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[Andrew Mason]

David Stockhoff wrote:


> The 20,000-year figure is from Wolfe.

Do you know where, precisely?

 I always thought it was way too
> low. Still, I don't buy hundreds of millions either. Alternative
> theories are available.

One thing that causes problems for 20,000 years is that the
Conciliator is said at one point to have lived 30,000 years ago. I'm
not sure if that's an estimate of Typhon's time - in which case it is
certainly retconned later - or whether it means that this was the date
of the first in a series of figures who have contributed to the image
of the Conciliator - possibly Jesus or his equivalent. But in any case
it would seem to put Severian more than 20,000 years from now.

As you point out, the apparent inconsitency between the seemingly
enormous physical distance of our time from Severian's, and the
lesser, though still great, cultural distance, can be overcome by
reference to the computers restoring memories to humans - indeed it
seems quite plausible that that story was inserted precisely to
overcome this problem, which implies Wolfe was thinking in terms of an
enormous distance at that point.

It's well-known that there seems to be some wobbling on Typhon's date.
Also, _Long Sun_ reads as if it is a lot closer to our time than _New
Sun_. Again, we can explain this by reference to the computers
restoring memories, together with the possibility that Typhon is
engaging in a deliberate historical reconstruction to some degree. But
_Long Sun_ was originally planned independently of _New Sun_; can it
be that Wolfe initially did think of it as closer to our time, and
later, when he decided to integrate it with _New Sun_, had difficulty
finding a date which fitted both?
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