Two Future Histories

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic and Technic Histories have parallel structures:

Psychotechnic

World War III

UN world government, then Solar Union

The Second Dark Ages

The Stellar Union

The Third Dark Ages

Galactic Civilization

One story about post-War reconstruction.

No stories set during either Dark Ages.

One story (disputed) set in the Galactic Civilization.

Technic

The Chaos.

The Solar Commonwealth.

The Troubles.

The Galactic Empire.

The Long Night.

Civilizations in several spiral arms.

One Story about post-Chaos reconstruction.

One each during the Troubles and the Long Night.

One in the civilization of the Commonalty.

A Future History Outline

In recent posts, we have referred to just a few instalments of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History but these few have indicated an interesting future history:

conflicting sovereign nations were a disruptive factor on Earth;

the bulk of the population became technologically redundant;

when the hyperdrive was discovered, there was mass emigration from Earth;

the Traveller became lost in space, searched unsuccessfully for Earth, then settled on Harbor but some of its crew resumed their endless voyage and became the first Nomads;

the Coordination Service served the Stellar Union;

Coordinator Trevelyan Micah intervened in the Good Luck case, then later worked with and joined the Nomads;

the Nomads carried knowledge through the Third Dark Ages and influenced later interstellar civilizations whether or not those civilizations include the Galactic Civilization of "The Chapter Ends."

Anderson later added "The Pirate" because that story fitted into that background but it was the story that counted. "The Pirate" refers to the planet Nerthus which is a common setting and reference point in the series although the stories referring to it are quite dissimilar.

The Case

"The Pirate."

This story is not only about Trevelyan Micah and the other individuals listed on its opening page. (See the above link.) It is also:

"The case of the slain world named Good Luck..." (p. 211)

- which we are told:

"...is typical." (ibid.)

So a world is slain? Someone commits global genocide? And this is typical? Well, no. A planetary population has died from natural causes, has been killed by the radiation from a supernova. (In the Technic History, another planetary population is saved from such a fate.) But the dead must be respected. The physical remains of their civilization must be studied. So the depopulated planet must not be immediately exploited for commercial gain. That is what the young generations so often do not understand.

Guarding The Pact

In the first part of Poul Anderson's Technic History, six stories and two novels were published as the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy which was followed by one Ythrian novel, The People Of The Wind. Then, eight further League instalments and four Ythrian stories were collected as The Earth Book Of Stormgate but this time an extra layer of commentary was contributed by the twelve introductions and one afterward fictitiously written by the Ythrian, Hloch. 

Something similar although on a much smaller scale happened in Anderson's Psychotechnic History. "Gypsy" and The Peregrine are two instalments about the Nomads. The latter also features Trevelyan Micah of the Stellar Union Coordination Service. "The Pirate" is a later written story about Trevelyan set between "Gypsy" and The Peregrine but it also contains an extra layer of commentary contributed by its first person narrator who remains off-stage and speaks from one generation later than the events involving:

"...Trevelyan Micah, Murdoch Juan, Smokesmith, red Faustina, and the rest..."

-Poul Anderson, "The Pirate" IN Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 211-251 AT p. 211.

We are partially prepared for the narrative by the enunciation of the names of its main protagonists. The tone is reflective and elegiac. The narrator, a Coordinator (Cordy) begins:

"We guard the great Pact: but the young generations, the folk of the star frontier, so often do not understand." (ibid.)

- and ends:

"But the young generations so often do not understand." (p. 251)

These sentences match Hloch's commentaries. It is as if the unnamed narrator mourns in advance for the end of the Stellar Union which we know will come later in this future history series.

Poul Anderson

In the previous post, we compared Poul Anderson to Mark Twain and L. Sprague de Camp regarding time travel to a historical period.

In the post before that, we compared Anderson to Larry Niven and James Blish regarding faster than light interstellar travel.

We can also make the following comparisons -

Mary Shelley: the creation of life.

HG Wells: time travel to the future; Martian invasion; future society.

Olaf Stapledon: cosmic history.

Robert Heinlein: future history; immortality; generation ships; circular causality; magic as a technology.

Isaac Asimov: robots; a science of society; detective fiction.

James Blish: historical fiction; fantasy.

Hal Clement: extraterrestrial organisms.

Neil Gaiman: an inter-universal inn.

Nothing that we have not said before. Poul Anderson deserves to be promoted and not just by me. He was a visionary of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. His values were freedom and diversity. He looked backward, forward and outward - to history, the future and the universe. We move forward with Andersonian vision, to learn about exo-planets and receding galaxies.

A Debate In Three Stages

James Blish said in private correspondence that sf writers borrow and copy from each other in a way that would be regarded as plagiarism in any other genre.

Example: 

Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee..., Premise:

A twentieth century man is mysteriously transported to an earlier period.

Twain

Applying modern knowledge, he made big changes which were not recorded in the Dark Ages.

de Camp

Applying modern knowledge, he made big changes and changed the course of history.

Anderson

Lacking knowledge and skills appropriate to the period, he did not survive.

A debate in three stages.

(Other reading: I bought Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business. It's good.)

Twenty Years In The Traveler

"Gypsy."

