Star Trek Parallels

In  the first Star Trek film, Admiral Kirk successfully argues that he should be restored to the captaincy of the Enterprise because his experiences during the five year mission qualify him to meet the challenge approaching Earth. In Mirkheim, I, David Falkayn argues that his twenty plus years of trade pioneering equip him to investigate Babur. See also Admiralty, Labyrinthine Corridors II and Wisdom From The Academy.

In the third (?) Star Trek film, Kirk breaks the laws of the Federation to get Spock back. In "Lodestar," Falkayn has broken his oath of fealty to van Rijn for reasons we have discussed.

Spock, mildly telepathic, is with the Federation whereas Aycharaych, universally telepathic, is with the Roidhunate.

Good And Bad On Both Sides?

See A Cosmos Of Enemies.

Sheldon Wyler and his ultimate employers, the Seven In Space, are unscrupulous and Merseian aristocrats become enemies of mankind so you might ask: who is good among the enemies of the League? Well, van Rijn transforms the Baburites into customers and Anderson manages to transform even that arch-schemer, Benoni Strang, into a partially sympathetic character right at the end. Also "enemies of the League" potentially include members of all those societies that the League leaves behind in its accumulation of wealth. Clearly, Wyler means to include such societies in his remarks. Some of these societies band together into Supermetals but others might have joined the Baburites. Potentially - only potentially - David Falkayn became an enemy of the League when he was moved to break his oath of fealty to van Rijn. That action could have resulted in an open conflict between Falkayn and his fellow Master Merchants. Fortunately, van Rijn was flexible enough to accommodate that situation.

Manse Everard broke the laws of the Time Patrol but in circumstances that made the Danellians recognize his worth on their side of the war against temporal chaos. And these reflections have again taken us past midnight. Good night.

A Cosmos Of Enemies

Mirkheim, VI. 

Sheldon Wyler, a human being, works for the Baburites because he has no loyalty either to the Solar Commonwealth or to the Polesotechnic League. We, the readers, know that Wyler previously worked for Stellar Metals, a member company of the Seven In Space cartel. However, Falkayn and his companions, who might have found this fact significant, do not know it.

Several Merseians, like Blyndwyr of the Vach Ruethen, have enlisted in the new Baburite space navy. Wyler comments:

"'Mostly they belong to the aristocratic party at home and have no love for the League, considering how it shunted their kind aside and dealt instead with the Gethfennu group. You know, not many League people seem to understand what a cosmos of enemies it's made for itself over the years.'" (p. 96)

In the trader team story, "Day of Burning," the Gethfennu, organized crime, were the only international network on Merseia capable of a coordinated response to the imminent threat of radiation from the supernova, Valenderay.

If this were an ERB novel, then the Good Guys would have many enemies, all of whom would be personally despicable and morally reprehensible: cowardly, spiteful, dishonorable etc. (In one of ERB's Land That Time Forgot novels, an IWW member works for the Germans during WWI and hates all Americans.) Poul Anderson shows us good and bad on both sides when the League encounters its "...cosmos of enemies..." 

Job

Mirkheim, V.

"'Come on, let's move along, for Job's sake,' Falkayn said." (p. 93)

Nowadays, I hope to find references to books of the Bible that have not been mentioned yet but, in fact, we have had quotations from Job. See The Bible On The Blog. But why does Falkayn refer to Job himself in this manner? Presumably none of his team-mates understands the reference? They are in dire straits so maybe he feels that they are about to be served as ill as Job? My inspiration drains away this evening but I hope to return to the fray some time tomoz.

This volume is called Rise Of The Terran Empire. Is the Empire rising? In one sense, yes, because previous social arrangements are failing. The Commonwealth cannot control the League which now cannot control itself.

Assembling Some Of The Chronological Evidence

Mirkheim.

Eighteen years before Mirkheim, David Falkayn discovered Mirkheim. (Prologue, Y minus 18; I, p. 35; II, p. 60)

 

Ten years before Mirkheim (and three years after Supermetals started), Nicholas van Rijn and Coya Conyon found their way to Mirkheim. (II, p. 62)

 

Nine years before Mirkheim, Coya Falkayn joined the trade pioneer crew. (Y minus 9.)

 

The team disbanded five years later. (I, pp. 34-35; p. 35)

For three year, Adzel was in a Buddhist monastery in the Andes (I, p. 37) and the Falkayns brought up their first child. (I, p. 34; IV, pp. 76, 79)

One year before Mirkheim, Leonardo Rigassi rediscovered Mirkheim. (Y minus 1.)

