Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 01:38:54 -0500
From: Jeff Wilson 
Subject: RE: (urth) Thoughts on Undines, and other ramblings

>      From: 
>           "Robert Borski" 

> "The undines, as near as can be told, _are_ homo sapiens -- they are more
> advanced cases of the process to which Baldanders has been subjecting
> himself."
>
> Not sure I agree with this.

	There is precedent, with the royal jelly of the exultants.
 
> For starters the names "Juturna" and "Idas" derive from classical mythology,
> and if we adhere to Wolfe's rule of names--a rule I believe to be
> inviolable--such beings are aliens. Contrast this with "Baldanders," which
> comes to us from Borges via Grimelshausen--quite another kettle of fish in
> my opinion.

This would make Typhon an alien. While he =is= a tyrant from another
star, he's should be human as he is descended from emigrants of Urth
stock. 
 
> Idas, I've also argued before, may well be the daughter of Baldanders.
> Severian's first guess is that she's ten years old, which would make her the
> right age if Baldanders mated with Juturna after the Piteous Gate incident.

	I don't think literal human-alien hybrids "fit" the BotNS. Are there
any other examples of unaided cross-species mating?

> (This would also help explain why Baldanders can breathe
> underwater--Severian is offered the same gift for mating with Juturna. "You
> will breathe--by our gift--as easily as you breathe the thin, weak wind
> here.")

	But Baldanders is already established as being able to modify himself
to suit; he doesn't necessarily need their gift.

-- 
Jeff Wilson
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"If your SecOp can see you, so can the enemy." -Cpt Law


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