(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[Dave Tallman]

I've been holding back on this discussion because of time constraints, but I
would like to weigh in. I think that the bringing of the New Sun was a good
thing, but I can't agree with b sharp's argument. It seems like a victory by
definition: the Hierogrammates are good because they are so smart that we
cannot judge them. C. S. Lewis once said that a cat cannot judge between a
vivisectionist and a surgeon trying to save its life, since both cause it
pain. But the cat's lack of ability to judge doesn't make the vivisectionist
good.

It seems like the more we ascribe unlimited knowledge and power to the
Hierogrammates the more difficulties we have. Perhaps the problem can be
resolved by humanizing them a bit, and allowing them short-term as well as
long-term goals. Master Ash said that even time-travellers cannot know the
future for certain. Tzadkiel cannot be sure that Sev will succeed, just that
it is probable.

If the Hierogrammates are more like humans, then their actions don't have to
be absolutely good, just the lesser of two evils. Humans take actions all
the time that we know could cause the death of others: invasion of other
countries, economic sanctions, even passing or not passing laws. Almost
every action and every inaction can have such consequences. By Paul B's
standard of murder none of us have clean hands.

We could start back with putting the black hole in the Sun, which caused
Typhon to lose his grip on power. This short-term goal could have been the
purpose. Suppose Ymar or one of his immediate successors had been able to
restore the Sun. Then there would have been very little loss of life.
Instead, the autarchs chickened out for millenia after Ymar's failure. They
embraced the do-nothing future, sitting tight until the energy ran out.

Restoring the Sun remained a good goal in itself. All the living systems of
Urth, Lune, and Verthandi were at stake. Even today, people argue for
"saving the Earth" and propose drastic measures that could well cost lives.
Eons of life and evolution were enabled by rekindling the Sun, especially
for marine life (and other life that went extinct could be re-seeded from
space or by time travel).

Paul B argued that a mass evacuation of Urth was feasible in the time of
Severian the Lame. I see no evidence for that. It was feasible in the time
of Master Ash, but that was centuries later, after the population was
desperate and greatly reduced by freezing and famine. Even so, some could
not be found, some refused to go, and for some no place could be found. An
attempted mass evacuation in Sev's time could produce panic, possibly
costing more lives than allowing those with boats and airships to evacuate
themselves.

The Hierogrammates had the additional long-term goal of creating the Hieros.
Even the Ascians agreed that humans had behaved terribly in the universe in
the old days, and that something needed to change the next time out. "We
shall not go to the stars again until we go as a divinity," the aquastor
Malrubius said. Admittedly, the Hieros will themselves cause massive
suffering in their quest to raise other potentially-intelligent species to
the level of companions or higher, but that is arguably superior to the war,
looting and pillaging that humanity did before. (By the way, I think the
Green Man is quite plausible as a step on the way to the Hieros. He was not
a total pacifist: he stood by while Agia killed three sentries in order to
save Sev).

Wolfe, as the God of this fictional world, chose to "bless" the
Hierogrammate's action in two ways. He granted Severian miraculous powers,
beyond what the Hierogrammates and Tzadkiel could do. He also chose to write
this story as an epic. This is either a hero's journey or a horrific
deconstruction of the whole idea of a hero's journey, which ends with evil
triumphant. I think he invites us to see the ending as both tragic in some
ways and hopeful in others.
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