Choth Rank

The People Of The Wind, VI.

Draun is Tabitha Falkayn's Ythrian business partner and a fellow member of Highsky Choth.

"Her partner was her superior in the guard; she was in Centauri as his aide. But the choth concept of rank was at once more complex and more flexible than the Technic." (pp. 58-59)

So let's learn more about those complexities and flexibilities... Unfortunately, we can't.

A Circus Of Hells (I think) contrasts the distanced formality of officer-men relationships in the Terran Navy with something more relaxed, more like a dance (?), between ranks in a Merseian ship. I have had a quick search through the text at this late hour but have not found that passage although CHAPTER ONE of this novel does inform us that Merseians are:

"...variously bemused or amused by the rigid Terran concept of rank..."

-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverside, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT p. 198.

(Whether bemused or amused, Merseians respect alien traditions.)

We find parallels between Anderson's treatments of different intelligent species. He also reminds us that they will have as many cultural differences as we do.

Addendum: The passage that I had sought is in Ensign Flandry:

"Flandry was getting used to the interplay of formality and ease between officers and enlisted personnel in the Merseian service. Instead of the mutual aloofness on Terran ships, there was an intimacy which the seniors led but did not rigidly control, a sort of perpetual dance."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Young Flandry, pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 105.