[H]

Interlude: Ishuäl:

"One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten," he says, reciting a proverb she has heard before. "And nothing is so forgotten as Ishuäl. For two thousand years it has survived—in the very shadow of Golgotterath, no less!"

Indded, as has been speculated, the prologue's quote is about defending Earwa against the Dûnyain.

The Qirri again, she realizes. She avoids all thought of what the ash might be doing to her child.

I wonder too.

At last they find themselves staggering across sloping moraine, the glacier rearing enormous blue beneath a flaring Nail of Heaven.

I think it's been remarked on before, but Earwa has no moon, seemingly.  I doubt if it really is important though.

Its once grand bastions overturned. Its curtain walls struck to their foundations.
Another dead place.

I am kind of coming to think that it was the Consult who did it.  But I also think that there was no one there when they did.  Where did the Dûnyain go?  That it probably the next leg of Akka's journey...

[Somnambulist]

Quick aside about the moon.  I thought there was no moon, as well.  However, on about my third read of TWP, I think Akka mentions something about the moon.  Sorry, will come back later with a reference.  I wonder if it simply has an orbit such that it's only visible on rare occasions.  But then that would mean when it is visible, it would remain so for longer.  Or it has a strange orbital path.  So, I obviously just demonstrated my total lack of astrophysical knowledge.

EDIT:  Just did a search for moon in TWP, and it actually came back with 30 hits.  A lot of them reference moon-lit and moonlight, and a couple are in direct reference to 'the moon', so Earwa does have one.  Seems like no-one really pays much attention to it, though. Interesting.

[H]

Hmm, yeah, you are right.

There still is a curiosity as to what the Nail of Heaven is.  A new celestial body, that has dwindled in intensity over the years.

I have no idea why I didn't think of it before, but the Nail is a Pole star, but it is a supernova.  I've said before, what if it was the star where the Inchoroi came from?  Alternately, what does it mean that their pole star is dead?  There is something to this and I'm sure it has to do with the coming of the Inchoroi, but I just don't know what...

[Blackstone]

Hmm, yeah, you are right.

There still is a curiosity as to what the Nail of Heaven is.  A new celestial body, that has dwindled in intensity over the years.

I have no idea why I didn't think of it before, but the Nail is a Pole star, but it is a supernova.  I've said before, what if it was the star where the Inchoroi came from?  Alternately, what does it mean that their pole star is dead?  There is something to this and I'm sure it has to do with the coming of the Inchoroi, but I just don't know what...

Yeah, this is definitely one of the mysteries that I want answered. I think it's some sort of artificial object in geosynchronous orbit. Not every description of it make it out to be more than a star (depending on interpretation) but I definitely think there are descriptions that make it sound like much more than a star. It gives off a tremendous amount of light in some descriptions (as much as a moon it seems). Perhaps it is some sort of power station that absorbs solar radiation and beams it down to the Inchoroi ship.

[Somnambulist]

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.

[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]

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.

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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