The Contradiction Again II

See The Contradiction Again.

Sometimes when I am about to leave the house for some reason, I publish a very short post instead of waiting and publishing a longer one later. Hence, a short objection to Sundaram's thought about annulling the past. His immediately following sentence is:

"Can it be the act of a Providence that nowhere does starfaring go on for very long?" (p. 326)

What does this mean? Interstellar travel, at least with the zero-zero drive, might upset a cosmic energy balance and thus cause the universe to cease to exist? Therefore, it might be providential that such travel never lasts for very long? OK, so far.

But remember that what Sundaram is saying is that, if interstellar travel lasts for too long a time, then the universe will never have existed and therefore interstellar travel will have lasted for zero time! Contradiction.

Jean Kilbirnie reasons:

Tahirian "conservatives" oppose change (so far, that is a tautology);

interstellar travel inevitably brings massive changes;

therefore, the "conservatives" oppose interstellar travel;

therefore, they rationalize their opposition to interstellar travel by convincing themselves that such travel threatens the universe - and even threatens the past!

Yes, conservatives would be horrified by an imagined threat to their past.

Poul Anderson is demonstrating that intelligent beings are capable of rationalizing their defence of the status quo with irrational ideas.

The Contradiction Again

Starfarers, 35.

Sundaram thinks:

"...the senseless random accident will happen, the cosmos and its glories lose the energy that has upheld them and fall into an oblivion that annuls the very past." (p. 326)

He thinks that, although he exists and thinks here and now, it might later become the case that he had not existed or thought here and now. No! His thought should end: "...and fall into oblivion." That makes sense. Why add a contradiction? This bugs me. There is no need for it.

Thy Will

 

Starfarers, 34.

Alvin Brent:

"'Men, real men and women, they don't tamely whine, "Thy will be done." They fight back." (p. 321)

(A Biblical quotation.)  

A James Blish character with some limited knowledge of the future says:

"'To Whom it may concern: Thy will, not mine.'"

-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1973), CHAPTER TEN, p. 119.

I can join in the agnostic prayer: "To Whom it may concern..."

Best surely is the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; 
and wisdom to know the difference.

Snow

Starfarers, 31-32.

When Envoy returns from the neutron star to Tahir:

"The first snow lay crisp around the landing field. It sparkled white, blue in its hollows, broken by shrubs which it dusted with diamond. Air rested cold and still." (p. 292)

It seems that nature is neither threatening nor celebrating but waiting.

"Heavy snowfall and the silence it brought laid an air of solemnity on the meeting room. Colors and ornaments seemed unreal." (p. 297)

Even more so. The crew must decide whether to return to Earth immediately or to make another long trip to investigate intelligences at a black hole. This decision is bitterly disputed and will generate further conflict. Solemnity is appropriate.

Moses Figures And Political Parties

Robert Heinlein's Future History has two Moses figures. DD Harriman opens the "Promised Land" of space but cannot go there himself for health reasons and dies on the Moon when he finally does get there in retirement. Lazarus Long leads his people, the Howard Families, to freedom on their exodus out of the Solar System. In Poul Anderson's Starfarers, Alvin Brent probably sees himself as returning:

"...to Earth like Moses down from Mount Sinai, prophet and leader." (32, p. 301)

- but that will not happen.

Larry Niven's Piersson's Puppeteers have two political parties, Conservatives and Experimentalists. Conservatives win elections except during crises. Anderson's Tahirians have "conservatives" and "adventurers" in a consensus society. When adventurers accompany human beings on dangerous missions to a neutron star and a black hole, conservatives impose observers. This is not opposed.

Please accept brevity. Life continues here.

Weather

Starfarers, 30.

When Yu comes to tell Sundaram about the threat to reality, there is appropriate weather: rain, wind, lightning and thunder. When she enters and closes the door, a gust tries to seize it. When it has become clear that she has something terrible to relate, wind hoots. When he holds her hand, it is colder than that external weather. When he protests that living beings, less than dust motes, cannot menace creation, lightning blazes, darkness returns and thunder sounds like monstrous wheels. (Thor?) When she has explained more and he sits mute, rain slashes and wind keens.

This weather is the continual backdrop to the discussion summarized in the two previous posts. My summary is a mixture of paraphrase and quotation. Of course I urge blog readers to read or reread Poul Anderson's text.

Unstable State II

Please read An Unstable State first. 

After "'...- blotting them out -...," Yu adds:

"'...the past itself annulled, and we not only cease to be, we never were.'" (p. 290)

But they are - otherwise she could not be saying this - so how can it later become true that they never were? 

It is logically consistent to state that:

(i) from time t0 to time t1, the universe exists but, at time t1, the universe ceases to exist;

- but it is logically inconsistent to state that:

(ii) from time t0 to time t1, the universe exists but, at time t1, the universe not only ceases to exist but also ceases to have existed from t0 to t1.

(ii) implies that, just before t1, it is true to say, "The universe has existed since t0," but that, at t1, it is true to say, "The universe has not existed since t0." That is a contradiction.

This is the kind of contradiction that arises when discussing time travel. Of course it is logically possible that:

there is a Timeline A in which the universe exists from t0 to t1;

there is a Timeline B in which the universe does not exist from t0 to t1 - although that does not pose any threat to inhabitants of Timeline A whose only concern should be the cessation of their universe at their t1;

Timeline B succeeds Timeline A along a second temporal dimension.

