Miles Of Smiles

Ensign Flandry.

"A smile touched [Runei's] lips." (CHAPTER FIVE, p. 51)

"He could barely see how [Persis'] lips curved upward." (CHAPTER NINE, p. 85)

"...[Dragoika's] halfhuman face broke into a smile..." (CHAPTER SIXTEEN, p. 160)

In haste. Persis is human but Runei is Merseian and Dragoika is Starkadian. Do they all smile?

Good night.

Dominic Flandry's Personal And Professional Development

Ensign Flandry.

"'And I thought I was your first,' she said.

"'Why, Persis!' he grinned."

-CHAPTER NINE, p. 87.

But someone must have been his first. An "Even Younger Flandry" series is called for. He tells Persis about his parents and about his "'...record for demerits...'" (ibid.) at the Naval Academy. This makes him sound like David Falkayn who went further and was expelled from a militechnic (?) academy.

"What actually did happen? Everything was so gradual. Step by step. I never really did decide to go into Intelligence. But somehow, here I am."

-CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 133.

This is where Flandry realizes that a process has been happening that began, for him, when John Ridenour spoke to him here.

Later, Persis identifies what has gone from Dominic:

"Youth."

-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 152.

In his second novel, young Flandry makes mistakes but/and learns from them. He is on his way.

Time Travel Thought Experiments

A Thought Experiment

I am sitting here in a corner of a room at home NOW. (NOW is a moment that, throughout this experiment, is to be regarded as "the present," such that every other moment is either past or future.) In the opposite corner, there is either a Wellsian Time Machine or a Time Patrol timecycle. Five minutes from now, in the future, I will walk across the room, sit on this temporal vehicle and set off to travel thirty years into the past while remaining stationary in relation to the Earth's surface. (The Time Machine does remain stationary in relation to the Earth's surface whereas a timecycle can move in space as well as in time.) It follows that, thirty years minus five minutes ago, I arrived/appeared in the opposite corner of this room. On arrival, I performed some action which had an immediate consequence. For example, I shouted, "It works!" and was heard by my younger self in the other room on this floor. Let us pause the experiment there. That is quite complicated enough for us to deal with, at least at present. 

NOW, it is true to say that my arrival, my action (a speech act) and its consequence all happened thirty years minus five minutes ago. It is true that my departure has not happened yet. It will happen five minutes in the future. However, my arrival, my action and its consequence are not waiting to come into effect five minutes from NOW either when I sit on the temporal vehicle or when I set off on it into the past. They have already happened thirty years minus five minutes ago.

Some readers might think that this is obvious and wonder why I am spelling it out. Because there are people who think that a consequence of an action performed after my arrival will somehow not come into effect until after my departure. We are discussing time travel. In this example, which is travel from the future into the past, the arrival, as well as anything that happens immediately after the arrival, precedes the departure by thirty years. If that is understood, then there is no confusion. Otherwise, discussion becomes incoherent.

Prevented Events

At any moment in his career, a Time Patrol agent might deal with consequences either of events that have happened or of events that have been prevented from happening. Guion speaks of causes that are "'...not in our yet.'" I do not at present have access to the text to extract a proper quotation. Some passages in Time Patrol stories describe events that would have happened if other events had not prevented them from happening. 

How can an event that did not happen have any effects? In Time Patrol physics, a time traveler can arrive from a prevented future. But do prevented events have any significance in our timeline? In Lancaster, there is a place that I could go to but the consequences of my going there would almost certainly be negative. Therefore, I will not go there. That event, my arrival in a particular place, does not happen. I prevent it from happening simply by doing nothing. Therefore, I do not experience its consequences. Those consequences are in a prevented timeline but they affect my actions and inactions here and now. This feels almost like a Time Patrol scenario.

Microjumps

Why, in sf, is hyperdrive sometimes said to be unworkable or at least inadvisable too near a star? Hauksberg in Ensign Flandry gives a good reason based on the nature of the quantum hyperdrive. The concentration of matter near a star increases the chance of a microjump putting part of the ship in the same volume of space as another mass, even a pebble. As I remember, such a collision had been the cause of the spaceship crash in "The Three-Cornered Wheel." Flandry will minimize the risk by flying straight up from the ecliptic. And now I really am eating and running so I will have to sign off.

Sunrise

Ensign Flandry.

Flandry flies an airboat up to an orbiting spaceship. Anyone can write such a sentence. However, Poul Anderson's account includes the following paragraph:

"Korych flamed over the edge of the world. That sunrise was gold and amethyst, beneath a million stars." (CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 137)

Any screen adaptation should show that sunrise. Such descriptions are not a necessary feature of hard sf but are always included in Anderson's prose in any genre. Readers focusing on narrative alone and anxious only for the next stage in Flandry's escape might read past Korych-rise as if it was not there but it should certainly be noticed on rereading.

