Five Wars In Four Stories

It is getting late here. Let us summarize the wars that we have read about so far in Poul Anderson's Seven Conquests.

In "Details"

World Wars I and II. (Galactic intervention put Lenin into Russia in 1917! The Galactics later regretted it. In another timeline, the Time Patrol would have to ensure that Ulyanov/Lenin got into that sealed train.)

In "Kings Who Die"

An interminable war beyond the Moon between the United States Astromilitary Corps and the Cosmonautical Service of the People of United Asia. (World War III taught the powers to move war off Earth.)

In "Wildcat"

A Cold War culminating in a nuclear exchange that destroys all life on Earth in the twentieth century.

"Cold Victory"

The Martian and Venerian colonies intervening to help the anti-Humanist counterrevolution and to restore Earth to the Solar Union in a future history that had begun in the aftermath of World War III.

That is four of the seven stories. What are the other three about?

Expository Dialogue

Poul Anderson, "Cold Victory" IN Anderson, Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 74-94.

Finishing "Wildcat" and turning the page we find "Cold Victory," the title story of Volume II of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, which we have discussed before as part of that series. See here. Again, the characters discuss war. In fact, they expound their history for our benefit. Captain Crane begins to tell a story:

"'This happened during the final attack on the Humanists -'" (p. 75)

The academic, Professor Freylinghausen, having invited the Captain to tell his story, promptly interrupts:

"'A perfect case of inevitability, sir,' interrupted Freylinghausen. 'May I explain? Thank you. Forgive me if I  repeat obvious facts. Their arrangement and interpretation are perhaps not so obvious.'" (ibid.)

Then this impossible man speaks without interruption, telling the other characters their own history, until three quarters of the way down p. 76: an introduction to the story for Anderson's readers but a very unrealistic conversation between his characters. 

Freylinghausen argues that the sequence of events from the failure of psychotechnic government to the Mars-Venus intervention in support of the anti-Humanist counterrevolution was inevitable whereas Crane replies that the success of the counterrevolution and the intervention was not guaranteed. His story is supposed to be what makes the difference. 

Needless to say, Freylinghausen, near the end, says:

"'But the broad current moves quite inexorably, I assure you.'" (p. 93)

He maintains that the Humanists will return even if under a different name and, as we continue to read the Psychotechnic History, we find that he is correct.

"'The war was merely a ripple.'" (ibid.)

Blackness And Drums

 

"Wildcat."

Symonds tells Herries that:

in one hundred million AD, life is re-evolving on Earth and radioactivity has died down but the atmosphere is not yet breathable;

nuclear explosions will destroy all life "'Approximately one year from the twentieth-century base date we are presently using.'" (p. 71)

Herries' response is Andersonian:

"'One year...from now.' Herries stared upward. Blackness met him. He heard the Jurrasic rain on the tin roof, like drums." (ibid.)

Told of the end of life, he sees blackness. He hears not wind this time but rain like drums and there have been times and places where the sound of drums was a threat, as in Anderson's "The Master Key."

With the benefit of time travel, the characters know what is to come and are doing what can be done about it. Symonds, presumably because he has had enough by now, just wants to return home.

Options In SF Stories

"Wildcat."

An sf story, while showing us one option, can mention others. Thus, Herries considers options during the Cold War and one is:

"...you could fight back (thus becoming more and more like what you fought)..." (p. 65)

If you had to spend a lifetime fighting off mad dogs, then you would become more and more like a mad dog.

This is the road that James Blish goes down in They Shall Have Stars. To resist encroachments from the Soviet Union, the United States increases its security measures at the expense of individual and academic freedom until the two systems become indistinguishable and are easily amalgamated by some bureaucratic maneuvers at the top. But, meanwhile, some Colonials have fled from the Solar System. Hence, the title.

Decades ago, I summarized They Shall Have Stars to a guy who argued vehemently that the Soviet Union was far more likely to lose the Cold War and of course he was right about that. However, Blish wrote not a geopolitical prognostication but a novel which followed just one option and also followed alternative options in other works.

We continually compare sf futures. Jerry Pournelle has the CoDominium, a US-USSR merger.

Descriptive Passages

Two descriptive passages that we have read past in Seven Conquests:

The Cantina In "Kings Who Die"

a low, noisy room

bullfight posters

dense smoke

tourists

loud clothes

fat faces

3V (future TV in several Poul Anderson works)

a juke wall with a three times life size singer

deafening singing

Herries' Vision Of "One Place Stretching Through Time" (p. 50)

exhausted oil wells

abandoned tanks, pumps and shed

rain and jungle

sea

dry land

"...cold prairie scoured by glacial winds..." (ibid.)

growing warmth

"...a waste of years..." (ibid.)

the time projector on this very spot

after that?

(A very different "time projector" from the one in "Flight to Forever.")

What Goes On Apart From Time Travel

 

"Wildcat."

At the Jurassic oil rig site, the bureaucrat, Symonds, tells the boss, Herries, that a special shipment soon to arrive will be marked top secret and is to be guarded by armed men. When Herries reads Symonds' list of the men to be assigned to this guard duty:

"'Brave, discreet, and charter subscribers to National Review,' he murmured. 'Teacher's pets...'" (p. 52)

When Symonds informs him that:

"'The purpose is classified.'" (p. 53)

- Herries' sarcasm knows no bounds:

"'Yeah. Sure. Classified. Arise, ye duly cleared citizens of democracy, and cast your ballots on issues whose nature is classified, that your leaders whose names and duties are classified may -...'" (ibid.)

