(urth) Ships

[Andrew Mason]

Gerry Quinn wrote:

If he had interstellar ships (which would have to
>> be faster-than-light, I think, to get between the stars in times that
>> would enable him actually to run an empire) it becomes puzzling what
>> was the significance of his launching the Whorl - which Wolfe has said
>> was intended to 'return humanity to the stars'.
>
> Maybe they were just nearly as fast as light, i.e. good enough to escape to
> the stars.  We don;t know much - or anything, really -  about the politics
> of his empire.

If they were just nearly as fast as light, they would have taken four
years to reach the nearest star. (Actually, of course, the stars
should have moved, but Wolfe seems to be ignoring that.) Can you
really be said to rule a land it takes four years to get to? You can
if you have FTL communication even without FTL travel, a la Ursula K.
Le Guin or Orson Scott Card, but I see no hint of that in Wolfe. Yes,
perhaps he was sending expedtions to the nearer stars, but I still
think he's exaggerating when he said he ruled them.

 And as you mention elsewhere, Vodalus confirms the fact of
> ships, so it's not just Typhon.

But that, I think, was a lot earlier. Both Cyriaca and Wolfe in
interviews seem to say that Typhon was trying to bring back something
that had been lost.

> As for the Whorl, perhaps it is a question of scale.  The Whorl can
> transport many millions of perhaps unwilling colonists.  Smaller vessels
> might not transport enough, and might also be even more prone to mission
> creep.
>

I conclude that it was
> Jonas's ship, or one just like it - at it seems more elegant that it be the
> same vessel..
>
> Perhaps some of the ship's crew stayed aboard and were interned there
> pending resolution of their cases, and it later became used for other
> individuals.

But does this not conflict with the idea that originally it actually
was an antechamber? Only gradually did it develop into a prison. So if
Kim Lee Soong had been in it from the start, he would have got out. I
think it must have been in operation for some time when he entered it.