Saturday 7 April 2018

Two Hundred Parsecs

"Sol, of course, was hidden from telescopes as well as from eyes, an insignificant yellow dwarf two hundred parsecs beyond that veil, which its light would never pierce. I wonder what's happening there, thought Tolteca. It's long since we had any word from Old Earth."
-Poul Anderson, The Night Face IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 541-660 AT I, p. 553.

The Terran Empire was four hundred light years in diameter, thus its furthest extremities were two hundred light years from Earth. One parsec is 3.26 light years. Thus, The Night Face is set about 450 light years beyond the furthest boundary of the long fallen Empire?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I had wondered how Gywdion could have so thoroughly lost contact with the rest of the human race even allowing for the disruptions caused by the Time of Troubles. One reason, of course, was its sheer DISTANCE from the nearest frontiers of the now fallen Empire.

At first sight, it seems odd that the colonists of Gwydion themselves did not resume contact with mankind and other star traveling races. The founding colonists must have had the space ships which brought them there and, presumable, the knowledge of how to build more once a sufficient industry had been built up. THE NIGHT FACE revolves around why that did not happen.

Sean