Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 21:10:39 -0500
From: Andrew Reeves 
Subject: (urth) War With The Ascians as a Proxy War?

First off, I'd just like to say hello, being a newcomer to the list.
That said, I've scanned the archives and didn't notice anything on the
following sentiment.

The more I look at it, it seems to me that the war between the
Commonwealth and the Ascians in TBOTNS is something of a "proxy war"
between the giants and the angels (or whatever Tzadkiel is).  After all,
Urth being fairly technically backwards, both sides need to import their
weapons.  Since Erebus, Abaia, and company are arming the Ascians, and
the "good" aliens are arming the armies of the Autarch, I can't see it
as anything more than the two sides duking it out with human soldiers.
I mean, they talk a good game, telling the autarch that he's the
rightful ruler of urth, but it still makes the autarch look like more of
a pawn than any kind of rightful ruler should be.

Does Wolfe want us to assume that the angelic beings have our best
interests at heart, or is there more to it?

While on the subject of the Commonwealth's alien allies, I found
something else peculiar.  Wolfe is a Catholic, and from _Long_ and
_Short Sun_ we can  glean that the Increate/Outsider/Pancreator is the
Holy Trinity (see especially Silk's enlightenment and its inclusion of
Jesus being taken off the cross).  So why on earth do we have an angel
riding around as the captain of spaceships?  It seems like a pretty cool
ship and all, but why bother with the spaceship at all?

Just some thoughts I was hoping the group could give some input on.

Andrew


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