Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 18:25:17 -0700
Subject: Re: (urth) Typhon's folly?
From: Don Doggett 


On Sunday, September 7, 2003, at 10:48 PM, Roy C. Lackey wrote:



    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.
>
On Monday, September 8, 2003, at 05:48 AM, Andy Robertson wrote:

> Nontheless, I really think we are missing something here.
>
> Wolfe talks at one point of "local"  "solar" and "galactic" levels of
> technology, right?
>
> I think the fundamental significance of the Whorl is that it is a
> starcrosser built be "solar" technology.  It does not have the almost
> existential structure and function of the Ship.  It is complex and 
> full of
> wheels, not simple enough for a star-sailor to handle.   It is bounded
> within the world of relativity, where events must follow one sequence 
> (for
> Wolfe clearly understands that FTL = time machine and therefore that 
> the
> Ship can travel back and forth in time).
>
> In Wolfe, technology always has a symbolic function.    The "galactic"
> levels of tech actually merge into the machineries of the Increate.   
> The
> failure of Typhon to attain this level of being is signalled by the 
> flaws
> and malfunctions of his creation.
>
>

Don adds:
I think Roy is right but not quite in the way he intended.  Typhon did 
cause the black hole through his misuse of solar technology but it was 
the hieros  I think who put it there in order to punish his hubris and 
protect their interests.  A dying sun won't build a solar powered 
empire and the symbolic effects would be devastating.  As they 
obviously were.


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