(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[Jeff Wilson]

Dave Tallman wrote:
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>> It isn't just a flood; new continents are thrust up. If Abaia, who is 
>> pretty
>> huge, couldn't get out of the way in time, he would be left a rotting
>> corpse on one of the new continents.
>>
>> Which might explain the immense ribcage over New Crobuzon, come
>> to think of it ....
>>   
> I'm not sure Abaia is that much larger than the undines. In Citadel 
> XXXVII, the steersman said he heard the voices of undines coming up the 
> Gyoll, along with a deeper voice that gave orders, 
> "go-and-do-that-and-this-and-that." If that was Abaia, he's not so big 
> and immobile that he can't come up the river. If so, it seems like he 
> could get out of the way of an earthquake. If Juturna could survive, so 
> could he.

The enormous Blue Whale's voice is louder than a jet engine and can be 
heard through water over distances of hundreds of miles, perhaps 
thousands in the absence of motorized ships, and this was documented and 
popularized signifigantly before the publication of BOTNS. The presence 
of Abaia's voice doesn't require the presence of Abaia.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >