Crankery Friday: After leaving Arbre, the Daban Urnud’s next encountered cosmos will be… Urnud
Starting a weekly feature: Crankery Friday. On Fridays, I’ll give a take that I either believe, or believed at one time, but where I don’t think my evidence could convince other people. Note that I regard these as crankery. You’re expected to balk, but maybe with a tickle in the back of your mind. Mostly, though, I present these to place my other posts in context, to demonstrate the reaches of the theory-space I’ve explored. Mostly, these should inspire pity for your poor author.
The inaugural Crankery Friday post will be: the next stop on the Daban Urnud will be a version of Urnud.
The structure of the “Local Group” of cosmi/Narratives is quintuple helix (or isomorphic to one). The Daban Urnud climbs up, encountering the next cosmos in the cluster. However, after all five worlds have been encountered, they loop back on each other. Thus, they will continue to encounter repeated versions of Urnud, Tro, Earth, Fthos, and Arbre, in order.
Why do I think this? Because of hints it’s following a wuxing structure:
What is wuxing?
It means “five agents” or “five processes.” Etymologically, it began in reference to the “five moving stars,” “moving star” meaning a planet—so five planets. Each agent has a color associated with it. Wood (really “tree”) and fire are typically grouped together, water and metal are grouped together, and earth is seen as transitional between them, or in balance.
How is wuxing relevant?
As the Daban Urnud climbs upwick, it works its way backward: from the water-world, Urnud, through the metal-world, Tro, the earth-world, Earth, the fire-world, Fthos, to the wood-world, Arbre.
Ask yourself:
How did the novel come to be in your hands? It presents information about the future of Earth; if that version of Earth is ours, how did the causality violation occur?
Why is it written to an Earth audience—using Greek and Latin roots to analogize the actual Orth etymology? Why not a Fthosian language, for example?
“It’s just a book,” you say. “Those choices make it legible in the real world, to sell copies.” To which I answer: Exactly.
Okay, we have the theory. What might help verify or falsify it?
World-agent mappings
Maybe if what few details we get about the other worlds seem more associated with their wuxing elements than the other four elements. Here’s the totality of the evidence:
"The four have been given provisional names," announced Zh'vaern. "Antarcts, Pangees, Diasps, and Quators."
This was the first and probably the last time Zh'vaern was going to get a laugh out of the table.
"They all sound vaguely geographical," said Suur Asquin, "but—?"
"Four planets are depicted on their ship," Zh'vaern continued. "This is clearly visible on Saunt Orolo's Phototype. A planet is depicted on each of the four vials of blood that came in the probe. People have given them informal names inspired by their geographical peculiarities."
"So—let me guess—Pangee has one large continent?" asked Suur Asquin.
"Diasp a lot of islands, obviously," put in Lodoghir.
"On Quator, most of the landmasses are at low latitude," Zh'vaern said, "and Antarct's most unusual feature is a big ice continent at the South Pole." Then, perhaps anticipating another correction from Barb, he added: "Or whichever pole is situated at the bottom of the picture."
(part 10, MESSAL, Lorite)
And:
The man turned sideways and extended an arm toward the circular bench. The robes unfurled and hung from his arm like a banner. They were mostly white, but elaborately decorated. I wanted to say that they were brocade or embroidery, but life among bolt-wearing ascetics had left me with a deeply impoverished vocabulary where the decorative arts were concerned, so I'll just say that they were fancy.
[…]
The man drew some notes from a pocket in his robe and consulted them from time to time as he delivered the following. "I am called Gan Odru. In the history of the Daban Urnud, I am the forty-third person to bear the title of Gan; Odru is my given name. The closest translation of Gan into Orth is 'Admiral.' This only approximates its meaning. … 'Gan' was the highest-ranking strategic officer, responsible for direction of a whole fleet, and reporting to civilian authorities, when there were any. Command of specific vessels was delegated by the Gan to tactical officers with the rank of Prag, or what you would call a captain. … The clothing that I wear is but little changed from the formal dress uniforms worn by the Gans of Urnud's ocean-going fleets thousands of years ago. Though, of course, they did not wear them aboard ship, since it is difficult to swim in robes."
(part 11, ADVENT, Harbinger)
And that’s everything from the book. Admittedly, Urnudans wearing white robes, a color the theory predicts should be associated with Tro, is a miss. But almost everything we learn about Urnud is related to their navy: clearly, water would hold a prominent place in their cultural consciousness.
As for the rest, it gets more tenuous. But Fthos, with its landmasses around the equator, would be hotter—a hit, albeit a weak one.
Fulcrum/Pedestal faction constituents
The faction alliances also map to the wuxing groupings:
"Good," said Jules Verne Durand, "for I am sorry to say that the ones of Urnud are a danger to you."
"And to you of Laterre as well, it would seem!" said Arsibalt. Since the doyns were all too speechless to rejoin the conversation, Arsibalt—who'd had time to prepare—was doing his bit to keep things going.
"It is true," said the Laterran. "I will tell you quickly that those of Urnud and of Tro—which you call Diasp—are of similar mind, and hostile to those of Fthos—which you call—"
"Quator, by process of elimination," said Lodoghir.
[…]
"What of you and your fellow Laterrans?" Lodoghir asked.
"Split between the Fthosians and the others."
(part 10, MESSAL, Syntactic Faculties)
Wuxing color-related clues
“Lament for the Third Sack,” referenced in the novel, is available at the Notes on Orth companion site. It begins:
Gold was the light that shone in the towers of Ethras,
Green was the mountain where Protas stood, alone with his thoughts,
White were the clouds that cast shade on the nourishing plain.
Black is the sky this day.
The plain flashes red.
Note that these are the same colors as Wuxing. I find that unlikely to be a coincidence.
I’ve grasped similar straws in the “overcoming” relationship: the metal rod, launched by the Daban Urnud at Arbre, scores a hit on Arbre (metal overcoming wood). Arbrans are the ones who unmask the Laterran Jules Verne Durand (wood overcoming earth). Jules Verne Durand then defects, and defeats the Urnudans (earth overcoming water).
Okay, enough wuxing. Got anything else?
The “Geometers” name is kind of a red herring, in that neither the proof, nor any other geometry, really comes up again with relation to the Daban Urnud.
The ship is an icosahedron. There are five platonic solids—tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron—and the icosahedron is the fifth and last. The Daban Urnud is on its fifth and last world!
In conclusion
All right, the level of “evidence” I’m suggesting at this point is undermining my “thesis,” so I’ll wrap it up. Pour one out for my sanity.