All that we need to add is a time traveller disappearing from A and appearing in B and we have now transformed this scenario into a time travel one. To recapitulate this latter kind of scenario:

in Timeline C, I am born and exist until I die;

in Timeline D, my birth is prevented by a time traveller from Timeline C so that I do not exist and therefore do not cease to exist in Timeline D;

that time traveller has experienced me existing, then me not existing, so he might think and claim that I have ceased to exist;

however, I have ceased to exist neither in Timeline C nor in Timeline D;

I have ceased to exist in the second temporal dimension in which D succeeds C;

there is no Timeline E in which I am not born but nevertheless exist, then cease to exist, in adulthood;

we just need to remember that, in the Time Patrol's Temporal language, there is more than one past tense.

Yu talks about a sphere of nothingness expanding outward from a particular point at the speed of light. Therefore, until that sphere reaches any other point, that other point does exist.

An Unstable State

Starfarers, 30.

OK. I think that there is an incoherence/absurdity/contradiction here but also that it could be removed from the text by the deletion of a single phrase, not even a full sentence. Then everything else would be able to remain as it is.

Yu Wenji, the engineer, refers to:

"'...the lowest energy level, the ground state.'" (p. 290)

She differentiates this lowest level from a higher level which is:

"'The unspent energy, the substrate, we borrow from it for our zero-zero drive.'" (ibid.)

Yu and Ajit Nathu Sundaram, the linguist and semantician, then discuss what they call "'...the state...'" (ibid.) I think that they are referring to the substrate, not to the ground state. In any case, what Yu says about this "state" is as follows:

"'The state can change. Collapse, fall down. Spontaneously, randomly, at any time, any point... A sphere of nothingness, expanding from that point at the speed of light, swallowing stars, galaxies, life - blotting them out -...'" (ibid.)

If she had stopped there, then her thesis would have remained coherent. And that would have been a big enough problem for the characters to worry about. The crucial point is that, according to an obscure interpretation of the Tahirian grand equation, the use of the zero-zero drive increases the chance of the state collapsing. So should human beings cease their zero-zero interstellar travel as the Tahirians and some other races have already done?

If we, just for a moment, skip past Yu's phrase that I find problematic, she continues:

"'It may already have happened somewhere. It may be on its way to us. We'll never know.'" (ibid.)

No incoherence yet but we have to turn back to that phrase that I have jumped over but I need a food break first, hoping that the universe will still exist when I  return.

Sanity

Starfarers, 30.

Some Tahirians wonder whether mankind is sane. Ruszek responds:

"('Maybe we aren't. By your standards, at least.')" (p. 284)

(The brackets remind readers that conversation is not through speech but through artificially produced screen symbols and sounds.)

Ruszek's qualification, "By your standards...," is an important one. Human beings themselves differ tremendously as to what constitutes sane behaviour. 

He continues:

"'We are what we are, whatever it may be, and I'll stick to that.'" (ibid.)

(Like a time traveller in "Flight to Forever" saying that he likes his neuroses. See here.)

Again, human beings differ. Some stand by what they are. Fred Hoyle wrote in The Nature Of The Universe that he was "an unrepentant sinner." However, many - and this also is part of what we are - perceive a need for change within themselves. We are "sinners" (Christian) or motivated by "greed, hate and delusion" (Buddhist) or by "ignorance" (Vedantist). Many of our actions are "sinful" or, and I prefer this terminology, "wrong." What is to be done about this? We do not need a sermon or a lecture from me here. But, if I met the Tahirians or any other intelligent species, then I would hope to learn from them, not just to stand by what humanity already is!

(When major work is being done in the house, we vacate it for the day so there has not been much blogging today.) 

Future Post-History

Starfarers, 27.

Sundaram on the Tahirians:

"'I do not think we can properly call this a conservative society, like old China or old India. That is too weak a word. I think it is posthistoric. It has renounced change in favor of a stable order that apparently provides universal peace, plenty, and justice.'

"'Or so they tell us, if we understand them rightly,' [Yu] replied." (pp. 258-259)

Yu makes two important qualifications: so they tell us; if we understand them.

But what do we think of Sundaram's assessment? It is impossible to renounce change since life is change. Justice and peace go together. Plenty is a material basis for stability. Maintenance of a natural and social environment can be a basis not for mere stasis but instead for maximum individual freedom and development. 

Renouncing change in favour of peace is a false dichotomy. Peace is parodied as mere stasis. Individuals and communities living in peace, free from outmoded conflicts, can be dynamic and creative and can set out to explore and understand the universe. They should not be passive recipients but active participants in peace, plenty and justice.

Yu half-heartedly defends what Sundaram describes:

"'Would it be tragic, actually? Not an eternity of boredom or anything like that. The riches and beauty of the world, the treasures of the past, aren't they new to every newborn? A lifetime isn't long enough to know and savor them all. And there can still be new creations. Ancient, fixed modes, I suppose, but new poems, pictures, stories, music.'" (p. 259)

Not boredom? We can do better than that! Yes, everything is new to every newborn and a single short lifetime is not long enough. Yes, there can be new creations but why only in ancient, fixed modes? Why start a discussion by conceding half the argument to the deniers of change?

Sundaram replies:

"'I doubt that the likes of Ricardo Nansen or Jean Kilbridie will agree. For that matter, I doubt that every Tahirian is content with things as they are.'" (ibid.)

Of course Nansen, Kilbridie and some Tahirians will disagree but they will just argue the other side of the false dichotomy, that we must choose between peace and change.

Thunder And Wind

Starfarers, 28-29. 

