Civilizations

We casually use the word, "civilizations," when discussing a minor future history series whereas in fact all the literature on Earth would not be enough to capture every aspect of a single civilization. There will be not just one-off novels but entire schools of literature written and set inside the Galactic civilization of Poul Anderson's "The Chapter Ends." We can think in the abstract about such literary schools but cannot possibly imagine what it would be like to read and understand future narratives, just as we can think about a fourth dimension but cannot visualize it.

See:

Historians Of Civilization II

We need to read about dwellers in future civilizations, not just about space explorers or others with special missions on the frontiers.

STARTLING STORIES, Winter, 1955

"A CHRONOLOGY OF THE PSYCHOTECHNIC SERIES" IN Poul Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 283-284.

"Prepared by Sandra Miesel, based in part on the chronology published by Poul Anderson in Startling Stories, Winter, 1955." (p. 284)

Anderson followed Robert Heinlein's lead by publishing not only instalments but also a chronology of a future history in an sf magazine. We, in this generation, need to know how much of the Starship Chronology is "in part." I have just ordered Startling Stories, Winter, 1955, on eBay.

Until that arrives, we can continue this discussion. Not all of the stories presented as "Psychotechnic" fit equally well together as a future history series. The appropriateness of "The Chapter Ends" is disputed. I propose three instalments as a framework for the later part of the History:

"Gypsy" introduces the Nomads

"The Pirate" introduces Coordinator Trevelyan Micah

In The Peregrine, Trevelyan joins the Nomads

We accept that, after The Peregrine, the Nomads carry seeds of knowledge through the Third Dark Ages, thus contributing to later civilizations, and we can continue to disagree as to whether "The Chapter Ends" represents one of those later civilizations.

Original publication dates:

"Gypsy," 1950

"The Chapter Ends," 1953

Star Ways/The Peregrine, 1956

"The Pirate," 1968

We expect more from "The Pirate" since it was written later and, in fact, it describes the "hyperdrive" as:

"...tachyon mode [with] only a weak emission of super-light particles..."

-Poul Anderson, "The Pirate" IN Starship, pp. 211-251 AT p. 219.

Starward!

Psychophysiology

"The Chapter Ends." 

See blog search result for "psychohistory."

Psychotechnics as it is presented in the opening instalments of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History is both a predictive science of human societies and a practical science of human psychophysiology. However, those are too very different projects and only the latter is mentioned in "The Chapter Ends." Therefore, it is not certain that the earlier and the later psychotechnics are identical. After all this time, that is a new realization at least for me. 

We may have exhausted "The Chapter Ends" at least for the time being. Who knows what we will contemplate next?

The White Tower

"The Chapter Ends."

Can we grind this story into even finer particles? We can try.

Might the "steely pillar" of the spaceship count as a "dark tower" to which the Terrans come? (When we start looking for imagery, we find it everywhere.)

I ask this because "The Chapter Ends" also presents a white tower:

"One tower still stood - a gutted shell, white under the stars, rising in a filigree of columns and arches which seemed impossibly airy, as if it were built of moonlight." (p. 274)

Airy, built of moonlight - the antithesis of "dark." This tower is a vantage point that becomes a meeting place when Cluthe and Taliuvenna arrive to sightsee after finishing their work in an African district. However, their attitude is frivolous whereas Jorun's is serious. He is a more suitable viewpoint character for this solemn occasion, the departure of mankind from Earth.

50 Or 60 Millennia

"The Chapter Ends."

Sol City, capital of the First Empire, was built:

"'...fifty or sixty thousand years ago...'" (p. 275)

- according to the Galactic called Cluthe. And Jorun says that that Empire:

"'...fell, fifty thousand years ago.'" (p. 263)

The earliest Terrestrial, interplanetary and interstellar civilizations had to have been a long time before that. Thus, nothing from any earlier period is mentioned in this story - except that the science of psychotechnics has been revived and fully developed. Only when Jorun is very tired does he feel his:

"...psychosomatic control slipping." (p. 264)

This story shows a human apotheosis after a history of conflict. The equivalent story in Poul Anderson's later Technic History is "Starfog."

Ruined City

"The Chapter Ends."

When Jorun flies above the ruined imperial palace:

"An owl hooted somewhere, and a bat fluttered out of his way like a small damned soul blackened by hellfire." (p. 274)

So the Galactics retain myths and metaphors of souls and hell. Is this black bat a fitting image for those who had dwelt in Sol City and its palace? Jorun has just been reflecting on their nobility, splendour, evil and wistfulness. The current dwellers are cats, owls, bats and hawks.

