We see Corona in three periods: when it is being explored, when it is being settled and when it has long been settled. There is also an intermediate period when the Hesperian Islands have been settled and a research and development team is planning the colonization of Corona so that there will then be some exploratory expeditions to the continent.
Within the Technic History, there is an Avalonian history.
In Poul Anderson's Technic History, two surnames and one inherited Christian name conduct the narrative through a series of historical transitions:
"Choths differed as much in their ways as human nations did..." (p. 310)
In the early days, when only the Hesperian Islands had been colonized, the Weathermaker Choth comprised only an "...extended household..." ("Wingless," p. 297) Centuries later, choths on the northern polar continent of Corona each had thousands of members at least. By that time, it had become unusual that:
"In Oronesia, there were single households that bore the name..." (The People Of The Wind, III, p. 464)
- and, even more unusual that:
"...grown and married, the younger children were expected to found new, independent societies." (ibid.)
Gray, the larger of only two cities on Avalon, is on the west coast of Corona. Inland from Gray, are the Andromeda mountains called the Weathermother by Ythrians and occupied by the Stormgate Choth. Christopher Holm lives in Gray and is Arinnian of Stormgate. Two thousand kilometres west from Gray is the Oronesia archipelago stretching almost to the Antarctic Circle, much of it occupied, despite those unusual small choths, by the fisheries-controlling Highsky Choth. Tabitha Falkayn is Hrill of Highsky. In the northern hemisphere, Oronesia divides the eastern Hesperian Sea from the western Middle Ocean. This is meant to impart some information about where various characters live at different times.
Small continents or large islands in the South Ocean are Equatoria, New Africa and New Gaiila. There are other smaller islands.
We want to go there or even feel that we have been there.
We notice optimal connectivity between the Ythrian instalments of Poul Anderson's Technic History. The curved boards for lateral resistance that Tabitha Falkayn explains to Philippe Rochefort are also explained, in slightly greater detail, by the Ythrian Keshchyi to Nat Falkayn. The boat is faster, with no water drag, because these boards interact with the wind in a particular way. The atlantis weed introduced in "The Problem of Pain" is central to the plot of "Wingless" because one of Keshchyi's wings becomes tangled in it and Nat has to go under water to free him from it. "Wingless" was originally published in Boy's Life as "Wingless on Avalon" and could have been called "Rescue on Avalon" but that is the title of the companion story. In both, a young human male rescues an Ythrian and some prejudices are overcome: Ythrian prejudice in the first story; human in the second. Nat envies the Ythrians' ability to swoop around in the air but then realizes that he can do much the same in the sea which they cannot.
These two stories are thought experiments in inter-species cooperation and an antithesis to military sf which Anderson also did well.
We find this aspect of Ythrian communication elsewhere, e.g.:
"Had God been in a more joyful mood when He made the Ythrians than when He made man?" (p. 298)
Here we go again with meanings of "God." Literal or metaphorical? If literal, how anthropomorphic? A large invisible man who is in a good mood one day and a bad mood the next? I suspect, of course, that Nat's question is metaphorical, meaning: "Is it as if God had been in a more joyful mood...?"
But, if we assume a theistic doctrine, then how does God create the two species? Does He plan and initiate a universe in which such species must evolve? If so, then this is a single creative act. The idea that He could be in different moods for the different species must remain metaphorical or, if literal, then very anthropomorphic.
Such phrases invariably recur, especially in the works of a serious and reflective writer like Poul Anderson, but maybe we should just pass them by instead of commenting every time?
In "Wingless," young Ythrians interact with one young human being. Keshchyi, taking flight, whistles, trumpets and challenges:
"'What are you waiting for, you mudfeet?'" (p. 296)
Keshchyi's less impetuous cousin, Thuriak, asks Nat Falkayn, who is able join them in the air with his gravbelt, whether he is coming. At this stage of the narrative, the Ythrians might come across just as human youths with wings. However, the earlier story, "The Problem of Pain," had shown us their alien attitude to suffering and death. Before taking off, Nat reflects on the differences between the species:
"...the Ythrians were alien, and not just in their society. In their bones, their flesh, the inmost molecules of their genes, they were not human. It was no use pretending otherwise." (pp. 297-298)
"They were pure carnivores, born hunters. Maybe that was the reason why they allowed, yes, encouraged their young to go off and do reckless things, accepting stoically the fact that the unfit and the unlucky would not return alive -" (p. 298)
Nat thinks about molecules, genes, bones, flesh, carnivores, hunting and finally psychology which arises from biology. Regular readers know that the philosophical mind-body problem is a sub-theme of this blog. Imagining alien psychology helps us to address the problem. To list the properties of a psychophysical organism as observed by others is not to describe the organism as experienced by itself. The organism's brain is part of the organism as observed by others whereas the organism's consciousness is its observations of everything else. So no wonder they are different. But how do objective processes generate subjectivity? Any attempted explanation just describes another set of objective processes.
