(urth) Key to the Universe

[Son of Witz]

On Dec 17, 2010, at 8:02 AM, Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com> wrote:

> (Citadel of the Autarch, c.34 - "The Key to the Universe")
> 
> With the entire obliteration of a universe, we cannot assume that pictures of astronauts from Earth carried over from one divine year to the next. This universe is, at best, a refined mirror image of Earth, but in this Urth, there were once astronauts very like Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. One would stand to reason there is a God (Increate) and a Christ figure (Conciliator?).
> 
> Whether Urth is in a divine year before or after Earth is a different question all together, but Wolfe clearly outlines that a divine year includes the death of one universe and the blossoming of another.
> 
> ...ryan

Thanks for pointing to Malrubius. I love that part. It is almost at the end of a series that began with "Resurrection & Death"

However, I take issue with a conclusion you draw from this which I think the text implies the opposite.  The Moon Painting can exist in their creation if the Book of the New Sun can exist in ours as a translated work.  Remember the awesome beginning of Urth of the New Sun when Severian sees the black hole surrounded by the ring of stars? It's one of the most breathtaking scenes in the series, and hugely important.

V-II The Fifth Sailor

"We had penetrated the fabric of time, and the fuligin vortex marked the end of the universe. Or its beginning. If its beginning, then that shimmering ring of stars was the scattering of the young suns, and the only truly magical ring this universe would ever know. Hailing them, I shouted for joy, though no one heard my voice but the Increate and me. I drew my cloak to me and pulled the leaden coffer from it; and I held the coffer above my head in both my hands; and I cast it, cheering as I cast it, out of my unseen cloak of air, out of the purlieu of the ship, out of the universe that the coffer and I had known, and into the new creation as final offering from the old. At once my destiny seized me and flung me back."

First, an artifact seems to have crossed from one blossom to another due to the possiblity of exiting that time-space.  What is to say that other cargo from one of these ships might not have crossed over as well?  In fact, this solution is far more likely than believing that a photograph or a canvas with oil or plastic pigments would last 30,000 to 1,000,000 years into the future, if Earth is Urth's past. That is extremely unlikely. 

Second, it's worth noting that Severian's mission would have FAILED if he hadn't chucked that book out and created a force to propell him back.  The New Sun of Ushas  depends on this act.

Third. I've really been chewing over the Apollo moon landing painting.
We all seem to take it on face value that it is Neil or Buzz, an obvious nod to the extreme distance of time between Urth and Earth.  But really, the text does not disambiguate this depiction, so we have to admit that it may NOT ACTUALLY be a painting of the Apollo Moon Landing. It may be a photo of an Urth empire astronaut pre-moon forrestation.  Wolfe may be giving us a double mind-fuck!

I used to assume that this painting and a green moon clearly indicated that Earth was in Urth's past, whithin the creation of Briah. I don't think that is a necessary conclusion now.  If a verdant lune is a creation of urthlings, it is conceivable that without their tendings, the moon could go back to being barren, and thus we would see our barren moon despite it once having had a forrest.

Fourth. Severian doesn't really know if he's seeing a Big Bang or a Grand Gnab, he is guessing.  Plus, it is a guess to say that the copy we have IS the one that he threw to the "new creation".  We know that one of the two copies crossed from Urth to Earth, but not which one.

Furthermore, it is still within the realm of The Text to say that we Don't know that Earth is in another universal blossom than Urth is, even though Wolfe's interview leads us there.  Ushas could be Earth.  The last decade has uncovered so many massive structures that could not seemingly have been made by the hunter-gatherers who are supposed to have built them, that Erich Von Daniken looks less like a quack then he did thirty years ago when his work was dismissed as not having enough evidence.  The more we look back, the more it looks like our civilzation is built over one vastly older civilization that was burried in a deluge.  (none of which is to say I believe that BotNS is TRUE or something.)

~witz
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