"He didn't raise a wind-screen, but let the air blow around him, the air of Earth." (ibid.)

Jorun wants to experience the Earthly elements like the couple who stepped out into the rain here.

He meets Taliuvenna who:

"...came from Yunith, one of the few planets where they still kept cities, and was as much a child of their soaring arrogance as Jorun of his hills and tundras and great empty seas." (p. 275)

We want to be shown more of this Galactic civilization.

Future histories have different aliens. In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, human beings build a Solar Union, then a Stellar Union, and encounter Nerthusians, Alori etc whereas, in Anderson's Technic History, human beings build a Solar Commonwealth, then a Terran Empire, and encounter Ythrians, Merseians, Cynthians, Wodenites etc but really there is no reason why the same aliens cannot exist in different future histories as human beings do. In James Blish's Haertel Scholium, the inhabited planet Lithia is destroyed in 2050 in A Case Of Conscience but exists millennia later in The Seedling Stars.

Some Literary Links

See King Lear in Poul Anderson's works here.

In Shakespeare's King Lear, a character disguises himself as Tom O'Bedlam.

The Tom O'Bedlam poem includes the phrase, "...a knight of ghosts and shadows..." which became an Anderson title.

The character posing as Tom in King Lear speaks the line:

"Child Roland to the Dark Tower came..."

- which became the title and concluding line of a poem by Robert Browning.

A "Dark Tower" recurs in the titles of many other works, including The Dark Tower by CS Lewis which is Lewis' response to The Time Machine. Lewis' characters argue against the possibility of physical time travel as described by Wells, Anderson and others.

Tom O'Bedlam is not to be confused with Tom Fool.

Literary links run in every direction but let's stop there.

Units

"The Chapter Ends." 

"Because this world, out of all the billions, has certain physical characteristics, [Jorun] thought, my race has made them into standards. Our basic units of length and time and acceleration, our comparisons by which we classify the swarming planets of the Galaxy, they all go back ultimately to Earth. We bear that unspoken memorial to our birthplace within our whole civilization, and will bear it forever." (p. 264)

This same point is made in Asimov's Foundation Trilogy at least as regards units of time. See Future Standard Measurements.

The permanent legacy of Earth is expressed more than once:

"'[Earth] is a fair world,' [Jorun] said slowly.

"'It is the only one,' said Kormt. 'Man came from here; and to this, in the end, he must return.'" (p. 255)

In her concluding italicized passage, Sandra Miesel quotes a poet who said:

"'No matter how far we range, the salt and rhythm of her tides will always be in our blood.'" (p. 282)

This end is a new beginning. Miesel's concluding words are:

"One chapter has ended. Humankind's saga flows on." (ibid.)

The Spaceship And Earthly Weather

 

"The Chapter Ends."

Terrans move in a line towards the ship that will take them away from Earth forever:

"The spaceship was a steely pillar against a low gray sky. Now and then a fine rain would drizzle down, blurring it from sight; then that would end, and the ship's flanks would glisten as if they were polished. Clouds scudded overhead like flying smoke, and the wind was loud in the trees." (p. 276)

We notice "space ships" on p. 260 and "spaceship" on p. 276. At least, I notice this difference because I am quoting so many passages from a single text.

Why is the spaceship a pillar? I am sure that the means of propulsion no longer require the rocket shape. However, the "steely pillar" seems appropriate and might be favoured for purely cultural and historical reasons. The last Terrans should depart in vehicles of the same shape as those that had been used by the earliest astronauts.

Earth reminds the voyagers of its environment and its weather:

gray sky

fine rain

scudding clouds

loud wind

trees

The rain is "fine." It does not pound or batter but does remind. Some Galactics fly above the line generating:

"...a shield against the rain." (ibid.)

However, one couple leaves the line because they want a last tactile experience of Earthly rain.

And, of course, the wind is loud...

Brains And Space Ships

Poul Anderson's "The Chapter Ends" seems to be inexhaustible.

When Jorun has explained to Julith that artificially mutated brains enable Galactics like him to control cosmic forces and thus to "'...fly between stars...'" (p. 26) by an act of will alone, he has to add:

"'But your people don't have that brain, so we had to build space ships to take you away.'" (ibid.)

A technology that enables people who do not usually use spaceships to build a fleet of faster than light ships for a single evacuation job across thousands of light years! Although we read this sentence casually, its implications are anything but casual. What else is achieved by the great multi-species civilization at the Galactic Centre? We always feel that we are reading only a very small part of a much vaster story that can never be completed.