From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@sirius.com>
Subject: Re: (whorl) When did the Whorl arrive?
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 19:36:27 

Adam, quoting and quoted:
>> In OBW, the Rajan goes over some of the same stuff we've gone over with
>> regard to how Quetzal got onto the Whorl, that is, "in what year" and "by
>> what method."
>>
>> The Rajan ends by figuring that the Whorl must have been just hanging
>> around in the system for 100 years (detail also matches Pas's planned
>> timeframe, such as we know).  This means that the flight-time was only
>> around 200 years.
>
>But the 100 years is not the time the Whorl has been in the system, but
>the Rajan's guess at the interval between Whorl-Green conjunctions (and
>even this guess is based on the hypothesis that Quetzal flew to the
>Whorl during such a conjunction, which the Rajan apparently no longer
>regards as the most likely possibility).
>
>The Rajan's actual estimate of the length of time since Quetzal appeared
>on the Whorl, and hence the minimum time the Whorl has been in the
>system, is 68 years.

And I quote: "That [60 years of Q onboard] seemed rather short to me--I
would have imagined that such a rise [for Q within church] would require
fifteen years or more [and Q would have only seven years]" (OBW, p. 182).

And back in BOTLS:
"The way I see it, Pas was thinking mostly about the first two hundred
years.  Maybe the first two hundred and fifty" (LAKE, p. 235-6).

(I won't bore you with the other details--you would discount them faster
than you will this one!)

After looking at those numbers afresh, Gosh Adam, maybe you're right and
I've erred on the timid side--it could be 132 years since the Whorl arrived
at the Blue/Green system!  Or perhaps only 62 . . . well, we could take an
average.

Can't forget to add the Years of the Colony to all figures!

BOTLS :  year 332
BOTSS : Blue colony year 20 = whorl year 352

So that would be . . . 152 years ago, or only 82 . . .

(This has bearing re: apparant likelihood of Whorl conjuction from
perspective of year 352)

(332 - 132 =) year 200 Hammerstone's highball for Plan of Pas
(332 -  62 =) year 250 Hammerstone's lowball for Plan of Pas

Year 251: Jerboa born

(352 - 100 =) year 252 Horn's highball for being insystem
(352 -  68 =) year 284 Horn's practical limit for being insystem
(352 -  60 =) year 292 Horn's lowball for being insystem

Year 299: Q becomes P of Viron

Connection between "Plan of Pas" and "being insystem"?  Conjecture, surely.

We had precious few clues in BOTLS as to how long the Whorl =might= have
been just hanging around.  Believe It or Not: I wouldn't even factor it
(idle orbit) into the calculations on the travel of the Whorl.  Now Horn is
fooling around with it, and it seems rather like he is working in the same
area as the Hammerstone hint we had before.

Whatever.

=mantis=



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