(urth) traveling north

[Jeff Wilson]

On 6/7/2010 1:55 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
 >
 > I don't think so. To travel to Yesod it is necessary to break the laws
 > of physics in Briah by travelling faster than light (though the
 > mechanism proposed, tacking across the light from the stars, is cute but
 > unfeasible).

Accelerating up to lightspeed then doing some trick to go FTL is a 
time-honored SF tradition including STAR WARS and going back at least to 
_STARMAN JONES_.

On 6/7/2010 3:06 PM, James Wynn wrote:
> On 6/7/2010 1:23 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> Obviously the Wall doesn't stop aerial assault, the Ascians could have
>> used some flyers that were subsequently destroyed by the Commonwealth
>> forces.
>
> Is that really obvious? The thickness of the wall suggests that it's
> purpose is not merely a physical barrier against ground-based assaults.
> Otherwise, if an invading force over-topped it, the wall would become a
> high-ground from which to launch a more successful assaults on the rest
> of the territory.

Okay, a wall obviously doesn't stop aerial assault. If The Wall's 
sophisticated defenses had failed in centuries past along with numerous 
other high technologies, The Wall's sheer bulk wouldn't prevent Ascian 
flyers from flying over and raking the city with fusils and such from 
above, burning most of it down, and this may have happened as late as a 
few decades before Severian. The Wall's bulk and unsmeltability would 
still protect the infantry inside from the flyers, allowing them to get 
very close to any grounded flyers before being exposed to enemy fire, 
making the top of the unconquered Wall unusable as a high-ground for any 
length of time.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >