(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[thalassocrat at nym.hush.com]

On Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:38:33 +1000 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:

>As Andrew (Thalassocrat) has already indicated, the human race had 

>long ago
>spread (during the First Empire) all over the galaxy, and probably 

>beyond.
>No matter what happened to Urth, the bulk of humanity would be 
>unaffected.
>If humanity had to pay a price on Urth, that price was almost 
>entirely
>symbolic. The Hierogrammates, for all their power, could not 
>overcome
>entropy. Humanity was spread too far and wide for every world to 
>be
>punished.

I still don't get the destruction of Urth as a punishment. 
According to the Hiero-dude-ish propaganda, the punishment has 
already happened - humanity beaten back down to a primitive state 
and barred from the worlds (at least on Urth), and (presumably) the 
sun deliberately wounded to keep Urth-humanity down. Sev is 
supposed to be an "epitome" who may bring the punishment to an 
*end*. If he succeeds, a New Sun will come, and humanity will 
flourish once again, and be allowed back into space. 

This propaganda runs in various forms all the way from the official 
New Sun dogma of Sev's youth, through eidolon-Malrubius' 
revelations to him, to the gates of Yesod.

Apheta to the sailors (UOTNS VI): "You know that we have condemned 
the peoples of Urth, and why. They now feel that they have earned 
our forgiveness, and the chance to resume the places they held of 
old ... And they have dispatched their Epitome to claim it for 
them."

Eidolon-Malrubius (Citadel XXXI) questions Sev closely on whether 
he would go to Yesod if he were to stand trial there, if gelding 
were to be the price of failure, if it might not bring a New Sun 
... but he never mentions that the price of success will be the 
death of most humans (and most animals!) on Urth. 

"If you pass - if *our race* is judged ready to reenter the wide 
seas of space - such a white fountain will be created in the heart 
of the sun." 

Officially, the real situation is not revealed until Tzadkiel 
delivers his judgement. Up until then: the New Sun is to bring a 
rebirth of Urth as Urth, not as Ushas.

The propaganda is, of course, a lie and deception. But at the same 
time I see no evidence for "punishment" as the real intent. By 
their own story, the Hiero's intent is to foster the emergence of a 
race cognate to the Hieros, and thereby a race cognate to 
themselves. 

If this is true, then somehow or other Sev + a small band of 
surviving Urth-humans + a New Sun is necessary for their plans. 
How, we don't know, but I suppose the easiest guess is that Sev's 
genes are the key, and that he is indeed supposed to splash 
mightily around in a reduced gene pool. 

Anyway, I still don't see evidence of God's will in all of this.