Spacefaring Diomedeans

 

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, VI.

A text informs Flandry:

"'As producers, merchants, engineers, industrialists, even occasional spacefarers, [the Drak'ho people] flourish, and are on the whole well content.'" (p. 427)

So some Diomedeans do go into space (see my question here) but it sounds like not in their own spacecraft. The raft-, then land-, dwelling Drak'ho can assimilate technology whereas the migratory Lannachska cannot without destroying their life-style. Hence, the problems on Diomedes. Poul Anderson seems to have imagined a fundamentally insoluble social conflict. "Alatanist" Diomedeans want to be accepted into the nearby Domain of Ythri - a mystique of winged beings - but few Ythrian leaders have heard of Diomedes and none want conflict with the Terran Empire. Narrative threads from The People Of The Wind and The Man Who Counts approach each other but then recede.