Incarnation And Tramping Roads

Here I wrote that I wanted to find a passage in Poul Anderson's Genesis.

Here I had already quoted that passage.

(I could not quite remember how a reference to God Incarnate had been incorporated into Genesis.)

What had reminded me of this sentence in Genesis was Aliyat's reflection on her vision of Christ:

"In the West (she had heard?) they showed him like this, a man who had tramped roads, shared wine and honeycomb, taken small children onto his lap."

-The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX, 24, p. 533.

This also recalls Jack Havig's reflection:

"Suppose he was, well, not the literal incarnation of the Creator of these acres, those wildfowl, yonder universe...but at least the prophet from whose vision stemmed most of what was decent in all time to come. Could a life be better spent than following him on his ministry?"

-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), VI, p. 60.

Decision And Appearance

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX.

When the "ruling intellects" agree to the Survivors' interstellar spaceship, they insist on some changes. The eight Survivors must go alone and must go to a different planet which is in the direction of a possible high tech civilization. Hanno agrees to these changes and realizes that he should have thought of them himself. This confirms the "ruling intellects"' ability to make acceptable decisions. It pays off because the Survivors do make First Contact.

I heard at school that it is wrong to begin a narrative with "And..." However, when mimicking Biblical prose, it makes sense. A chapter begins:

"And Christ appeared to Aliyat..." (24, p. 532)

This in a simulation which Aliyat knows to be such. More later.

A Few Details

I have just had that familiar and annoying experience of not finding a book, in this case Genesis by Poul Anderson, where it should have been on a bookshelf. However, I have also just ordered a cheap replacement copy online. It is expected by 12 Feb. I want to quote and compare certain passages in Genesis (I think) and in the same author's The Boat Of A Million Years and There Will Be Time. I might start on this before Genesis arrives although I will then, of course, have to locate the passage that I am thinking of in that book. 

While looking for Genesis, I found Isaac's Universe, Volume Two, which contains Anderson's "Woodcraft." Is this one of the two Andersonian Isaac's Universe stories that Anderson adapted and incorporated into his For Love And Glory? I will read or reread this story at least until I have confirmed that it is familiar.

When farmer John gave me a lift home after the sf group, I found on his dashboard something that I had never previously seen or held, a paperback copy of The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology. See the attached image. This anthology presented Anderson's "Lodestar." As I explained to John, this is a pivotal story of Anderson's main future history series and I have read it in that context, not in its original anthologization. 

The Others

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX, 22-23.

Pytheas is en route from Sol to Phaeacia Sun. "Others," exploring Star Three about 359 light-years to port from Pytheas' current position, have detected radio signals from Earth. Knowing that Earth might soon dispatch interstellar spaceships, the Other explorers send robots to intercept any such ship along the route from Sol to the nearest high tech civilization which is at Pegasi and which might also be the Others' home civilization. They also send such robots along the route from Sol to the nearest Sol-like star, Phaeacia Sun. Some of these robots send Pytheas pictures inviting them to detour to Star Three. A majority of the crew want to continue to Phaeacia but Hanno as Captain overrules them and now reveals that Pytheas is programmed to obey only him. First Contact is marred by human conflict.

A Time Patrol story set when Hiram was king in Tyre mentions the progression from seafarers to spacefarers to timefarers. Hanno, born in Tyre when Hiram was king, has been a seafarer and now a spacefarer and believes in the absolute authority of the captain.

Primitives

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX, 19, pp. 514-517.

"'Too bad, isn't it, that this tremendous quest of ours hasn't made us worthy of itself. We're the same limited, foolish, mixed-up, ridiculous primitives we always were. Today's Earth people wouldn't have our problems. But it is we, not they, who've gone out here.'" (pp. 516-517)

This is relevant to the two previous posts.

Well, that's something, then. It takes all sorts to inhabit a universe and a particular sort to explore it.

Pytheas has now been away from the Solar System for seven hundred and fifty Terrestrial years. We do not know what has become of Earth or its people in that time. Poul Anderson does not have to imagine it. If the Survivors do ever return to Earth, then it will be a considerably longer time later and long after the end of this novel. If there had been a sequel, then I would have preferred it to be about what they continue to find out in the galaxy.

