(urth) planetary problems

[Lee Berman]

>Marc Aramini: Lee, are you saying Urth effectively "tripled"?  One extent somewhere out there 
>in space, Nessus bridging the gap, and an urth from a different time in the same solar system 
>as Blue?  This doesn't seem intuitively like the right solution..
 
 
Marc, first let me say that I agree with your approach. Wolfe creates Labryinths, not wide open 
worlds. When we turn a corner of the maze  and see a "character" that resembles another, the chance 
is just as likely that we are seeing an old character misidentified in some way as the chance we are 
seeing a new character. There is no reason this can't be true of whole planets. I encourage you to 
keep exploring your idea.
 
But I agree completely with James; a lot of time correct ideas are tossed in the wastebin not because
they are completely wrong but because some of the final conclusions don't pan out. When this happens
you should backtrack and find new branchings rather than throw out the whole thing.
 
So, in this case, if you can't make the planets match up, go back to the original insight you had. It 
was the city, not the planet, by which you made the original connection. Could the city exist on two
different planets? The name Nessus seems similar to "nexus". I think the city serves the purpose as a
hub of connections in BotNS. Perhaps it also links Short Sun and BotNS.
 
("Nessus" also invokes Hercules, poison, blood-stained cloaks and centaurs. I don't think Wolfe has
ignored these aspects of the name; Neighbors always remind me of centaurs.)
 
My general philosophy is that Wolfe books are written at several simultaneous levels. When answers can't
be found at one level, they may be found at another. So if the SF/astronomy approach leaves gaps, perhaps
the literary socio-political or religious/mythological levels can fill them in.
 
In regard to Apheta's face I don't think it is meant to invoke Lune. In fact, Severian wonders how something
like a Lune can have white light instead of green light.
 
I think Jeff is on the right track noticing that Briah appears to Severian like an ebon moon in the sky of
Yesod. Apheta has said that she has made a special study of Urth. We are not told how she makes her observations.
If she is peeking through something that looks like a dark moon on Yesod, how would the peephole appear in 
Briah? If energy is moving from Yesod to Briah then it should look like the light moon that Severian sees.
 
There may be mythological implications. Despite their mating (or perhaps because of it?) there seems to be
a brother-sister vibe between Severian and Apheta. If Severian is the new sun, casting Apheta in moon light
might suggest the Apollo-Diana or Helios-Selene pairing. (also Semele, mother of Dionysus, has
moon associations; with the birth of Ushas, Apheta and Severian can be seen as moon mother and
sun father of it).