Subject: Re: (urth) Typhon's folly?
From: matthew.malthouse@guardian.co.uk
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 16:03:44 +0100

On 08/09/2003 06:52:33 "Andy Robertson" wrote:

>The Sun is rather bigger, of the order of a million miles across, 100 
times
>wider than the Earth.  No perceptable fraction of its energy could have 
been
>needed up to reshape the Whorl or indeed to vaporise it.

Roy suggests that Typhon's tampering might have done the damage - the 
means emplyoyed to draw off energy rather than the amount of energay 
actually utilised.

In the venerable tradition of SF wand waving say a "string" taking energy 
from the sun to your asteroid working facility.  Job done have  shutdown 
failure that collapses the string into a singularity.  Scientifically it's 
nonsense yet plausible with a vigorous enough wand.  In human terms it's 
entirely consistant with the type of mind that built nuclear power 
stations leaving shutdown and cleaning solutions to be developed when they 
might be required.

As a narrative I like the concept.  Within Wolfe's Urth I'd find it akward 
because it implies a technological sophistication that I don't believe 
Typhon had.

Matthew

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