Many species become spacefarers. A few spacefaring species build interstellar realms, a long-drawn-out process that we see happen three times. The Terran Empire is proclaimed in "The Star Plunderer," grows in "Sargasso of Lost Starships" and The People of the Wind, is defended by Dominic Flandry in thirteen works and has fallen by "A Tragedy of Errors." Ythrians are planet-bound when first contacted by the Grand Survey in "Wings of Victory," have become interstellar travellers in "The Problem of Pain" and "Lodestar" and have built the Domain of Ythri by the time of The People of the Wind. Merseians are planet-bound when first contacted by the Grand Survey, have become interplanetary travellers in "Day of Burning," have become a growing threat in The People of the Wind and are an actual threat in Flandry's time. (The People of the Wind emerges as a major turning point which it is also on other grounds.)
Interstellar realms interact. Terran Empire and Ythrian Domain wage war in The People of the Wind but unite against Merseia in The Day of Their Return. The Dispersal of Ymir overlaps with the realms of oxygen breathing species because the Ymirites are hydrogen breathers who need Jovoid, not terrestroid, planets. In the Solar System, Jupiter is colonized by Ymirites and becomes part of the Dispersal whereas Mars is colonized by "Martians" and remains in the Solar Commonwealth, then the Terran Empire.
Gorzun/Gorrazan, part of the Baldic League which sacked Earth, builds a Realm that Chunderban Desai in the Imperial period dismisses as a mere remnant. Betelgeuse, a buffer state between Terra and Merseia, holds only a few nearby planetary systems for defensive purposes.
I think that that is a comprehensive report.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think most planets with intelligent life on are likely to have only one such species on them. Because evlutionary pressures and competition are probably going to result in one species or another eliminating possible rivals before reaching intelligence.
Starkad was different because the two races of that planet, Tigeries and Sea People, evolved and came to intelligence in such different environments that they seldom interacted with each other till after reaching intelligence. That's what I think, anyhow.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean,
I remember that, in THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER, Jupiter was so big that, when an invasion fleet approached, it was realized that the invaders were of a different species that had evolved separately on another part of the planet.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot about THREE WORLDS TO CONQUER. What Anderson speculated about there might be possible if a planet is big enough.
Merry Christmas! Sean
For a long time, there were always different subspecies and indeed species of hominins occupying this planet.
Then we came along... 8-).
More particularly, then behaviorally modern human beings came along. After that, other hominins declined at an accelerating rate. The situation that had been roughly stable for around 2,000,000 years ended in about 40,000.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I should have thought of that. And I'm sorry the Neanderthals died out. We see Neanderthals in Anderson's "The Long Remembering," and a half Neanderthal in "The Nest." And we see even earlier hominins in "The Little Monster."
One reason I so enjoyed your two Lords of Creation books was because of how you showed us what different kinds of humans might be like in THE SKY PEOPLE and IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS.
I did think you were too hard on the Neanderthals we see on Venus in THE SKY PEOPLE. I don't think the real Neanderthals were as stupid and brutish as depicted in your book.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean: you don't see them through their own eyes, thought... 8-).
And there is substantial evidence for Neanderthal cannibalism. If there's evidence of it that's survived this long, it was probably quite common.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True. I can only fantasize about Neanderthals. I'm not A Neanderthal, even if I have a smidgen of remote Neanderthal ancestry.
Considering how badly Homo sapiens can behave I'm not surprised there were Neanderthal cannibals. Plenty of "modern" men were also cannibals. And some nations and tribes, like the Aztecs and Caribs, made a regular practice of eating people.
And of course Anderson examined cannibalism and what can cause it in "The Sharing of Flesh."
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean: I suspect, though I can't prove, that Neanderthals just regarded hominids outside their own immediate kin-group as animals like any other. Neanderthal populations were very sparse and their immediate social groups quite small, compared to humans.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
If so, not a wise way for Neanderthals to think! It could have led to small Neanderthal kin groups hunting each like beasts--and reducing still more those sparse populations. And mking it much easier for modern humans to sweep them aside.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Kaor, Sean, Mr. Stirling, and Paul!
And anyone else who’s reading. I don’t claim that Neanderthals were all sweetness and light, but I do recall a recent article reporting on the genetic analysis of several Neanderthals. The father was genetically close to other Neanderthals at that site, while the mother (based on her genes, or the non-paternal genes of one or more children) was not, indicating that women could come from another band with a different territory. Also, I recall KINDRED, by Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, which acknowledges that several Neanderthal skeletal remains appear to indicate cannibalism, but that the great majority do not. Also, Neanderthals used stone that had come from many days’ travel away, indicating either lengthy journeys through the territories of other bands, or else trade and inter-band socializing.
It isn’t clear that Neanderthals were more brutish, or more inclined to see everyone outside their immediate kin-group as enemies or prey, than our own breed. Granted, that isn’t very high praise.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
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