(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[Roy C. Lackey]

Jeff Wilson quoted and wrote:
>> You can spin the Ushas future into as pretty a picture as you care to
>> imagine and say that everything will work out for the best in the best of
>> all possible worlds, but the ends still don't justify the means -- unless
>> the Increate had a hand in it. Even if the Hierogrammates only *believed*
>> they were doing the will of the Increate, that doesn't excuse their
actions.
>> History books and modern newspapers are littered with the dead who died
>> because someone believed they were doing what God wanted them to do.
>
>How can we objectively distinguish between the two cases? Otherwise,
>you're merely substituting your judgment for theirs in determining if
>the Increate "really" wants them to do the deed.

My judgment has no bearing on what the Increate may have wanted them to do.
I don't know what or even if the Increate wanted them to do anything. Either
they were acting on orders from the Increate or they weren't. If they were,
case closed. If they only believed they were, they were deluded.

In the case of Silk's "enlightenment", it is reasonably clear that the
reader is intended to understand that it was a genuine communication from
the Outsider, not just a "cerebral incident" as Dr. Crane would have it. The
Hierogrammates' intercourse with the Increate, if there is any, is far from
clear.

-Roy