Arulians And Outbackers

Are the Arulians, with their blue feathers and seven-fingered hands, an optional extra in Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire"? They might generate that impression but they have three roles, of which at least one is crucial:

they are the local pawns of Merseia - thus, even this backwater planet exists in an interstellar, inter-imperial context;

they influence the human outbackers both culturally and scientifically;

traveling secretly in Arulian spaceships, some outbackers have visited and studied in the Terran Empire.

That third point is essential. Despite living in the planetary forest, the outbackers are more cosmopolitan than the inhabitants of the provincial Cities with whom they are in conflict. Anderson knew that a population cannot have a broader perspective on the universe unless it has had a broader contact with the universe and, in this case, that broader contact has been provided by secret journeys in Arulian spaceships.

Ridenour acknowledges that the outbackers have "'...a true civilization.'" (Captain Flandry, New York, 2010, p. 48) I prefer to call what the outbackers have built a post-civilization because it is a society created by a group of people after they have left the cities but taking with them knowledge gained by their predecessors who had lived in cities. Anderson's text acknowledges my preferred terminology -

An outbacker says:

"'...you admit we are civilized. Or post-civilized. At any rate, we aren't degenerate, we are progressing on our own trail.'" (p. 49)

And, earlier, Ridenour had thought:

"Not a civilization, Ridenour felt sure. You could not have a true civilization without libraries...buildings...reliable transportation and communication..." (the word he is looking for is "cities") "But you could have a barbarism that was subtle, powerful and deathly dangerous ...Hyksos...Dorians...Lombards...Vikings...Crusaders...Mongols...Aztecs..." (p. 33)

Ridenour moves beyond thinking of the outbackers as subtle, powerful barbarians so he calls their society "...a true civilization..." but I think he should have gone one stage further and added "post-."