From: "Talarican" <exultnttalarican@mindspring.com>
Subject: (urth) The Song of Ugly Star and Go Away
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 00:36:42 

Regarding St. Anne/St. Croix's star, far be it from me to
belabor the master for it if he simply neglected to take the astrometric
aspect into account. Bigger scientific errors happen.("That was supposed to
be meters above Mars' surface, not feet!")

I was wondering if the selection of a 402 day year, pink sun, and so forth
had some significance, and perchance if even their astrometric unlikelihood
was intentional and in itself had some significance. (of course, I
originally embarked on this research intending to shed light on the question
of the planets' orbital periods and length of day and so forth)

If lonely little Shadowchild Wolf terminated the Song of Bending Sky-Paths
that None May Come, why does the sun still look pink afterwards?

(Didn't Tolkien write something in "On Fairy-Stories" to the effect that, if
you introduce a marvel such as a "green sun" into your imaginary world, you
are then obligated to engineer the world such that a "green sun" becomes
natural and plausible? Of course he didn't fret about running afoul of
Kepler's laws, what with Arda's skies being filled with Earendil whizzing
around in his ship with his Silmaril, and those Maiar with their fruits of
the Two Trees...)

The Mad, Pesky Exultant




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