(urth) Short Sun blog review

[Roy C. Lackey]

James Wynn wrote:
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>Let's try a different analogy. Do the governments of Pakistan and Iran
need to use a nuclear weapon for their nuclear weapon projects to
inspire patriotism?<

>Imagine footage of the construction of Whorl...the carving of the
asteroid, the building of the cities, the prospect of sending thousands
of Urthlings to a distant planet that could be freely portrayed as a
fertile Eden, a lucrative opportunity, and a Land of Adventure.<
____________

If that were the scenario, then people should have been clamoring to go.
Mamelta said: "We had to volunteer. They were--you couldn't say no." (LAKE,
chap. 9,  251)

___________
> The
actual landing of the colonists was almost irrelevant. What mattered
was the huge propagandist art based on the construction project and the
/aspirations/ of its purpose. The Whorl would be a monument...the Hoover
Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Rushmore to the third power. It
would definitely capture the imagination of the masses and *portray
Typhon's rule as one of affluence, technology, and limitless power*.<
___________

There isn't the least suggestion in the Urth Cycle that the Whorl project
even existed, not even when Severian was there while Typhon was still alive.
If there had been a massive propaganda campaign to promote the project, it
was a monumental failure.

I realize that the lack of evidence for a propaganda campaign in the Urth
Cycle doen't prove anything, but neither does your supposition of such a
campaign prove that it existed.

-Roy