 

Then the crew minus Coya went to Babur.

Two Definitive Collections

I suppose that Time Patrol and The Earth Book Of Stormgate are two definitive single-volume Poul Anderson collections. The Technic Civilization Saga counts perhaps as a seven-volume collection.

Time Patrol collects the whole Time Patrol series except for the long novel, The Shield Of Time, to which it is a companion volume.

The front cover blurb of The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979) reasonably accurately proclaims that this book: 

"Spans, illuminates and completes the magnificent future history of the Polesotechnic League" 

The Earth Book collects half of the twenty four pre-Flandry installments of the Technic History while its new introductions are fictitiously written as if during the early Terran Empire, albeit still pre-Flandry. No single-volume collection could be more comprehensive.

The two collections are also complementary, covering past and future history respectively although of alternative timelines.

B. S.

Mirkheim.

Benoni Strang, who is from Hermes and visits sub-Jovian Babur:

"He was of medium height and slim, graceful of movement, his face rectangular in outline and evenly shaped, his hair and mustache sleek brown, his eyes gray-blue. In his leisure time he wore an elegantly tailored slacksuit."

-Prologue, Y minus 5, p. 29.

 

Bayard Story:

 

"He was a rather handsome man, medium-sized, slender, his features regular in a tanned rectangular face, eyes blue-gray, hair and mustache smooth brown with a sprinkling of white. An elastic gait indicated that he used his muscles a good deal, perhaps under intermittently severe conditions. His soft speech held a trace of non-Terrestrial accent, though it was far too eroded by time to be identifiable. An expensive slacksuit in subdued greens fitted him as if grown from his body."

-III, p. 66.

They are the same guy. Comparing their descriptions would let the cat out of the bag but, as we read the novel, we neither compare the descriptions nor notice the initials. See also Clues. That Strang is Story is a big revelation later in the novel. Although they are both described in the text, showing them both in a film would spoil the surprise. See How To Film Mirkheim?

More About The Chronology

Mirkheim, II.

Commander Nadi of the Supermetals defense force updates Grand Duchess Sandra of Hermes:

"'...Falkayn's employer, Nicholas van Rijn, deduced that the supermetals must come from a world of Mirkheim's type, and used the same method of search to find it.... Did I distress you?'

"'No. You, you surprised me. Van Rijn? When?'

"'Ten standard years ago. Falkayn and Falkayn's future wife persuaded him to maintain silence. In fact, he very kindly helped our agents keep the issue confused, to delay the eventual rediscovery.'" (p. 62)

 

So ten years between the end of "Lodestar" and the beginning of Mirkheim. For discussion of the Chronology of Technic Civilization, see here.

A Fanciful Comparison

Someone in a position of authority is handed something of great value that a lot of other people want.

In Poul Anderson's Mirkheim, the Supermetals Company asks the Grand Duchy of Hermes to establish a protectorate over the industrially valuable planet, Mirkheim, just as the Autarchy of United Babur and the Solar Commonwealth prepare to go to war for it.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Season Of Mists, Lucifer Morningstar retires as Lord of Hell, expels the demons and the damned, locks every gate, then hands the key to His Darkness Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming, who soon has every other pantheon pressuring him to give them this desirable piece of spiritual real estate.

I did say that this was a fanciful comparison. I thought of it because Grand Duchess Sandra thinks:

"Isn't that a red hot rivet dropped into my palm!"

-Mirkheim, II, p. 51.

Early Morning News

Mirkheim, II.

While exercising, Grand Duchess Sandra watches an early newscast on her phone which she has switched to television reception.

Yesterday, a navy speedster known to have been stationed at the primitive planet, Valya, landed at Williams Field, generating rumors that Babur has issued a new declaration. Three previous Anglic-language pronunciamentos had been radioed to the scientific outpost on Valya by an orbiting Baburite ship. The original claim of the Autarchy of United Babur to Mirkheim had been radioed from Earth orbit. Because Mirkheim is close to Babur and because the supermetals are strategically important, the Autarchy will not tolerate possession of Mirkheim by any power hostile to Babur. The Hermetian throne, neither confirming nor disconfirming the rumors, will make a statement soon.

Addressing a convention of the Justice Party, Prime Minister Lapierre of the Solar Commonwealth said that his government was willing to negotiate but that Babur had not yet arranged to exchange ambassadors. The Commonwealth will not yield to aggression. Babur has amassed great naval strength.

Last night, the Liberation Front held a rally at a resort on the Longstrands where intemperate orators addressed a large and enthusiastic crowd of Travers.

Troubles both external and internal.