From: "Jeff Veyera" 
Subject: (urth) The Plan of Typhon/Pas and the Plausibility of Blue/Ushas
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 10:33:50 -0800


Roy wrote:


Rather than argue the nuts-and-bolts, let me address the thematic
objections. As you acknowledge, the galaxy had been conquered long ago by
the First Empire. The effect of Urth being turned into Ushas was largely
symbolic; it wasn't going to wipe out the human race. It was much too late
for that. The wounding of Urth's sun, whether directly by Typhon's actions
or as retribution for them, had no galaxy-wide ripple effect. Agents of the
Increate, judging from Apheta's testimony, were constrained, somewhat, by
the laws of physics from punishment en masse.

To credit the two-headed madman Sev met on the mountain in the Age of the
Monarch with building and launching the _Whorl_ with the intent of having it
return, a thousand years in the future, to restock the planet with the flora
and fauna and, especially, the people of old Urth, presupposes that Typhon
knew the future. More specifically, that Typhon knew that the Conciliator
would come, that the New Sun would supplant him, that all his works,
including his monumental carved mountain, would be drowned with little or no
trace remaining to show that he had ever existed. That is not the
megalomaniac I read about in NS. Typhon was a bad guy, not a savior. Typhon
was emblematic of the problem, not the solution.

Jeff responds:

Typhon DID know the Conciliator had come.  He met them, and certainly
witnessed the effect his "miracles" had on his subjects---some defected.
This is all covered in UotNS.

Is it possible that Typhon originally intended the Whorl to be a
starcrosser, reclaiming some aspects of his interplanetary empire, but
changed the Plan of Pas late in the game as he realized that the
Conciliator's claims regarding the Old Sun's demise and the coming of the
New Sun might well be true?  Typhon certainly might have had the wherewithal
to at least validate the Conciliator's claims of a black hole at the heart
of the Old Sun, even if he was originally unaware of it.

For Typhon, this might have been the ultimate last laugh on the rebels who
were defeating him:  they would triumph short-term, he in the long run.

I suspect it might even had to do with choosing a spot likely to survive the
coming deluge for his keep---once the waters receded, there was Typhon,
awaiting to be awakened by the Whorl cargo taught over centuries to worship
him as a god.

Is this not a fitting Plan of Pas?


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