Earwa > The Almanac: TAE Edition

The Slog WLW - Interlude: Ishuäl [Spoilers]

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themerchant:
Yeah a supernova wouldn't look that way, or at least what I understand about them, which isn't much,My undergraduate was in Physics but all that did was show me i know nothing really about Physics.

I did get a lecture on supernova from a guy who worked with Hans Bethe on Supernova and from my recollection of that (it was november 2001) it doesn't sound like one.

H:

--- Quote from: Somnambulist on April 22, 2016, 04:41:39 pm ---In the 'False Sun' appendices (or notes at the bottom, whatever), the Nail is given a Cunuroi name which means the 'Newborn' (or something like that).  That would suggest the star didn't exist before a specific time, but did after.  So, it wasn't a star that went nova (a dim star to a bright star), but rather a 'star' that didn't exist which suddenly did.  Of course, the star could have been too far from Earwa to have been visible before it went nova, thus appearing to have... appeared (ahem) out of nowhere.  I've always found it strange that this 'Newborn' star is the pivot around which all the other stars wheel.  Again with the astrophysics...

EDIT: Also, according to a google search (take that for what it's worth), at best a supernova would be visible for a few months, gradually losing the intensity of its brightness over time.  So probably not a supernova, since the nonmen observed and named it thousands of years in the past.
--- End quote ---

Yeah, point taken.  The fact that the stars revolve around it does imply that it is a pole star, at least from what I can understand of it.

Indeed, the whole "Newborn" is confusing.  For some reason, I had it in my mind that at some point Akka remarks how the Nail used to be brighter in his dreams, but I can't find it, so I must have imagined it.

I feel little doubt though that the appearance of the Nail and the coming of the Inchoroi are not somehow linked though.

Somnambulist:
I absolutely agree that the Nail is linked to the arrival of the Inchoroi.  I think the comment from Akka you may be remembering has one to do with the height of the Nail in the sky.  The farther north they travel, the higher it appears in the sky, which is how it would have appeared to the Norsirai.  In the Three Seas, it's lower to the horizon (curvature of the earth and all that).  The fact it occupies the 'pole' position (pun!) is definitely interesting, but specific reasons for that elude me.  If it is Inchoroi related, it has some equally opaque function.  Some kind of artifact as the result of their particular method of space travel?  The remnant of the last world they visited? Kind of has a Biblical feel to it, pointing the way to some (terrible) truth or something. And I'm going off the rails.

H:
I think you are pretty on the rails, actually.  No doubt there is some biblical connotation there, but like a lot of Bakker's biblical allusions, they don't really elucidate anything, per se, just create something we recognize are important/familiar/meaningful while not really bringing us closer to an answer.

Bolivar:
I read a couple things suggesting the Nail might be a pole star. For one, they change. There was a different pole star before Polaris and another will eventually take its place. That might be why Nonmen referred to it as the Newborn. They also change in intensifying, as Polaris is supposedly brighter today than when it was first observed. So it would make sense if H is right that it was dimmer in Akka's dreams.

However, from what I understand stars aren't normally visible during the day. Apparently it takes really great eyesight under really great conditions - not constantly shining like the Nail does in Earwa. For this reason I lean toward it being an artificial satellite, also because of the significance in Inrithism, alleging that Sejenus "ascended" to it.

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