Neuroses

OK. I referred here to a passage in Poul Anderson's "Flight to Forever" but could not at the time summon up the motivation to go upstairs for the reference. Now I have done. The passage, with its brief reference to "neuroses," is in:

Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT CHAPTER FOUR, p. 261.

I have previously quoted this passage in:

Emotion And Intelligence In Four Universes

Non-Human Races

"Man Remakes Himself"?

- and also referred to it in:

Inner Conflict

Both Hanno in The Boat Of A Million Years and Belgotai in "Flight to Forever" are survivors from past ages. Belgotai time travels whereas Hanno does it the hard way.

They Take Themselves With Them

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX.

There are three relevant passages, at least as far as I have reread so far this time.

First, Svoboda says:

"'We do need something to lift us out of ourselves. It's wrong to carry our pettiness along to the stars.'" (12, p. 499)

Hanno replies:

"'We will, though,' he said. 'How do you escape being what you are?'" (p. 500)

That is a big question to which different answers have been given but, before we return to it, let us consider an exchange between two other Survivors. Wanderer and Tu Shan share a virtual simulation of Phaeacia, the planet that they hope to colonize. They disagree about whether a particular kind of site should be farmed:

"Tu Shan scowled. 'How much of the planet do you want to keep for your private hunting preserve, forever? '

"It shocked Wanderer: Have we carried the enmities of our forefathers through all these centuries and now through these light-years?" (16, p. 509)

There is a prima facie solution in an earlier chapter:

"'The whole organism is pliable, including the brain. You can have your psyche altered.'" (3, p. 463)

We know without being told that Hanno would refuse such a deal but it is there. A similar offer is made and rejected in Anderson's "Flight to Forever."

Thank Society

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX.

Hanno thanks what the text describes as "...the ruling intellects of the world." (10, p. 490)

He is told:

"'Thank society. You think in terms of kings, but personal power is obsolete.'" (p. 496)

We are given to understand that these combined human and electronic intellects formulate a decision that expresses the understanding and interests of society as a whole. To launch a crewed interstellar ship will be expensive but will not impoverish anyone. There is some support for it and it might have beneficial consequences. It is agreed. 

These are not really ruling intellects but are somehow foci for a collective decision. But the author thinks in the old terms and uses the archaic language of rule.

Next we will address the question of what the Survivors take with them psychologically when they leave the Solar System but first we, editorially speaking, must address a few other tasks closer to home.

Years

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX.

Hanno:

"'We could invent plenty of mere amusements. We doubtless will. If necessary, we can just wait. A year goes by fast after you've had hundreds or thousands of them.'" (14, p. 503)

And again:

"...as Hanno had once implied, it was as well that to immortals, a year could feel like quite a short span." (16, p. 507)

I remembered something as having happened a year ago, the previous summer, whereas a young child remembered it as something that had happened "a very long time ago." To a child of two, the previous year is half of his life to date whereas, to an adult of fifty, it is a fiftieth. To Hanno, who was an adult in 310 B.C., a year will seem like a month or even like a week does to us. I envy that perspective.

Poul Anderson's Time Patrolmen will have an even stranger perception of time. They might come to regard it as almost nonexistent. Some of their memories are of "deleted" events.

In The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (I think), Aslan tells a human child that he will see her soon but, when asked what he means by "soon," replies, "I call all times soon." 

(Aslan, like Krishna, is a good mythological/fictional divine incarnation. We can learn from these guys without expecting to meet them on the street.)

Strange Places

The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX, 15, pp. 504-506.

The Pytheas is in flight.

The indecipherable interstellar transmissions come from:

"'Black holes, condensing nebulae, free matrices -...'" (p. 505)

(What is a free matrix?)

Those are the places to which high tech civilizations will have sent probes which will then transmit messages back to their senders and also for others to detect. Eventually, inter-species contacts might be established.

I am drinking a hot chocolate between returning from the Gregson Centre and going to bed. Today it rained and there were ten short posts. During the day, workmen come and go in a new house. I would like to travel between the stars but we are doing, on a planet. We approach the Andromeda galaxy.