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<TITLE>(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Sure, I'll take a quick stab at this, being of the aforementioned</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">"Hierogrammates are not as good as they seem" persuasion. They admit to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">wanting to condition humanity to become the Hieros. This conditioning can</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">come in all sorts of forms, and the spiritual is certainly not to be</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">discounted given how secular Urth is. My contention is that they need a</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">mystical account of what they've done to Urth for it to matter, like a</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">certain other flood, for which they recruit the mostly unwitting Severian to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">act as a mystic and write The Book of the New Sun as a mystical testament to</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">what otherwise would be a pretty secular and unpleasant occurrence.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Don't forget that Urth isn't the only human-inhabited planet, and as the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Anchorite mentions if they wanted to save the population there were less</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">murderous ways to do it - planetary evacuation in Ragnarok scenario. I</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">believe this suggests that they instead wanted to do something else to the</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">population, and Severian's mystical roles as Apu Punchau, the Conciliator,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">and the Sleeper may well have something to do with it. I see him as a</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">social engineering tool.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Curious about others' opinions though, myself.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Paul</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">_______________</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I guess my problem with that is - why tell the humans that the Hieros are going to wipe out the planet?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Just cause the flood anyway and then tell the survivors and those repopulating the Earth that it was a natural disaster.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Then you could instil in the people the idea that the Hieros were the ultimate saviours of man by helping them post-flood.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I am not a Catholic and have no particular axe to grind but any other explanation of the Hieros seems unnecessary to me.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">The Hieros are a higher order of imperfect vessels attempting to become like God. </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">It doesn't mean that their solution was perfect, but that in no way means they are evil.</FONT>
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