(urth) Seventeen

[Lee Berman]

I like David's theory about 17 being a nice counterpart to 12 in a gnostic parody of
Earth (which I roundly think Urth is meant to be).
 
Still, I don't feel the need to leave it at that. For me the the Group of 17 might also refer to the 
communist nations at the time of BotNS writing: USSR, China, Cuba, N. Korea, N. Vietnam, Mongolia, 
Cambodia, Laos, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, E. Germany,Albania
and Yemen. (the # gets bigger if you want to add some short-lived African communist states)
 
With regard to the origin of megatherians, I'm coming around to the notion that they are all human in
origin. Jibes with the "Man is created in God's image" religious idea. Aliens are always some form
of mutated human, be they Abaia or Famulimus.
 
I think Wolfe tries to show us the progression. It always starts with a bid for immortality. Typhon
with his body grafts.  Baldanders with his eternal growth.  Even Tzadkiel with his escape to the next
universe.
 
But by definition, becoming immortal means losing one's humanity. Thus Baldanders' and Typhon's cruelty.
Even Tzadkiel must resort to genocide.  Baldanders is losing his hearing. Typhon loses his whole body. 
Pig is blind and the Godling has eyes so small we must guess he will lose his sight with further growth.
 
We aren't given a lot of face time with the final products, but I think we get enough with Tzadkiel, 
The Mother and Great Scylla to conclude that when these former human-types get big enough they can pinch 
off human-sized agents to accomplish what they, in their large bulk, cannot. We never see Abaia but it
is implied he can do the same thing.  The cold pale warriors, the pandours, are a similar product of 
Erebus I think.
 
(James, you implied that there is evidence in BotNS for Erebus being long dead. Could you outline this?)