(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[Roy C. Lackey]

Andrew wote:
[snip]
>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.

I agree that the picture painted for Sev in NEW SUN isn't the same picture
painted in URTH. Apparently almost everyone on Urth seemed to believe that
when the New Sun came, all Urth's troubles would be over; the ice would
retreat, the growing season be extended and who-knows-what-all. Life on Urth
would be rosy again, as when mankind first went out to seize dominion over
the galaxy, or at least as good as things were, in material terms, when
Typhon ruled.

We all know Wolfe never planned to write a fifth book. When he was forced to
deal with the practical details of bringing the nebulous religious ideal
behind his original conception to the page, he may have had to change his
mind about some things. But that's speculation.

>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.

That's true. Whether you call it punishment, correction, justice or revenge,
the Hierogrammates were determined to do unto humans what the Hieros of
another universe had done unto them. As Sev put it:"They bring us through
the pain we put them through." (URTH, XXII, 159) (Btw, the bit about entropy
and humans being "sown over tens of thousands of worlds" is at XIX, 135.)

>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.

Don't forget the mind-wiped losing sailors from the Ship.

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

As Tzadkiel said at the trial, "The death agonies of the world you know will
be offered to the Increate." (XXI, 153) (And I've been down this road more
than once!)

-Roy