(urth) Tzadkiel/Melek Taus

Roy C. Lackey rclackey at stic.net
Fri Jul 9 15:05:50 PDT 2010


John Watkins wrote:
> I conceed that I misremembered the passage and forgot that the Ushas
people
> were descended from the sailors.  That said, it isn't clear to me that
this
> is inconsistent with my hypothesis--Severian knows about "a man and
woman,"
> not a general decamping of the humans on the Ship.  Maybe the humans from
> the Ship were screened genetically?

Ushas was not seeded with just any humans from the Ship. Specifically, Sev
means the sailors who survived the battle with the eidolons and fled the
room where they fought (URTH, 155). Those are the men Sev and Gunnie feared
would kill them on the way back to Urth (161-62). Apheta said the problem
would not come up, and it didn't.

I guess you could say that running away is a survival trait that could be
passed on, but I don't think that's what you had in mind with genetic
screening. <g>

-Roy




More information about the Urth mailing list