From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: (urth) Typhon's folly?
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 00:48:14 -0500

Last month mantis suggested that the reason Typhon built the _Whorl_ was as
a hedge against the possible failure of his plans for a new empire. Maybe
so. Over the years there have been two main schools of thought on what--make
that "who"-- caused the black hole in Urth's sun. Some have held that it was
caused by, or at the behest of, the Increate, as punishment for the past
sins of the Old Empire. Others hold that Typhon was somehow the cause. I
have argued in the past for the first theory; now I want to explore the
other possibility; not the mechanics of it, but how it may relate to the LS
and SS books.

We don't know just how big the _Whorl_ was, but it was huge. Its long axis
had to have been hundreds of miles long. It would have taken tremendous
amounts of energy just to hollow out a rock that big, to say nothing of the
resources consumed by the landscaping of the interior, the construction of
cities, Mainframe, the Long Sun and all the other provisioning. I think it
has been suggested before, by others, that Typhon somehow tapped the sun for
energy in furtherance of his plans for empire, and that it was his tampering
with the sun that caused its decline. I am suggesting that he tapped the sun
for the energy needed to build the _Whorl_.

If mantis is right about Typhon building the _Whorl_ as a hedge against the
failure of his plans for empire, then the irony is that his fall-back
position led ultimately to that failure. With the decline of the sun came
crop failures, a revolt of the masses, his desertion by his most trusted
lieutenants and, eventually, his death, alone, behind that curtain on the
mountain that bore his likeness.

-Roy


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