(urth) Standard Wolfean Riddle

Gerry Quinn gerryq at indigo.ie
Mon Aug 16 09:57:38 PDT 2010


From: "Ryan Dunn" <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
> On Aug 16, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>> The spacecraft are not from the '60s
>
> Fair enough, but even if these are the last space shuttles ever flown with 
> the "propulsion chambers" we've come to associate with the current 
> technology (as described by Severian in his passage about the examination 
> room), when do you estimate that this shipyard was abandoned and then 
> reinhabited to be the Citadel?

A few chiliads before Severian, i.e. many chiliads from now.  Just because 
solar sail technology is often used in Severian's time doesn't mean that 
other propulsion systems don't exist.  The Whorl doesn't seem to have sails, 
though I suppose they could have been furled on reaching the system 
containing Blue and Green.

The ships seem to have gun emplacements, something not known to have been 
installed on US or Soviet spacecraft even at the height of the Cold War!

- Gerry Quinn





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