"Summer heat lay on the settlement like a weight. Forest stood windless, listless beneath a leaden overcast. Thunder muttered afar." (p. 264)

Pathetic fallacy: windlessness means eventlessness but muttering thunder threatens something. Sure enough, when a Tahirian relates something that shakes Nansen:

"Thunder rolled closer." (p. 266)

The conversation is about reasons why civilized species cease starfaring. When two other characters broach this topic:

"'...society went more and more conservative for a variety of reasons. Although -'

"The wind shrilled. 'Yes?' prompted Nansen after several seconds.

"'I don't know,' he heard the trouble in her voice. 'Something else in the equations -...'" (p. 273)

The text is building up to something and the sound-effects of thunder and wind help. My problem is that, from what I remember, the big reveal, when it comes, will not make sense but let's read on with open minds.

JOB In FURY And STARFARERS

On the same day, we read:

"His bones are full of the sins of his youth, which shall lie down in the dust. Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth...-JOB."

-Fury, PART I, p. 83.

"O might and mystery! Out of the whirlwind, God speaks to Job!"

-Starfarers, 28, p. 260.

The might, mystery and whirlwind are encountered at a pulsar of which more later. 

At its core, neurons fuse into hyperons... Incandescent gaseous iron atmosphere only a few centimeters high. Hundreds of spins per second. Magnetic field capturing interstellar matter and accelerating it out at near light speed. Radio beacon detectable across the galaxy. The whirlwind. God speaks...? At least the forces that form this universe do.

Wind And A Pulsar

There are several more Biblical references in Fury. You just have to keep reading.

Meanwhile, back in Starfarers, 26:

"Mokena gathered her words as she walked. The wind shrilled." (p. 245)

Shrilling wind indicates that there will be difficulties in what is to be said. If four crew members travel in Envoy to explore a nearby pulsar, then the other six will be left on Tahir and will be stranded there if Envoy fails to return. And why do most Tahirians seem to dread a return to starfaring? The artificial human-Tahitian language needs another year to become fully useable. Predictably, the human explorers remain surrounded by more that is unknown than known. What is certain is that a spaceship crew that traverses five thousand light years will discover at its destination phenomena that are not observable from the Solar System. So a fictional account that did not introduce anything new would be both wrong and inauthentic. We must rely on the author's creative imagination - scientifically informed, of course.

"Immortals" On Venus

 

Fury, PART I.

"'I offer not peace, but a sword,' he said." (p. 43)

Biblical and the first one that I have noticed so far.

In the 1960's, my attention was on the facts that these characters were in the future, on Venus, at the bottom of a sea, with wild animals and plants fighting on the continent above them. Now I realize that a lot of the texts is about interactions between the characters.

These "Immortals" do not live indefinitely but do remain youthful for several centuries. Kuttner shows us how this enables them to learn and to solve problems, sometimes just by waiting:

"This too, will pass." (p. 47)

Thus, we can compare this work with those by Heinlein, Anderson and Blish that we have previously discussed.

As ever in American sf, renewed interplanetary travel, to be followed by interstellar, is put forward as a future goal.

Ad astra and all that.

Tahirian Evolution

Starfarers, 26.

Tahirians evolved in response to a turbulent environment. Rank in their dominant hierarchy is gained by contribution to the group, not by conflict between individuals. Solitary individuals are rare and usually pathological. Basic units are clans, not families. Much language is somatic and chemical so empathy is natural. There is only one sex but a couple copulates by exchanging fluids through the mouth: unique in two senses.

The Tahirians ceased interstellar travel for a number of reasons which might include:

"'...something terrible, to retreat and hide from...'" (p. 242)

This is elucidated later in the novel. I will have to reread to that point to get the details right. However, I do remember something. There is some to my mind incoherent discussion of present events not only affecting but even negating past events: not time travel but one of the issues that can arise with time travel. We will look at it again when it comes around.

The Queen Of Air And Darkness

 

Fury, PART I.

For no clearly discernible reason the following verse interrupts the text:

"The Queen of Air and Darkness

"Begins to shrill and cry,

"O young man, O my slayer,

"Tomorrow you shall die..." (p. 27)

Poul Anderson fans responds in two ways. First, we remember Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness." (See here.) Secondly, we google "The Queen of Air and Darkness" to learn what else comes up. See here and here.

I had known of The Once And Future King but not that its second volume was entitled The Queen Of Air And Darkness. Thus, I have now learned where Anderson got this title from.

Works Of God

Starfarers, 24.

When Zeyd has established that the Tahitians' antennae are compasses, he comments:

"'Manifold are the works of God.'" (p. 230)

We are so used to Biblical quotations that we might think that we have found another one. But it is not inside quotation marks, other than Zeyd's. And he is Muslim. But is the phrase scriptural, i.e., in this case, Koranic?

In a Manchester gurdwara, my host, Daljit Singh, confused me no end by referring to "the Bible." When questioned, he explained that he was using the to me familiar term, "Bible," to refer to the Sikh scripture which is called the Granth. I explained that "scripture" is the generic term and that "Torah," "Bible," "Koran," "Granth," "Veda," "Gatha," "Avesra," "Sutra" etc are the specific terms.

In any case, when I googled that phrase, "Manifold are the works of God," there were no results. It is so good to be able to check so easily. The phrase is simply dialogue attributed by Poul Anderson to his character and, if there is such a verse anywhere in the world's scriptures, then it is too obscure to come up in a google search.

Some Familiar Ideas

Fury.

Human beings are living on Venus because:

"Science had perfected interplanetary travel and had destroyed Earth..."

-INTRODUCTION, p.5.

Sf futures in which Earth, or at least life on it, has been destroyed but human beings survive elsewhere:

After Doomsday by Poul Anderson;

a short story by John Wyndham which I have seen televised although I do not know the title!

