Numerals

OK. I have returned to being all at sea with the numerals at the climax of After Doomsday, 15.

See Donnan's Second Moment Of Realization And A Solution?

Arabic And Kandemirian Numerals, The Latter Replaced By Roman Letters

0 L

1 A

2 B

3 C

4 D

5 E

6 F

7 G

8 H

9 I

10 J

11 K

12 AL

Arabic And Monwaingi Numerals, The Latter Replaced By Roman Letters

0 R

1 M

2 N

3 O

4 P

5 Q

6 MR

We are told that:

BA=NQ=25

- and that:

ABIJ=MOQMP=2134

How come?

OK. I realize where I am going all wrong again. But I had to write it all out like this again before I realized. Maybe Anderson/Donnan could have explained it in more detail for the benefit of non-mathematicians.

Children And Hearthfires

After Doomsday, 14.

Sigrid Holmen, travelling to a private interview with Carl Donnan, reflects:

"We are together, the two halves of the human race. We know now that man will live; there will be children and hearthfires on another Earth - in the end, on a thousand or a million other Earths." (p. 112)

That is the Andersonian future in any timeline. And hearthfires will outlast civilizations. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Terran Empire will become a fireside legend and, in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys, the sunken city of Ys becomes a hearthside story. For both of these references, see here.

Multiple pasts and futures but one multiverse.

We again approach the conclusion of After Doomsday. Where after that?

Singing In Birth, Living Earth

After Doomsday, 13.

For each repeated line in "The Battle of Brandobar," we should see an appropriate image or hear a corresponding sound-effect. Thus:

"(The stars burn bitterly clear)" (pp. 103, 104, 104, 105, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108)

- the Milky Way seen from space.

"(The stormwinds clamor their grief)" (pp. 103, 104, 104, 105, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108)

- a very loud wind.

"(A bugle: the gods defied!)" (pp. 103, 104, 104, 105, 106, 107, 107, 108)

- a very loud bugle.

"(New centuries scream in birth)" (pp. 104, 104, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 108)

- the cry of a new-born baby.

And then, in the concluding quatrain:

"(New centuries sing in birth)" (p. 109)

- a beautiful voice singing;

- which should also accompany the concluding line:

"In the name of living Earth!" (p. 109)

The ballad could be effective on screen.

(Other reading: starting the eleventh Inspector Morse novel.)

The First Uru Work Of Art

After Doomsday, 13.

"The Battle of Brandobar," is an Uru ballad translated, with notes, into English. The Brandobar Cluster is between Vorlak and Mayast. The two sides in the battle were:

an alliance of Vorlak, Monwaing and lesser races;

the Kandemirian Grand Fleet, comprising clan units and non-Kandemirian subjects recruited as auxiliaries. (Numerically stronger than the alliance.)

Uru, one of the interstellar lingua francas, had previously been used for records, scientific treatises and translations from planetary languages but not for original literature.

Will the survivors of Earth be able to preserve the Bible and Shakespeare for translation into Uru? I understand that many people would be able to reproduce these works from memory alone but, in After Doomsday, the human population has been drastically reduced! However, one of the surviving ships will contain at least one Bible.

What can we say about "Brandobar" that we have not said before? Maybe not much but we should certainly reread it. Because the ballad comes immediately after Chapter 12, we understand very clearly what is meant by its second stanza:

"And the proudest king, the Vorlak lord,

"(The stormwinds clamor their grief)

"Had been made the servant in all but name

"Of a planetless wanderer chief." (p. 103)

And, of course, in an Andersonian work, the wind must make itself heard.

Excellence

We are searching this blog and gathering evidence for human uniqueness and/or superiority in Poul Anderson's After Doomsday.

See:

Credible Aliens? II

The Second Civilization-Cluster

Human Superiority

Superiority

If we find anything more, then we will add it either here or in a later post but that is a lot already.

Can human beings excel in as many ways as that? Well, as we point out, Anderson also wrote stories in which other intelligent species excelled. And covering every option is one way in which he himself excelled. Others ways were making other planetary environments real and sympathetic treatment of characters that he disagreed with.

Excelsior! (I am not quite sure what that means but it is certainly appropriate.)

Back On Vorlak

After Doomsday, 12.

Back on Vorlak, a black, mountainous, ancestral castle covers and burrows deep into an atoll from where straight fused stone walls rise to watchtowers and missile turrets. Wind drives low clouds bronzed by the hidden sun, whips grey-green waves and whistles through warm air. Surf booms and spindrift hits Donnan. Both sound cold while the boat carrying him and Ger Nenna rolls and lurches. We summarize and paraphrase but also advise blog readers to read or reread Poul Anderson's text.

