Phases (Or Phrases)

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, "hyperspace" is successive quantum jumps. Hyperjumping spaceships become solid to each other if they match the phases (or frequencies) of their jumps.

In Anderson's Psychotechnic History, "hyperspace" is an increase in phase velocity, made possible by the frequency of the engine's oscillators, or is a tachyon mode.

In The Peregrine, part of the Psychotechnic History, when the spaceship is in the fringes of a trepidation vortex:

"'Components of the vibration have the ship's resonance frequencies. They'll shake us apart, atom by atom.'" (CHAPTER XIII, p. 114)

The solution is to:

"'...get the ship as a whole in phase with the major space-pulsations -...'" (pp. 114-115)

- so Coordinator Trevelyan, having glanced at the ship's instruments, then subconsciously computed gravitational and electric potentials, gradients, magnetism, gyration, frequencies and amplitudes, directs the engine room how to:

"'Pulse the hyperdrive, sinusoid - here, I'll give you the figures.'" (p. 115)

It all sounds very similar.

When I worked in a labouring job at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, (see also Hospital) a member of the domestic staff informed me that a then current building project within the Infirmary was "Phrase One." We wondered how many Phrases there were going to be.

Sean's, Trevelyan's And Joachim's POV's

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XIII.

First, we must correct an error. I stated in:

Consciousness And A Vortex

- that, in CHAPTER XIII, the narrative point of view shifts from Sean to Trevelyan, then stays with Trevelyan until the end of this chapter. It does not. 

"The hyperdrive went off. Joachim must have signaled for that." (p. 115)

Trevelyan, and Nicki with him, know that Joachim must have signaled for the hyperdrive to go off. Trevelyan sees stars, sees Nicki and remembers Job 38:12. So far then, the narrative is still with Trevelyan's pov.

However, after what should really have been a double space between paragraphs, Joachim becomes our acting character. He looks out at space, asks where they are and engages in conversation with Ferenczi. When Ferenczi tells him to look through a port, Joachim sees a nearby red star and:

"Its luster hurt his eyes." (p. 116)

The pov has shifted to Joachim with whom it then remains. Indeed:

"He saw Trevelyan and Nicki by one of the ports. They were looking at each other, eyes into eyes, hands clasped. Briefly, Joachim smiled. Whatever happened, life went on." (p. 117)

Far from remaining the narrative viewpoint character, Trevelyan has become an object of Joachim's amused observation. "...Joachim smiled..." could have been observed by someone else. However, "Whatever happened, life went on," is Joachim's inner reflection which can only be recounted from his pov.

If there are four characters on a spaceship bridge, then five coherent narratives become possible:

an entirely objective account of the ship's motion through hyperspace, then through the trepidation vortex;

how Joachim experiences all this;

how Ferenczi experiences all this (in fact, in this case, we are not told any of Ferenczi's experiences);

how Trevelyan experiences all this;

how Nicki experiences all this;

(and so on if there are more characters.)

An account that jumps between povs does not present any of these parallel narratives.

Consciousness And A Vortex

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XIII.

The narrative point of view had shifted from Trevelyan in CHAPTER XII to Sean in CHAPTER XIII but now, still within XIII, shifts back to Trevelyan as he:

"...willed the pain out of his consciousness." (p. 113)

The pov stays with Trevelyan as he and Nicki:

"...saw a wreck of tangled branches, splintered trunks, and tumbled bodies." (ibid.)

- and Trevelyan himself thinks that the Nomads are meeting this devastation well.

The pov remains with Trevelyan for the rest of XIII. (Addendum: No. See here.)

How does reality, which before the evolution of central nervous systems was entirely objective, become divided into an objective realm and an indefinite number of individual subjectivities, yours, mine and everyone else's? This is the central question of philosophy and the point of intersection between philosophy and fiction.

The trepidation vortex brings the Peregrine to where it had wanted to go. How did that happen? Were the Alori able to bring it about? I cannot remember from previous readings but now I am about to return to an Inspector Morse novel before turning in.

Great Cosmos.

Points Of View And Perspectives

The Peregrine.

Pages of dialogue can pass without specifying a point of view. Then suddenly there is one:

"Trevelyan heard the amplified voice..." (CHAPTER XII, p. 108)

The pov can change between discrete narrative passages within a chapter or just between chapters:

"...Sean saw an uprooted tree falling..." (CHAPTER XIII, p. 111)

Futuristic sf can comment on the past and the present, e.g.:

"In the day of great cities, men had been caged in the stony, glassy mountains of their creation, and it was not strange that so many of them had retreated into madness." (CHAPTER XII, p. 103)

That's us.

There are other powerful examples. I have quoted Watchmen, an alternative history by Alan Moore. One of its protagonists thinks that the US would have gone mad as a nation if it had lost in Vietnam... Poul Anderson's "Eutopia" presents a bleak outsider's view of our timeline.

After mentioning cities, The Peregrine proceeds to ask:

"What then of humanity locked in a shell of metal and raw energy, between the stars?" (ibid.)

The later story, "The Saturn Game," which became the earliest instalment of the Technic History, addresses this question.

The Peregrine has a large park with an outside view.

"The Galaxy In Your Hands"

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XII.

Nicki tells Trevelyan that the Nomads belong in the universe, adding:

"'Forget your damned science for a while. Reach out and take the Galaxy in your hands!'