(We often remember ideas from sf stories without remembering titles or authors. CS Lewis thanked unknown authors for ideas - and had an oceanic Venus.)

The surface of Venus is going through the "fury" of its Jurassic so people live under domes on the bottom of shallow seas. We need hardly list authors, including Poul Anderson, who imagined seas on Venus or indeed authors, including Anderson, who imagined a bone dry Venus. A Venus at an earlier stage of evolution is also a familiar idea although it did not occur to me in the 1960's to question whether planetary evolutions should parallel each other. In those days, not being scientifically oriented, I just accepted whatever ideas any given author presented.

There are mutants with a life-expectancy of two to seven hundred years. We have recently discussed works by Heinlein, Anderson and Blish in which such longevity exists. But why should such a mutation have occurred at the time when human beings have had to migrate to Venus? Again, "mutant" was one of those ideas that sf authors could arbitrarily draw upon.

Addendum: The mutations were caused by radiation on Earth. See also Poul Anderson, Twilight World.

FURY

In the 1960's, when I was at school, I read a lot of sf paperbacks including ones by Poul Anderson although he was not yet a favourite. He is now, In some cases, I wanted to read every work by a particular author, e.g., Asimov, Blish, Heinlein and Simak. Anderson was not yet on that list. He is now. In other cases, I knew of an author only by a single work, e.g., Henry Kuttner, Fury; Ward Moore, Bring The Jubilee. 

I have a copy of the Mayflower-Dell Paperback Fury, 1963, that I had then. See image. It cannot be the same copy if only because this one is stamped "Market Bookstall, Lancaster." (That alone dates it considerably even within Lancaster.) However, I do not remember rereading this novel since the 1960's. 

My current questions are:

How does this novel by Henry Kuttner measure up to what Anderson and others were writing back then?

What will I think about the novel if I reread it now?

We recognized and took for granted some common ideas among sf writers. For example, Fury is about:

"...Sam Reed, an Immortal."

-Groff Conklin, FOREWORD IN Henry Kuttner, Fury (London, 1963, reissued June 1966), p. 5.

So how will Kuttner's "Immortal" compare with those of Anderson and others?

I remember that the INTRODUCTION began:

"It was white night on Earth..." (p. 3)

(Why "white"?)

- and that the EPILOGUE consisted of two words:

"Sam woke -" (p. 190)

We might post about Fury while continuing to reread Anderson's Starfarers and also, in my case, to reread yet again Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.

Laters.

"God" II

The Eriau phrase, "the God," implies that the supreme being is a person but that there is no personal relationship with Him. "God" has not become a name. However, we know that the Vachs offer Secret Prayers and that Ydwyr the Seeker has a shrine. But we do not know the content of the prayers, whether they are petitionary etc, or the nature of the shrine. We do not know enough about Roidhunate religion and there are parts that we are not meant to know. Djana's vision of a Merseian Christ is her Catholic upbringing speaking.

The "God the Hunter" of the Ythrian New Faith is just a supernatural predator but Ythrians honour Him by giving Him a good fight so maybe He has a personal aspect.

The Gwydiona feel God, or so they think, but it turns out that they are relapsing into insanity, not experiencing transcendence.

"God"

In Poul Anderson's Technic History:

Eriau-speaking Merseians are quoted as referring to "the God";

Planha-speaking Ythrians are quoted as referring to "God the Hunter";

Gwydiona, speaking a post-Anglic human language, refer to "God."

In each case, a word in another language is being translated by the English word, "God," which minimally implies the highest transcendence, so let's sort out "God" - I mean the word, not the being or reality!

My deliberations on the philosophy of religion yield the following results:

natural forces like weather and social forces like war were personified as gods;

thus, gods were superhuman persons controlling aspects of the environment;

"God" came to mean a single supreme person controlling everything.

If there are two or more men, then they have to be differentiated as John, James etc whereas, if there were only one man, then he could be referred to indifferently as "John" or as "Man" and the personal name might cease to be used. Similarly, with gods and "God." (However, there are traditions in which a particular name for the single deity remains significant.)

To continue:

visionary experience is of projected visions - of gods, God or other supernatural beings;

numinous experience is of an awesome presence;

mystical experience is of inner oneness;

these are three kinds of religious experience;

the object of religious experience is identified with gods or God but can also be regarded as impersonal - or "transpersonal" if that term can be given any meaning;

thus, "God" can mean either a transcendent person or a transcendent state although it is preferable to avoid ambiguity;

the Gwydiona usage implies a state;

"God" is either a supreme being or ultimate reality regarded as a person;

of any alleged being, we can ask whether such a being exists whereas we cannot really ask whether reality exists, only what it is like;

I do not believe either that a supreme being exists or that ultimate reality is a person;

however, I acknowledge that there is an ultimate reality and that there are experiences of transcendence;

a person is a self-conscious individual;

self is recognized as such only by contrast with other;

therefore, the single reality incorporates all persons but is not itself a person;

it is "God" as the object of religious experience but not as a transcendent person.

More later.

Centauroids

Starfarers, 24.

A mythological centaur is the top half of a human body on the front of a horse's body. The Tahirians are at least "centauroids" because they have four legs, two arms and a head. Apart from that, Poul Anderson tries to make them sound alien. We are dismayed to read about:

"...two elliptical eyes..." (p. 212)

- but then we read:

"...-presumably eyes -..." (ibid.)

- and also that there is another pair of eyes, large and circular.

Two black and two green with neither whites nor pupils. There are also antennae with clustered cilia.