This is followed by what might be classified as mild swearing - or at least might stand in for such.

A bit further on, Symonds tells Herries that:

"'Your language is close to being subversive...'" (p. 54)

When Herries has received his monthly supply of magazines and newspapers:

"The twentieth century looked still uglier than it had last month. The nations felt their pride and saw no way to retreat. The Middle Eastern war was taking a decisive turn which none of the great powers could afford." (ibid.)

(Blogger's comment: the great powers consider their own interests, not those of people living in the Middle East.)

Reading this in (our version of ) 2026, we might think that our twenty-first century is worse than his twentieth but we would be wrong.

When questioned on his views by one of the chaplains:

"Herries looked up into the steaming sky. A foul wind met his face." (p. 56)

Wind punctuates dialogue, as ever. And Herries' mood is foul so that is what he gets in the face.

A crewcut man called Worth is:

"...one of the professional patriots who would be standing guard on Symonds' crates; but not a bad sort, really, after you learned to ignore his rather tedious opinions." (p. 58)

Poul Anderson gets us to like a guy, Greenstein, then has him killed by a tyrannosaur. Just before the fight with the tyrannosaur, Greenstein gives Herries a long look and asks:

"'How the devil did you ever get this job?... You don't sound like a man who'd be cleared for a dishwashing assistantship.'" (ibid.)

Herries replies that he has always:

"'...liked totalitarianism even less than what passes for democracy.'" (p. 59)

- but adds that he might not get the job if he were to apply now. It has changed him.

Not killed but nevertheless badly injured by the tyrannosaur is Worth who will have to be sent home and then kept incommunicado. Herries comments:

"'I wonder how much of a patriot he'll be by that time.'" (p. 63)

Herries equates patriotism with necrophilia since citizens are expected to rejoice at megadeaths and suggests, ironically of course, that:

"...facts might be un-American.'" (ibid.)

Finally, he looks inside the classified crates.

Past Time And Cold War

"Wildcat."

How do we know when the characters are? This is disclosed gradually:

"'Your precious union is a hundred million years in the future...'" (p. 42)

"...the Jurassic mist." (ibid.)

"...along the gulf that would some day be Oklahoma." (p. 44)

"'The international situation is critical. You ought to be thankful you are safely back in the past." (ibid.)

"'...not a woman for a hundred million years...'" (ibid.)

The bureaucrat, Symonds, lectures the men, and thus also the readers, on the limitations of time travel in this one-off scenario.

In the twentieth century, the Russians:

probably know that the US has time travel;

but will have threatened an all-out attack if war material is sent into the past in any quantity;

have a satellite base;

have "'...agreed to make the moon a neutral zone.'" (p. 46)

Thus, the international situation in the twentieth century affects these men who are drilling for oil in the Jurassic but who expect to return home.

Revisiting "Wildcat"?

Poul Anderson, "Wildcat" IN Anderson, Seven Conquests (New York, 1970), pp. 41-73.

We have posted quite a lot about this story already. See here. (Scroll down.)

"Wildcat" is collected in Anderson's Past Times as a time travel story and in Seven Conquests as a war-related story. We have analyzed time travel in this and other works by Anderson but can we get something more out of the war aspect? (Maybe not but we might as well try to find out. I am still recovering from a cold here, hence more posts than usual in the last two days.)

"Wildcat" begins as a men-and-dinosaurs story without immediately confirming that the bellowing brontosaur and the man-plesiosaur encounter on its opening page occur thanks to time travel. See Assaulted Senses.

Several dinosaur stories set in the present include:

ERB's dinosaurs on an island called The Land That Time Forgot during a War;

DC Comics' War That Time Forgot on Dinosaur Island.

Poul Anderson, a comprehensive sf writer, also gives us dinosaurs and connects them with a war but he keeps them in the past.

"Luckily..."

 

"Kings Who Die."

How many short stories begin and end with the same sentence?

"Luckily, Diaz was facing the other way when the missile exploded." (p. 11)

"Luckily, Diaz was facing the other way when the missile exploded." (p. 40)

In the first sentence, Diaz has survived the destruction of the spaceship in which he had been a crew member. In the concluding sentence, he has sabotaged and escaped from the command ship of the enemy fleet, thus decisively winning the battle for his side, and has also gained crucial military intelligence. He has come a long way and has come full circle. Luck has stayed with him. She favours the brave.

And maybe the insight gained into the underlying sociopsychological cause of the war can help to resolve a conflict which otherwise will remain endless because it is fought only in space and never allowed to harm Earth or even the Lunar bases? 

The Theoretical Basis

"Kings Who Die."

L. F. Richardson is to this story what John K. Hord is to Poul Anderson's Technic History and Oswald Spengler is to James Blish's Cities In Flight.

Rostock claims that he has:

"'...carried Richardson's work a good deal further and more rigorously. I say to you now only that civilized societies must have a certain rate of immolations.'" (p. 32)

- hence this story's title: 

"'Today the machine age has developed its own sacrificial kings. We are the chosen of the race, the best it can offer. None gainsays us. We may have what we choose, pleasure, luxury, women, adulation - only not the simple pleasures of wife and child and hope, for we must die that the people may live.'" (p. 33)

Diaz will wind up defeating Rostock militarily instead of joining forces with him but surely this Richardsonian theory warrants further investigation?