"'A big Galaxy,' he murmured." (p. 105)

People set up false dichotomies. The Nomads could not have been out in the universe without science. Indeed, that our galaxy is not the entire universe but only a "grain of sand," to quote Brian Aldiss, was realized only in 1925. Now we take it for granted... 

Trevelyan taking the Galaxy in his hands reminds us of William Blake. See the attached image.

Now I have to eat and get to the Zen group.

Keep rereading Poul Anderson. 

Various POV's

 

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XI.

"[Trevelyan] noticed that weeping didn't disfigure [Ilaloa] as it does a human." (p. 99)

That is a good characteristic for a humanoid species.

Only a few lines later:

"Looking on the warmth of [Trevelyan's] face, Nicki wondered how much of it was acting." (ibid.)

POV switch: in the course of a single passage, the narrative point of view has switched from Trevelyan to Nicki. Shouldn't really happen - some of us think.

Over the page but still in the same narrative passage:

"The hypnotism didn't take long. Ilaloa went under fast. Sean winced at the violence of her re-enactment, but the peace that followed was worth it." (p. 100)

Are we being informed not that Trevelyan and/or Nicki noticed Sean's wince but that he felt it and then thought that the peace was worth it? If the latter, then the POV has shifted again, this time to Sean.

Meanwhile, Ilaloa is misleading her companions. She pretends to have heard an alien thought in order to direct them towards a particular region of space where her people wait. 

Before the hypnosis, Ilaloa tells Trevelyan that she has no words to describe how a received thought felt if he has never felt them. Why not? We all directly experience our own thoughts  so, if we suddenly detected someone else's, then we ought to be able to say something about it. Indeed, Trevelyan makes an attempt. He makes four points:

"'It comes all at once...'" (p. 99);

there is "A main thread..." (ibid.);

there are also what he calls sidelines, overtones, hints, whispers and glimpses;

"'...it's always changing.'" (ibid.)

Does that sound like thought? Ilaloa accepts the description. But she then describes a thought of some fictional species other than her own. The Nomads and their Coordinator ally are being misled.

Organizations In Three Timelines

Poul Anderson's major series feature organizations with different but mostly worthwhile purposes.

The Technic History

The Polesotechnic League cartelizes, becoming a shadow of its former self.

The Commonalty: we see this interstellar service organization only at its height.

The Psychotechnic History

The Psychotechnic Institute goes bad and is suppressed.

The Order of Planetary Engineers.

The Stellar Union Coordination Service.

The Time Patrol series

The Time Patrol preserves our history, both good and bad, but is this a good or a bad thing to do?

Theory And Fact, Theory And Practice

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XI.

Nomad Nicki says that Solarians smugly try to run the universe according to equations and a theory.

Coordinator Trevelyan Micah replies:

"'Any culture is based on a theory... Ours simply happens to be explicitly formulated.'" (p. 96)

Explicitly formulated, maybe. Predictive, no. Early psychotechnicians made predictions but we have seen that the later Coordinators are always behind with their information. 

The word, "theory," is much abused. Call evolution a theory and some say, "It is only a theory so it is not proved." For this reason, Richard Dawkins started calling evolution a "fact" but it is not a single datum which is one meaning of "fact." Theories explain facts but surely evolution is an overwhelmingly substantiated explanation of adaptation? If anyone can substantiate an alternative theory, then that will be well and good but let's hear it. 

Once Sheila referred to the "theory" of something and a friend responded, "So it is only theory, not fact?" She meant theory as opposed to practice, not theory as opposed to fact. That latter meaning, taken in isolation, is an extremely impoverished understanding of "theory." Theories are tools, not mere hypotheses. Theory guides practice. Practice tests theory.

Decades ago, a guy on a bus identified me as a student and opinionated, "We want practical, not theoretical!" We have to choose not between theory and practice but between better and worse theories. In James Blish's sf:

Newton

Einstein

Haertel

If a theory is disproved, then we have to seek a better one, not say, "So much the worse for theory!"

Sensations In Kaukasu

The Peregrine, CHAPTER IX.

Chill morning mist.

Gleaming wet flagstones.

Mountainous towers.

Shrill clamoring voices.

Thumping hoofs.

Groaning wheels.

Clashing iron.

Smells, unspecified.

Narrow, cobbled, twisting, labyrinthine streets.

Slippery muck.

High, peak-roofed, crazily leaning houses.

Heavy brass doors.

Narrow slit windows.

Overhanging balconies.

Flimsy wooden booths of pottery, clothing, tools, weapons, rugs, food and wine.

Minareted temples.

Blood-smeared gods.

Swirling crowd.

Braying trumpet.

Galloping guardsmen.

Sheeting mud.

Trampled child.

Chained slaves.

Bleeding feet.

Market square.

Hanged bodies.

Happy harpist.

Blind alleys.

The human rulers of this planet have turned into a blind alley.

Worrying

The Peregrine, CHAPTER X.

We can reflect on any sentence.

Peregrine Thorkild Sean thinks:

"I worry too much, and it gets me nowhere." (p. 86)

At work, when change and redundancies were threatened, we received a day of pep talks. A trainer, counsellor or whatever he was claimed that the vast majority of things that we worry about do not happen and the ones that do happen would have happened anyway. That helped.

"What's the use of worrying?

"It never was worthwhile..."

A Larry Niven character in Known Space thinks, "I've got to get over this some time. Why not now?"

Meditation does not prevent worrying but does help. 

That is the sum total of my reflection on worrying at present. Almost any sentence can prompt a moment of reflection.