Of the eyes, the inner black pair might be for day vision, the others for night and peripheral vision. Bones perform the role of teeth. Four small tongues might be chemosensors.

Anderson is trying but he has taken a basically terrestroid organismic form, then changed details like the number of pairs of eyes and tongues.

Until late tomorrow or the day after.

Laters.

(I wanted the cover of a Mike Carey Lucifer comic with a woman centaur but couldn't find it online.)

Human-Tahirian Communication

Starfarers, 23.

Engineer Yu Wenji produces a hand-held device. A horizontal section has a control board and guidelines while a longer vertical section has screens showing moving characters on its front and back and also produces sounds. The devices can be operated by human or Tahirian fingers although the latter seem flexible and boneless like elephants' trunks. We have become used to communicating with hand-held devices although with fellow human beings at a distance, not with members of another intelligent species standing or squatting in front of us. Yu must work with the linguist, Sundaram. 

I am preparing to attend a meeting this evening and to be out of town for most of tomorrow. 

Everything is peaceful between the Envoy crew and the Tahirians but the serpent in the garden is Brent. And we know from other chapters that life is not good back on Earth.

Tahirians

Starfarers, 23.

Tahirians invite the Envoy crew to make camp on Tahir. The camp is visited by a few Tahirians but is not plagued by journalists, crowds, salespeople etc. Is this because Tahirian society is "'...very controlled...'" (p. 216) or just alien? The latter makes more sense. Why should intelligent beings have nuisance-making journalists etc? After a while, the guests are invited to go on tours. Who has decided this and how? How long does it take to understand even a strange human society let alone an alien one? Tahirians communicate mainly through body language so that conversations between them and human beings are impossible. 

Dominic Flandry learned Eriau. Olaf Magnusson was fluent in three Merseian languages, including Eriau. Arinnian of Stormgate Choth whose human name was Christopher Holm translated texts from Planha into Anglic. Human-alien communication is not necessarily going to be as easy as that and Poul Anderson shows us this with the Tahirians. Each future history conveys more.

Yes But No

Starfarers, 22.

"A being stood unclad against a background of enigmatic apparatus. The first word aboard for it had been 'centaur,' but that was like calling a man an ostrich because both were bipeds." (p. 211)

We have read this before, at least twice in the Technic History:

"[Falkayn] confronted the Minotaur.

"No...not that exactly...any more than Adzel was exactly a dragon. The impression was archetypal rather than literal. Yet as such it was overwhelming."

-Poul Anderson, Satan's World IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, January 2009), pp. 235-423 AT XV-XVI, pp. 344-345.

"Preconceptions always get in the way. Flandry's first startled thought was Wolf! Now he realized that of course the Ardazhiro was not lupine, didn't even look notably wolfish. Yet the impression lingered."

-Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 149-301 AT VII, p. 199.

Centaur, Minotaur, dragon, wolf: is Poul Anderson trying to have it both ways here? He has to avoid stating that an alien organism resembles anything Terrestrial, whether biological or mythological, but he wants us to think of something so he presents a description, then immediately denies that description!, knowing however that the description will remain in his readers' minds: an overwhelming impression, a lingering impression...

Power And Greed

 

Starfarers, 22.

The Envoy crew watches alien technology "terraforming" a planet. Brent's eyes smolder while he ponders "'The power...The power.'" (p. 208) Sundaram wonders whether low gigawattage despite high transmission efficiency means that the population is "'...less greedy?'" (p. 209) I prefer Sundaram to Brent but, if we say that either man is better than the other, then we probably just demonstrate which kind of person we are? Poul Anderson shows us each kind of character so that we can make our judgements. It is like dealing with a real spaceship crew. Ambassadors from Earth will have to be chosen with almost superhuman wisdom. The main task of the first explorers will just be to learn before doing anything. As Carl Sagan said once on TV, we can't just go out into the galaxy and ask, "Hi, there. Are you fellows Prespetarians?'" It is going to be more complicated than that. Will the Yonderfolk think of power or of greed or of something else? 

Evolution In Aldiss, Anderson, Lewis And Stapledon

Since we concluded the previous post with a quotation from Brian Aldiss, we should additionally mention that Aldiss wrote both a time travel novel and a Frankenstein novel and also that, like Poul Anderson, he followed Robert Heinlein not only by writing a future history but also by linking a generation ship story to the future history. Furthermore, Aldiss' single-volume future history, Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand, has a culminating instalment based on the completely non-Darwinian idea that animal evolution culminated with humanity in this galaxy and will begin with humanity in the next. Not an amoeba but a complete human organism will somehow form.

CS Lewis' Perelandra presents the Christian Fundamentalist idea of (as yet) sinless First Parents created on another planet.

In what I remember of Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Man, a recognizably different human species just began to be born among the population when its time had come. Natural selection was not involved. However, Stapledon did show Darwinian processes operating later in the novel when human colonists of Neptune degenerated into animality and intelligence eventually re-evolved.

Anderson applies fully Darwinian principles when recounting the evolution of Diomedeans, Ythrians and Didonians. See Speculution. Anderson was a hard sf writer who respected religion but who did not lose sight of physics or biology.

Parallel Authors

Culminations probably indicates why I think of Poul Anderson and James Blish in parallel. "The Horn of Time the Hunter," Mission To The Heart Stars and "This Earth of Hours" all involve a spaceship returning from the direction of the galactic centre. The Technic History and Cities In Flight recount the rise and fall of interstellar civilizations. In "The Horn," Jorn reflects that:

"When you fled at almost the speed of light, time shrank for you, and in his own life he had seen the flower and the fall of an empire."