I will shortly repair to the previously mentioned Gregson Institute for conversation with some sf and comic book readers so this is probably the last post for today.

Hunt well.

Dwyr

Ensign Flandry.

Imagine this on screen. Dwyr the Hook is a badly damaged, mortally wounded Merseian cyborg. He suddenly arrives as Hauksberg confronts Flandry and Persis. 

They see:

seared, twisted metal;

a severed bleeding arm;

tight, gray skin on the remains of a face;

light coming and going in artificial eyes;

a rolling head.

They hear:

a toneless, wavering voice;

a rattling servomotor;

Eriau duodecimals coughed forth;

his name, Dwyr of Tanis, once the Merry;

wobbling words;

his wife's name, Sivilla, as he begs to be switched off.

Flandry does not notice:

oil;

scorched insulation.

Sudden horror, maybe discordant with the rest of the story - although the effects of combat should also be shown when appropriate.

Merseia Viewed From An Airboat

Ensign Flandry.

"...he saw the planet's curve through a broad viewport, the ocean gleaming westward, the megalopolitan maze giving way to fields and isolated castles." (CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 109)

The megalopolis in question is the original capital, Ardaig, which surrounds the bay where the River Oiss enters the Wilwidh Ocean. The city has more recently grown east to the Hun foothills. We read descriptions of cities on bays also on Hermes and Avalon. 

Ardaig might have been a city on any inhabited planet but one detail is more specific to Merseia. The isolated buildings out among the fields are not cottages, houses or even mansions but castles. On Merseia, feudal social relationships have survived into the industrial period. The southern continent had had a Republic of Lafdigu. (Also here.) However, the dominant Wilwidh culture is based around the feudal realms called Vachs. The castles remind us of this. No textual detail is wasted.

Languages

Ensign Flandry.

"Like almost every intelligent species, the Merseians had in their past evolved thousands of languages and cultures..." (CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 104)

It would be interesting to learn about some of the few exceptions.

In a Doctor Who episode, someone had transported the Doctor to a planet which they identified only by a number. When the Doctor said that he preferred names, he was told: "Skaro." The planet of Daleks and Thals! But, of course, the answer should have been something like: "Its name, in the principal language of its dominant species through most of its history, was 'Skaro.'" Someone travelling through space and time needs to give any name some kind of context.

The passage in Ensign Flandry goes on to explain that the process of domination by one culture and unification of the planet has not gone as far on Merseia as on Terra. For some, Wilwidh laws and customs remain a mere overlay and their native languages come more easily than Eriau. Olaf Magnusson, who will enter the Technic History in a later volume, will be fluent in Eriau and two other Merseian languages. I would like to speak at least one other language fluently. We were taught French atrociously.

Auxiliaries

Ensign Flandry.

The opening page of CHAPTER ELEVEN imparts information that will be important later and is far from obvious. The Roidhunate offers to lend Abrams an airboat for use during his stay on Merseia. (It will be bugged and they would not want him to travel around unescorted.) Abrams says that he can borrow an auxiliary from Hauksberg's interstellar vessel, the Dronning Margrete. However, these auxiliaries have hyperdrive and Merseian law forbids non-Merseians to operate any vessel with that capability in the Korychan System. But the two largest auxiliaries each have an auxiliary with only gravitic, not hyperdrive, capacity. Abrams says that he could use one of those. However, the Roidhun would be disgraced if the Merseians did not show his guests full hospitality. Abrams accepts the hospitality - for his own reasons.

Later, Flandry will escape from the Korychan System in a hyperdive auxiliary and will use its auxiliary to ram a pursuing Merseian craft. If such auxiliaries of auxiliaries seem implausible, Poul Anderson has at least taken care to introduce then well in advance of their crucial role in the plot. The same remark applies to rogue planets, even more crucial but already introduced in CHAPTER THREE.

Arrival

Ensign Flandry.

In CHAPTER NINE, Hauksberg, Abrams, Flandry and Persis travel to Merseia. As if on cue, CHAPTER TEN begins by describing the Merseian co-capitals, traditional Ardaig and brawling Tridaig. So far, the three men have each been a viewpoint character so we might expect one of them to experience Ardaig for us. However, the narrative point of view shifts back to the Merseian, Brechdan, who had been the viewpoint character of CHAPTER THREE. At a welcoming reception in the Terran Embassy, Brechdan does not meet Persis because the Terrans observe the Merseian custom of not having females present on such occasions. Brechdan correctly judges that he must play close attention to both Hauksberg and Abrams but dismisses Abrams' alert young aide as "...very junior." (p. 94) Later, he thinks that Abrams is such an obvious spy that maybe he is a stalking horse for someone else. Not quite. But Flandry would have warranted more attention. Brechdan also does not suspect that the agent whom he afterwards interviews is a double working for Abrams. Alert readers should realize this.