(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[Paul B]

A few issues with this, and some inaccuracies.

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com> wrote:

> By Paul B's standard of murder none of us have clean hands.
>

Is there a problem with this, even if true?  I know some religions that
consider everyone to be a sinner.


> 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.
>

Even considering the physical implications of your suggestion, you make a
preposterous claim here without any evidence.  Presumably a white hole is
the only way to remove the black one.  What would it matter how much time
passes?  The physical anomalies produced by the New Sun don't care, unless
the black hole got a lot bigger after a few hundred years.  Given that it's
just had the sun to feed on, which it didn't even consume, it's unlikely.

Incidentally, it's curious that the introduction of the black hole didn't
have similar effects on Urth as that of the white one.

As for the suggestion that Hierogrammates went to stellar engineering just
to depose Typhon, it sounds like swatting a fly with a Buick.


> Restoring the Sun remained a good goal in itself. All the living systems of
> Urth, Lune, and Verthandi were at stake.
>

No.  The Hierogrammates definitively say that Urth is all that matters.


> 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.
>

You seem to conveniently forget that Hierogrammates do possess foresight, in
addition to tech that allows creation of black holes.  These two alone
should suggest they can do pretty much any "mundane" thing (here, building
large ship(s) - [if Typhon could do it, they could too] and sending it to
point Urth) at pretty much any time, no?

When you can see probable futures, "feasibility" takes on a new meaning.

Paul
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