Subject: Re: (urth) Two Ships
From: matthew.malthouse@guardian.co.uk
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 14:18:20 +0100

On 14/08/2003 13:53:53 "James Wynn" wrote:

>Crush suggested:
>> > The only way I can think to salvage this theory is to say that
>> > Severian's ship was *first* the Whorl, retrofitted over time to
>> > eventually become Severian's ship. In that case, the time-line
>> > problems disappear and all the problems in technology can be
>> > explained by the passage of time. This is a less elegant solution
>> > than you were looking for since it doesn't explain "the cargo".
>> > But IMO it resolves some nasty snarls.
>> >
>>
>> Don doesn't think this is likely.  However, Silk did leave for the
>> Whorl at the end of RttW and it went on it's merry way to who knows
>> where.  Maybe it went to Yesod.  If Silk is Typhon redeemed then this
>> makes an interesting circle.  Hmmm.
>>
>Crush responds:
>Well, of course its unlikely. Its a cumbersome theory whose main benefit 
is
>that it explains the Whorl's existence in view of the captain's claim 
that
>there is only *one* ship. Not one "true" ship -- one ship. Of course, 
there
>are more cumbersome theories that I hold true, and two other options -- 
that
>the captain was wrong or that Wolfe messed up (the most likely 
explanation)
> and both seem like cheating to me.
>
>There is one other option I can think of: The Whorl returned to Urth or
>wherever before Severian's assent to the throne. But that is also 
unlikely
>if one believes Severian is contemporaneous with Silk. Anyway, how would 
all
>the inhabitants land? What would become of the Whorl? It would still 
"exist"
>in orbit.

There's another way of looking at it.  A qualitative difference between 
"ships" and "Ship".

The ships of men which are prosaic things, with which the empire of man 
(from which Typhon retreated) was made and possibly one type of which form 
the towers of the Citadel.  The Ship of Tzadkiel, the ship that can 
navigate the rivers of time, that can cross between Briah and Yesod, that 
can appear to be many because it's voyages cross and recross it's own path 
in both space and time almost infinitely.

Matthew

[If the spill chucker had had it's way that could have been "The Ship of 
Twaddle ... cross between Brian and Yeast"]

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