Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 08:52:30 -0600
Subject: Re: (urth) Marc's smoking gun?
From: Adam Stephanides 

on 12/4/02 10:15 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at ddanehy@siebel.com wrote:

> How does the _Whorl_ wind up back at Ushas? How does so much
> time pass? What odd relativistic effects stretch the thousand
> years or so we have been talking about to many thousands, maybe
> millions?
> 
> Let's answer that question with another question: As the
> _Whorl_ was heading out from the Urth system, what major
> spacetime anomaly was heading _toward_ it ... ?
> 
> Hidden in plain sight. Marc, I hold the Blushas theory as
> fully plausible and highly probable. You da man.

I can't share Dan'l's enthusiasm; in fact, I see several strong objections
to this scenario, apart from Wolfe's words in the interview.

1)  The white hole, iirc, is a conduit of matter and/or energy from Yesod to
our universe of Briah.  There's no reason why flying into, or near, such an
object should cause the Whorl to leap ahead thousands or millions of years
in time while remaining in the same spatial position relative to Urth, but
turned in the opposite direction.

2)  This particular white hole emits enough energy to recharge the sun.
Flying into it would lead to incineration rather than time travel.  And
simply flying near it should be no different from flying near any heavy
body; after all the white sun passes close enough to Urth to cause
catastrophic tidal effects, without flinging Urth into the future.

3)  My recollection of the Long Sun books is sketchy, but there must have
been some sort of navigational system on board the Whorl.  If the events of
1) above had taken place, they would have been noticed, and the Whorl would
not have continued upon its way as if nothing had happened.  (One could
argue that the events were noticed, and the Whorl decided to abort its
journey and proceed to the nearest habitable system which just happened to
be Ushas; but this would contradict Wolfe's words even more strongly.)

--Adam


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