-Maurai And Kith, p. 218.

The universe ends in Tau Zero and The Triumph Of Time. The parallel extends to changes in supernatural realms in works of fantasy. Thus, in The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson), the Olympians, the Three of Ys and Mithras all withdraw before the new God born in the reign of Augustus and the Age of Aquarius while, in Black Easter/The Day After Judgement, demons win Armageddon but then Satan, now God, undoes the damage.

There is an endless cycle of destruction and renewal, it seems. 

Decades ago, Brian Aldiss ended a short story with the phrase:

"...a voice singing in a new universe."

-Brian Aldiss, "Dumb Show" IN Aldiss, Space, Time And Nathaniel (London, 1966), pp. 153-159 AT p. 159.

- and thus spoke for sf.

Culminations

"The Chapter Ends," "Starfog" and "The Horn of Time the Hunter" are three future historical culminations.

In "The Chapter Ends," psychotechnicians lead Galactic civilization.

In "Starfog," a new period of unprecedented wealth begins in post-Technic civilization.

In "The Horn...," a Kith ship returns from a twenty thousand year round trip to the fringes of the galactic nucleus and its crew will soon learn what has become of the Kith and mankind.

"The Horn..." is such a climax that it will seem like an anti-climax to return to Starfarers or even to its remaining Kith story.

James Blish's works include several future historical culminations:

in The Triumph Of Time, two universes end but several are created;

in "Watershed," Adapted Men recolonize Earth;

in Mission To The Heart Stars, the star dwelling energy beings called Angels will join Earthmen, dolphins, beadmungen and Aaa against the Heart Stars hegemony;

in "This Earth of Hours," survivors of a space battle begin a long journey back to Earth to warn of the threat from the Central Empire.

At the very end of "This Earth...," the viewpoint character sees that the galactic night is as black as death - a threat like the horn heard again at the end of "The Horn..."

The Horn

Maurai And Kith.

What is the sound that Jong Errifrans thinks that he hears on an unknown planet? It is described as:

"...the distant blowing of a horn. It would begin low, with a pulse that quickened as the notes waxed, until the snarl broke in a brazen scream and sank sobbing away." (p. 215)

That seems to be more than just something that might or might not be there as a background noise. It goes through four stages: a low pulse; quickening, waxing notes; a brazen scream; a sinking sob. And he hears this same sequence several times. 

In his sleeping bag, he thinks that he hears the horn.

He hears it briefly but louder the following day on the beach. It reminds him of a hunter's bugle on a frontier planet. This is just before he sees inhabitants of the planet carrying the body of his friend.

Just before he is lowered into the sea to recover his friend's body, he hears, in the stillness of his helmet, his own breath and pulse and:

"...the hunter's horn, remote and triumphant." (p. 232)

But this last is given three possible explanations:

"- some inner sound, a stray nerve current or mere imagination -" (ibid.)

The first explanation offered for a sound that no one else heard had been:

"'Some trick of the wind...'" (p. 215)

In the concluding paragraph:

"I wonder what that sound was, he thought vaguely. A wind noise, no doubt, as Mons said. But I'll never be sure. For a moment, it seemed to him that he heard it again, in the thrum of energy and metal, in the beat of his own blood, the horn of a hunter that pursued a quarry that wept as it ran." (p. 239)

That was what he had seen on the frontier planet.

In the concluding paragraph, he is inside a spaceboat as it leaves the planet so he cannot possibly hear anything back down on the planetary surface any more than he could have heard anything through his space helmet before he was lowered from the hovering spaceboat.

When he seems to hear the horn in the thrum of energy and the beat of blood, it is clear that at this stage the sound has become part of him. We are left with the mystery of whether there really was any external source of the sound on the planetary surface.

Seabirds In Two Timelines

Daven Laure, a Ranger of the Commonalty, looks out from a high building across the city of Pelogard on the planet, Serieve. Apart from the works of man, he sees that:

"Immense flocks of seabirds dipped and wheeled. Or were they birds? They had wings, anyhow, steely blue against a wan sky. Perhaps they cried or sang, into the wind skirl and wave rush; but Laure couldn't hear it in the enclosed place."

-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 720.

They are birds if they are descended from seagulls imported at many removes from Earth whereas, if they are the outcome of independent Serievean evolution, then maybe they should be classified as equivalents of birds.

In another future history series, Kithmen explore a planet where there are:

"...seabirds, whose wings made a white storm over the tower tops and whose flutings mingled with wind skirl and drum roll of surf..."

-Maurai And Kith, pp. 215-216.

Since this planet had also been colonized by human beings, maybe these seabirds were imported?

Each description reminds us of the other. Flandry's Legacy is Volume VII of The Technic Civilization Saga whereas Maurai And Kith is two short future history series in a single volume. 

Serieve is on the edge of another spiral arm of the galaxy whereas the unknown planet visited by the Kith is:

"...three hundred light-years from Sol's calculated present position." (p. 220)

"Starfog" is listed as set in 7100 whereas the Kith story is set twenty thousand years after the Golden Flyer had departed from Tau Ceti to:

"...the fringes of the galactic nucleus." (p. 224)

- which, in turn, was thousands of years in our future.

Undersea On The Unknown Planet

 

Maurai And Kith.

Using his spacesuit as a diving suit, Jong sees "...coraloids...," (p. 233) not corals, on the sea bottom. The white "seabirds" (p. 215) should be described as ornithoids. We would not want to see recognizable seagulls if the story were filmed. The "...great tiger-striped fish..." (p. 216) should be called a piscoid. It would have to be CGI'ed. 