Even faster than light spaceships take time to move between stars so sf writers need to be clear about how much time and whether there are different rates of FTL. In Known Space, Larry Niven has Quantum I and Quantum II hyperdrives. The latter takes Beowulf Shaeffer to somewhere near the galactic core and back. In Cities In Flight, James Blish simply forgot what the Okies' top speed was meant to be and described a fleet of cities moving at impossible speeds across the galaxy. Blish acknowledged that this was an error. Then a dirigible planet went all the way to the Metagalactic Centre. Greater mass is meant to enable greater speed but the Metagalactic Centre, if such exists, is a long way.

In just two decades plus, Poul Anderson's Traveler visits:

a blue hell of a planet;

pirates on a red sea;

tournaments on Drangor;

immense cities on Alkan;

a cephalopod philosopher;

a planet with beautiful but hostile natives;

barbarians;

ancient laboratories and libraries;

a methane storm;

paradisal Luanha;

centauroids attacking an aerial city;

Hralfar;

Atlang;

Thyvari;

New Jupiter -

- and the crew quickly learned how to communicate and converse on each inhabited planet.

Too much.

Psychology And Other Races

"Gypsy."

This is a psychological story. It is not explicitly stated but should be obvious to any attentive reader that Thorkild Erling's wife, Alanna, is happy on Harbor and does not want to resume spacefaring but nevertheless proposes this and pretends to want it because she knows that it is what her husband and several others want. I meant to quote some passages that clearly demonstrate that this is the case but it would have meant copying out large chunks of the text. Just read or reread the story!

The Traveler had been launched toward Alpha Centauri soon after the invention of the hyperdrive but the ship went off course and became lost in interstellar vastness. How does Thorkild know that there are other "...races..." (p. 32) in the Galaxy?

Three ways:

the fifth planet in the same system as Harbor is inhabited;

in Spacecamp Cove on Harbor, there are traces of non-human visitors who had hyperdrive;

the Traveler visited many inhabited planets during its twenty plus years searching for Earth.

These proto-Nomads know what kind of Galaxy they inhabit.

Relevance Or Irrelevance Of Psychotechnics

In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, far from applying a predictive science of society, the Stellar Union Coordination Service is perpetually behind in its intelligence-gathering. 

Although there are many intelligent species in the Galaxy, none is more intelligent than mankind because there is a natural limit to the complexity of nervous systems and particularly of brains. An overcomplex brain becomes unable to control itself. The same limit applies to computers and to systems of computers. Terminologically, Coordinator Trevelyan Micah refers not to "computers" but to "computing machines" (or just "machines") and "integrators." He tells Diane:

"'The overworked integrators are years behind in correlating information... A thing can grow to monstrous proportions before they learn of it.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine (New York, 1979), CHAPTER IV, p. 30.

So predictive social science has gone by the board. The Service deals not only with human colonies but also with non-human species to which the equations of psychotechnics can never have applied.

However, some aspects of psychotechnics remain applicable:

"...tediously worked-out equations indicating psychological probabilities..."

- CHAPTER VII, p. 51

- had preceded Trevelyan's approach to the Nomads. But, when those equations and his other preparations are "behind him":

"...for what followed, he had no data, no predictions -" (ibid.)

Another indication of the continued relevance of psychotechnics at least on the level of individual psychology is given when some intelligent beings are classified as:

"'...unintegrate.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Pirate" IN Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 211-251 AT p. 22.

The Peregrine informs us that, with the invention of the hyperdrive, many people emigrated from the Solar System because they had been made technologically redundant. This ties in with the earlier Psychotechnic History instalment, "Quixote and the Windmill." Trevelyan reminds Diane of what had happened in Terrestrial history:

"'...when there were sovereign states working at unintegrated cross-purposes.'"

-The Peregrine, CHAPTER IV, pp. 28-29.

This ties in with the suppression of nationalism and the enforcement of a UN World government in the earlier instalment, "UN-Man." However, the Coordinators are unable to enforce a unified government on a Galactic scale.

In "The Chapter Ends," Jorun not only is a psychotechnician but also is responsible to:

"...the Integrator on Corazuno..." (p. 256)

- so there are some connections between this story and earlier instalments.

The TRAVELER And The Nomads

In "Gypsy"

The Traveler was a single early faster than light interstellar colony ship, lost in space. Its crew spent some years looking for Earth but did not find it. Therefore, they settled on an uninhabited terrestroid planet, Harbor, where they used automatic machinery to farm and a spaceboat to trade with another inhabited planet in the same system. However, some Harborites realize they they had preferred spacefaring so they set off on an endless voyage, becoming the first Nomads. Some of them will colonize planets whereas others will use automatic machinery to build more ships, thus becoming:

"...a fleet, a mobile city hurtling from sun to sun."

-Poul Anderson, "Gypsy" IN Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 12-34 AT p. 32.

They expect to become:

"...the bloodstream of the interstellar civilization which was slowly gestating in the universe." (ibid.)

This is the role of James Blish's flying cities although they are instead compared to pollinating bees.

In The Peregrine

An interstellar civilization exists, protected by the Coordination Service. Within that civilization, each Nomad ship flies around its own trade circuit and they periodically meet at a planet outside known space called Rendezvous. The original endless voyage has been lost. 

The Nomads will survive the Stellar Union.