(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[thalassocrat at nym.hush.com]

On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:30:11 +1000 Dave Tallman 
<davetallman at msn.com> wrote:
>
>Let's look at the alternative scenario again. Urth gets colder and 

>
>colder for thousands of years more. Millions die because can't 
>find 
>food, from exposure, or from warring over scarce resources. 
>Finally the 
>population is reduced enough that the Heiros can offer an 
>evacuation and 
>many take them up on it. Many still die because they can't be 
>found or 
>there is no room for them. Some get to die voluntarily because 
>they 
>won't leave.  Finally, all of Urth's ecosystem dies forever.
>
>The Heiros attempt to give the many who will die from the New Sun 
>some 
>representation with a trial by combat between Sev and the sailors. 

>I see 
>you have already argued about trials by combat in the Knight 
>series, so 
>I won't argue that was a just proceeding (the Heiros admit it 
>wasn't, too).
>
>In the end, most of us don't get a choice of when and how we die. 
>The 
>situation of Urth was a choice between bad alternatives. I can see 

>
>enough positives in the choice that was taken that I can't buy the 

>moral 
>inversion argument. But you may see it differently.

It is just wildly implausible that the Hierogrammates could not 
have at least warned the people of Urth what was coming, even if 
the Apheta and her fellow trogladyte wasp-people/larvae/bureaucrats 
couldn't make the numbers stack up for a real rescue effort. 

Instead, they lied about it.

Take away the unsupported assumption that the Hierogrammates are 
executing the will of God. Then the only plausible conclusion IMO 
is that they wanted most of the people on Urth to die.

Further: as far as I know, there is no hint in the narrative is 
there any hint that the intended purpose of the New Sun is to 
prolong the survival of the biosphere. The only stated purpose is 
to (somehow) promote the rise of a new generation of Hieros. We are 
told that the whole Hieros caused millenia of pain and suffering. 
For what good? Just to keep the cycle going? 

If you want to tot up the utiilitarian P&L, you need to expense for 
that cycle as well.