Jong must retrieve a Kithman's mortal remains so that they can be given a Kith funeral, launched on an "...orbit into the sun." (p. 231) Momentarily, Jong wonders whether his dead friend would prefer to stay under the sea, "...lulled to the end of the world." (p. 233) Yes if he were a sea-dweller but no because he had been a starfarer. What we do with the dead is entirely a matter of local customs and traditions.

"The knowledge exploded in Jong. For a century of seconds he stood alone with it." (p. 234)

This is one of many Andersonian moments of realization. I do not think that I have noted this one before. "...a century of seconds..." must mean a short time that seemed like a long time. In fact, one hundred seconds, over a minute and a half, would be a long time to stand with a realization.

Back in the spaceboat, Jong, looking through a port:

"...watched the sea, molten silver beneath him, dwindle as the sky hardened and the stars trod forth." (p. 239).

Sliver sea, then sky and stars, a succinct summary of the themes of this volume.

"Ghetto" And "The Horn..."

In Poul Anderson's Maurai And Kith, "Ghetto" and "The Horn of Time the Hunter" make a neat future historical sequence albeit of only two instalments. "Ghetto" is about the Kithman, Kenri Shaun of Fleetwing, and mentions his friend, Jong Errifrans of the Golden Flyer. "The Horn..." is about Jong but set twenty thousand years later because of time dilation. "The Horn..." is also a spaceship and planet story although the only one in this timeline.

Starfarers incorporates "Ghetto" and one other Kith story, not "The Horn...," and adds some more so that the Kith History exists in two versions. We are used to different versions of single stories but not of future histories.

We encounter Time the Hunter in one Kith story and God the Hunter in several Technic History stories. Such experiences reverberate across the timelines.

The Maurai, "The People of the Sea," encounter a group called "The Sky People," whereas the Kith, "The People of the Stars," encounter a human population that has returned to the sea.

I will be out of town for most of Friday this week so probably will not post then.

Spaceships And Planets

A common sf scenario: A spaceship arrives at a new planet. Its crew must answer questions about the planet like which is the dominant species etc. The spaceship can be:

In Poul Anderson's Technic History

a ship of the Grand Survey

a trade pioneer crew

a ship of the Allied Planets re-civilizing isolated colonies

a Commonalty Rangers ship

In Anderson's Kith History/Starfarers

an exploratory expedition

a Kith ship

Others

one of James Blish's Okie cities

the USS Enterprise

a one-off ship in a one-off story

But examples are endless.

Empty Earth?

Maurai And Kith.

"Maybe Earth lay as empty, Jong thought, not for the first time." (pp. 219-220)

An sf writer must imagine not only what space explorers find when they are out there but also what they find when they return to Earth especially if they have been gone for a long time like twenty thousand years in this case. Of course, the author is free to imagine anything both times. I very faintly remember that Dan Dare once returned from an interstellar expedition to find Earth deserted because there had been an evacuation but why or where to I have no idea. A coded message received from March 12, 3022, in James Blish's The Quincunx Of Time seems to be a routing order during a mass evacuation (but it cannot be the same evacuation!) Sf stories remind us of each other. People ask, "Wasn't there a Star Trek like this?" Each of us has a unique set of memories so what does "empty Earth" connote for anyone else?

Wind On Two Planets

Poul Anderson, Maurai And Kith (New York, 1982), pp. 215-239.

Instead of making the abrupt transition from Kenri Shaun back to the crew of Envoy, let's stay with the Kith and read about Kenri's friend, Jong Errifrans of the Golden Flyer. Both "Ghetto"/Starfarers 21 and "The Horn of Time the Hunter" inform us that Jong is a Kithman of the starship Golden Flyer. 

In "Maurai And Kith," Kenri's story, "Ghetto," ends on p. 214 while Jong's story, "The Horn...," begins on p. 215. "Ghetto" ends not with:

"...the cold night wind of Earth."

- as in Starfarers 21 (see here) but with:

"...the cool damp night wind of Earth." (p. 214)

I surmise that Poul Anderson changed "cool" to "cold" to reflect the coldness of Kenri's reception by the Terrestrial social class into which he had hoped to marry.

Jong's story begins when he hears a sound like a blowing horn. His friend suggests that it is a trick of the wind, adding:

"'The damned wind is always hunting here.'" (p. 215)

So we pass directly from Kenri and the wind to Jong and the wind! That damned wind is always hunting in Poul Anderson's universes.

Wind On Earth

Starfarers, 21.

During a difficult conversation:

"Through rising winds, Kenri heard..." (p. 203)

These winds are entirely metaphorical.

When he has decided against joining the ruling caste but will instead stay with his people:

"The time felt long before he was back in Kith Town. Then he walked in empty streets, breathing the cold night wind of Earth." (p. 205)

Empty streets match his empty mood. This wind is physical but its coldness reflects the lack of human relationship and warmth between the Star class and the Kith. That class will be long gone when Kenri returns to Earth and he will be long gone when Envoy returns. Does history teach just that everything goes?

Two Periods In The History Of A Place

Starfarers, 10, 21.

In 10, Kith Town is surrounded by a vicarial preserve; in 21, by a city. How much history has elapsed?

Vicarial Preserve

boundless grass hiding remnants of farmsteads

sunflowers

a herd of grazing neobison, hunted only by wild dogs and master-class men

flocking crows

broken walls

scattered slabs and shards

City

soaring towers

their columns, tiers and pinnacles

glowing streets and skyways, resembling phosphorescent spiderwebs

strings, arcs and fountains of blazing, flashing lights of every colour

brilliance heightened by scraps of dark sky

Viewing the city from a monorail, Kenri Shaun wonders whether any world is more exotic. 

