Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 07:22:55 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) finally - a mechanism

Here is a mechanism that we may want to look at for time travel:

Remember that when Fava and Inclito's mother tell their stories, the narrator 
has the ability to enter their story.  In other words, he can alter events 
that he hears about and use his "power" to enter the story.  He actually 
appears in Inclito's mother's story as a figure from her past, while he 
changes Fava's story.  I argue that his astral travel can be based off of 
something that he hears about - and that one of Typhon's big concerns when he 
scanned himself into mainframe was the conciliator, so that when Silk's spirit 
is reunited with his body from Pig at the very end of the flashback scenes of 
return to the whorl, it brings with it Pas' preoccupation with the figure of 
the Conciliator - and it also programs him with Typhon's obsession to meet and 
possibly influence the conciliator, sending Silk's spirit across time to find 
that man at his true birth - his baptism in the river.  If you want to argue 
that Severian was not dead at the exact first time that Silk appears, you have 
to factor in the very significant drowning in Gyoll that must be taking place 
EXACTLY as Silk appears in that time - the true birth (or death) of the 
Severian we know - and therefore the logical focal point for his 
vivimancer-hood.

There are several other options: that when the vanished people made Horn 
undergo the cleansing of the sewer, they were telling the cultural story of 
Severian : a man cleansed the detritus from this sewer of Urth and allowed a 
cleansing flush - which Silk could later use to travel to Urth and influence 
the story of that cultural, mythological icon - there are whole sections in 
the book about the formation of myth, etc.  SILK HAS THE POWER TO INFLUENCE 
OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES - AND THIS IS WHY LONG SUN IS ACCURATE - AND THIS IS 
WHY HE CAN SHOW UP AT AN IMPORTANT TIME FOR SEVERIAN IN THE PAST. He knows the 
important features of the tale of the conciliator - either through mainframe, 
through the ceremony of cleansing the sewers, or perhaps Rigolio has been 
imprinted with the task of killing the conciliator if he finds him.  I'll look 
again.

Marc Aramini



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