heart of our star...Among the many possibilities presented by Pournelle, one seems especially germane: "there's a black hole of around 1% of the Sun's mass dead center in our star, and the Sun shines because matter falling into the hole gives off energy; there's no fusion in there at all"
>"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
>
>Now, I don't know much about this stuff and had never heard that theory.  Given that it's not common knowledge (as far as I know) its' interesting that Severian, of limited education, would just sort of understand this as a common explanation of what goes on in the heart of a star.  This makes me think that Wolfe is probably buying into this theory, at least as far as BoTNS is concerned. Which, would, it seems make the black hole a natural event, just as entropy of the universe is a natural event.
>
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