From: m.driussi@genie.geis.com
Subject: (urth) Terraforming Xanthic
Date: Sat,  2 May 98 01:04:00 GMT

FunkMonkey,

The terraforming and renaming story is told by Thea (II, ch. 10).

The presumed Xanthic Continent is a bit more dicey.  The Xanthic
Lands are a group of a couple hundred (or more) islands in the ocean
to the west of the Commonwealth (V, ch. 46).  The people there speak
the Xanthic tongue and are xanthoderms (yellow skinned).  The only
named island we know is "Blue Flower Island" (V, ch. 46).  The people
are a bit more primitive than folks in the Commonwealth, such that
they have little food security and periodic food riots.  Call that
fact one.

Fact two.  Jonas and Hethor talking some kinda foreign language(s).
Jonas talking about an Asian-sounding name being common in a place
now sunk under the sea back when he was young.  Seems like some Asian
spacefaring group was topdog on Urth back when Jonas and Hethor first
went up and away.

Fact three.  Cyriaca's tale of the Library (III, ch. 6).  Rise and
long decline of the First Empire.

Speculation puts these three together: Jonas and Hethor come from the
time of the First Empire (Cyriaca's tale), which then suggests that
the First Empire was created by Asians (since Jonas and Hethor have
Asian tongues, as it were), and the Xanthic Lands (populated by what
to our eyes appear to be Asians) are the fallen remnants of that
particular civilization.  That someplace important sank while they
were gone could also go towards explaining how they couldn't find a
port to land (as Jonas says about the crashlanding).

(Must remember to intercorrelate Cyriaca's tale with Tale of the Boy
Called Frog . . . )

=mantis=

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