From: matthew.malthouse@guardian.co.uk
Subject: Re: (whorl) Neighbor "Horn"
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 12:12:38 +0000



On 09/01/2002 10:23:43 maa32 wrote:

>  I will no longer talk about Blue as Ushas or Green as Lune
>because I have satisfied myself that I have met every complaint against it and
>now Occam demands that the idea that there are two solar systems instead of
>one be thrown out. I'm very proud of myself.

Sure.  Chuck the firecracker through the mail box and run away.

You haven't addressed what we know (explicitly, not by assumption or guesswork)
of Typhon/Pas and the origin of the whorl.

In brief:

Typhon was forced back to Urth having lost an empire.  He despises the near
forgotten home of Man and is using it only as as retrenchment from which he
intends to regain what he has lost.

He believes that he can be immortal.

His resources are immesne, but not what were available to him before coming to
earth.  The (for want of a better word) galactic technology is part of what has
been taken from him in his previous defeat.  I make this point because mcuh of
what we see in the Whorl is sophicticated concepts achieved by crude means.

Thus:

Launch the Whorl and place his avatar in command.  Quite thorough measures were
taken to ensure both the obedience and continuity of the internal population and
had not the plan been disrupted there should have been established a colony both
thriving and conditioned to obedience to him and his family.  Ripe to bolster
his recreation of a human empire in space.

As a man anticipating (but not yet having achieved) indefinately long life his
plans are cast into a time scale of hundreds of years - 300 internaly for the
relatavistic Whorl, 1000 externally.  He has no need to send into or attempt
conquest of "the future": he's planning for the now and the next - he fully
intends to experience the future by being it's imortal emperor.

This satisfies:

The internal chronolgy of the Whorl. The contemporanity of Horn's astral travel
and Severian's Nessus. Typhon's motivations.

And does so most elegantly only if the Whorl really travels in space and
Blue/Green are distinct from Urth/Lune.


Matthew