Donnan must cope with this alien environment and also with the possibility that he will be killed on entering the castle. However, the being that might kill him is:

"'...the boss of this planet...'" (p. 97)

- while the human survivors have:

"'Nothing to lose.'" (ibid.)

And Donnan knows how to turn such facts to his advantage: a true Andersonian hero.

Doomsday Bomb

After Doomsday, 11.

I heard the idea of a Doomsday Bomb in my childhood. Poul Anderson's Xoan, interrogated by a Monwaingi, explains it:

"Hordelin-Barjat: 'A set of disruption bombs. Buried deep in the planetary crust...and beneath the ocean beds...strategic locations - You are familiar with the technology. They - the bombs belonging to a given alliance - they would go off automatically. If more than three nuclear explosions above a certain magnitude occurred within the borders of any single member country...all those bombs would explode. At once.'" (p. 93)

By that account, the doomsday response would be avoided if an enemy caused either only three nuclear explosions above a certain magnitude or any number of explosions below that magnitude. But that is not the point. The question is: would a doomsday device be an effective deterrent? No. People are capable of committing suicide. Therefore, someone able to launch a nuclear attack might decide to take everyone else with him. In any case, accidents and all kinds of unforeseen events remain possible. A doomsday device: what a MAD way to try to ensure peace!

The two extra-terrestrials continue their discussion. When Hordelin-Barjat has said, "At once," Kaungtha responds:

"'And would wipe the planet clean. In seconds.'

"Hordelin-Barjat: 'Yes, humane, quick, yes. Of course, that was not the intention. Not anyone's intention. These small powers - they planned to go, oh, very discretely, in deepest secrecy - they would approach the other governments and say, "In the event of general war, we are doomed anyway. But now you will die with us. Therefore you must refrain from making war, ever again." I assure you, the idea was to promulgate peace.'" (ibid.)

Donnan must now determine whether this is a true account of how all life on Earth was ended. Was it murder - or suicide?

Other Planets

After Doomsday, 10-11.

Kandemir has subjugated its former conqueror, T'sjuda. See here. We also mentioned Xo but now learn more about it as well as something (less) about two other planets:

"'Independent planets such as Unya and Yann tremble on the brink of declaring war...'" (10, p. 87)

(They would join Vorlak in its war against Kandemir.)

A quadrupedal Xoan expresses his assessment of humanity:

"'I tell you they were mad. The whole race was mad. Best they die, before their lunacy threatened everyone else.'" (11, p. 92)

Would an extra-terrestrial say that about us? Of course, it is us that are, if not saying, then at least contemplating, this judgement against ourselves, Poul Anderson by writing After Doomsday and the rest of us by reading it. We project external, even cosmic, judges of mankind but, by making such projections, we in fact judge ourselves. And this is the judgement that counts.

See also:

Credible Aliens? II

They Were Mad

Galactography II

After Doomsday, 10.

See Galactography.

Yes, more galactography, although not much. After escaping from Mayast III in a hijacked Kandemirian flitter piloted by Ramri, Donnan and his men are taken by Ramri to that Monwaingi's home planet, Katkinu. Only Ramri can read enough Erzhuat to pilot the flitter and Donnan had wanted to meet some Monwaingi leaders in any case. 

The Monwaingi sector of space is in:

"...the Libra region, a hundred light-years closer to Earth than Vorlak was..." (p. 85)

So:

Vorlak is 200 light-years from Earth towards Sorpio;

Kandemir is 175 light-years from Vorlak, northward and clockwise;

Kandemir-controlled Mayast is 40 light-years from Vorlak;

Monwaing is in the Libra region maybe 100 light-years from Earth.

So does that give anyone a clear perception of spatial relationships in our civilian-cluster?

Ramri is a Monwaingi of the Tantha Society on Katkinu.

What Survives?

After Doomsday, 9.

Forty men tauten - differently:

Howard moistens lips;

O'Bannion crosses himself;

Wright whispers to Rogers;

Yule clamps fists -

- and there are thirty-six others.

Religious gestures persist. In Merseyside, when I told a neighbour of another neighbour's death, she crossed herself.

In After Doomsday, very few human beings survive - and Donnan has just lost ten men. How many religious traditions will survive? If there are no ordained Catholic priests in any of the exploratory spaceships, then the Apostolic succession is lost. Has the new Covenant ended if Earth, Jerusalem and Rome are no more? If such questions are still discussed - and they might not be -, then we can guarantee that different answers will be given. Catholics without priests can practice only two sacraments: baptism and matrimony. But, for religion more generally, it is always possible either to pray or to meditate.