I remember as a small child looking at a big city and knowing that incomprehensible adult activities went on there. Sf writers imagine future cities beyond our comprehension.

Future Historical Culminations And Human Changes

Given enough time, either natural or artificial selection will change humanity: one example from James Blish and four from Poul Anderson.

Blish

In The Seedling Stars, Book Four, "Watershed," Adapted Men have spread through the galaxy and now colonize a changed Earth.

Anderson

In "The Chapter Ends," humanity evacuates Earth and the Galactic periphery because the human way of mentally controlling cosmic energy interferes with the way used by inhabitants of gas giants. 

In "The Horn of Time the Hunter," colonists of an extrasolar planet have become aquatic.

In Twilight World, Epilogue, descendants of post-World War III mutants terraform outer satellites and reclaim Earth.

In "Starfog," a human planetary population has adapted to a much higher radiation level than their Terrestrial ancestors and has become a different species.

Larry Niven

In "Safe at Any Speed," if we can take this seriously, the whole population has inherited genes for good luck - so that interesting stories have become impossible to write: end of the Known Space future history series.

Olaf Stapledon

In Last And First Men, eighteen human species, some of them artificial, inhabit Earth, Venus and Neptune.

The Horn And Jong Errifrans

Poul Anderson's "The Horn of Time the Hunter"/"Homo Aquaticus" stands in the same relationship to earlier Kith stories as his "Starfog" does to earlier Technic History stories, the point in both cases being that human populations in widely scattered planetary systems have been separated for so long that not only future history but also future evolution is now involved. It is fitting when a future history series concludes with an instalment that shows how things have panned out in a further future. There are other examples.

Despite not being incorporated into Starfarers, "The Horn..." remains organically linked to this future history series. It is about Kithmen and its viewpoint character is one Jong Errifrans. Both "Ghetto" and Starfarers, 21, inform us that a Kithman of that name is a friend of Kenri Shaun although not on Earth at the time. 

We need two boxed sets:

I. A collection of three Kith stories; the novel, Starfarers.

II. A collection of three Maurai stories; the novels, Orion Shall Rise and There Will Be Time.

Time Dilation? II

 

See Time Dilation?

There is something more to be said about this, having read popular accounts of relativity. 

A torch pointing straight up from the floor of a spaceship sends a beam of light up to the ceiling where a mirror reflects the beam back down onto the torch. To observers within the spaceship, the beam has traversed the height of the cabin twice whereas, to observers outside the ship, it has traversed two diagonal lines of greater length than that height. It has traveled further but at the same speed because the speed of light is constant. Therefore, less time has passed within the ship than outside it. This should happen whether the ship is moving outward from Sol to Proxima Centauri or returning from Proxima Centauri to Sol.

I think.

Of course I should have thought of this when I was conversing with someone who thought otherwise. But I have read elsewhere that one school of thought maintains that the time gained on the outward trip will be lost on the return trip so there must be some reason why some people in the know think that.

Wind In Kith Town

Starfarers, 21.

Kenri Shaun walks through Kith Town:

"Kenri went down Aldebaran Street. A cold gust hit him; the northern hemisphere was spinning into autumn. He hunched his shoulders and jammed hands in pockets." (pp. 172-173)

"A maple stirred overhead as he turned at the Shaun gate, its leaves crackling in the wind." (p. 178)

After leaving his parents, Kenri reflects that Kith Town is not really changeless. It has been affected by wars, mobs and new proclamations:

"Kenri shivered in the autumn wind and walked fast." (p. 187)

That wind has stayed with him from p. 172 to p. 187 and has become metaphorical. He shivers both because of the wind and because of his reflections. Leaving Kith Town, he enters the Earthling neighbourhood where conditions are indeed bad.

Time Dilation?

 

Commander Henry Hatfield was an amateur astronomer and a contemporary of Patrick Moore. A very long time ago, Commander Hatfield told me in conversation that, in his opinion, the time gained through time dilation on an outward interstellar journey would be lost on the return journey so that, at the end of a round trip, if a hundred years had passed on Earth, then a hundred years, not some shorter period of time, would also have elapsed for the astronauts.

My Comments

(i) I am neither a physicist nor a mathematician so I really cannot comment. However, I get the impression that most people with any knowledge of the subject do not accept Commander Hatfield's view. And, indeed, how can the universe know whether we are making an outward or a return journey?

(ii) This does not matter for Poul Anderson's Tao Zero or The Boat Of A Million Years because their characters do not return to Earth. However, Commander Hatfield's view, if valid, would make nonsense of Anderson's Starfarers which is why I raise the issue here. 

Good night.

1500 + 1000

Starfarers, 21.

Kith are like time travelling historians although, of course, only futureward. Kenri's father says:

"'In view of the conditions we've found [on Earth], the captain and mates are seriously considering a change of plans. Next voyage not to Aurora, but a long excursion. Long, including into regions new to us. We may not be back for a thousand years. There'll be no more Dominancy. Your name will be forgotten.'" (p. 180)

- and:

"'Do you truly hope to join the highborn? What's great about them? I've seen fifteen hundred years of history, and this is one of the bad times. It will get worse.'" (ibid.)

Having seen fifteen hundred years, Wolden Shaun can authoritatively judge first that present conditions will get worse and secondly that the Dominancy will not last for a thousand years. He is prepared to leap ahead a thousand years, not knowing what the world will be like then. And that would be an amazing thing to be able to do. What is the longest period of history through which any Kithman survives?