Llynathawr's single (?) city, Catawrayannis (population: two million), on the Luana River, houses the hill top palace of the Governor of Sector Alpha Crucis. This frontier Sector also contains the Virgilian System, with inhabited Dido and colonized Aeneas, and the industrial rogue planet Satan which, at the time of the McCormac Rebellion, was an ancient possession of the Duke of Hermes, a colony planet in Sector Antares.
In the previous volume, the planet Irumclaw, with its empty suburban mansions, was described as:
"...like a piece of wreckage at the edge of the receding tide of empire."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 204.
Llynthawr has seen not a receding tide but a false dawn. The planet was bought in order to "...strengthen this frontier by attracting settlers." (p. 400) However, few people any longer leave comfortable environments for new beginnings in remote places and those few prefer town to country. Also, nearer colonials like Aeneans are already settled and unwilling to move. Thus, Catawrayannis is surrounded by sparsely lit wilderness.
The new Governor's audience chamber has a gold and black "...live-fur carpet..." (p. 402). A living surface, like grass underfoot? It also has many moving lights and dynasculps, incense, low music, an animated Imperial court masquerade covering one wall and an enormous inscribed portrait of the Emperor behind the chair of state. Subtle bad taste, reflecting Governor Snelund's personality.
An interesting place: we see too little of Llynathawr - although we are learning to spell it.
4 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I would still classify Llynathawr as at least a moderately succesful colony. The mere fact that the Sector capital, Catawrayannis, had a population of up to two millions indicates at least enough of a settled and developed HINTERLAND needed to support a city that large. I mean farms, plantations, fisheries, etc. And probably a few fairly large towns as well, elswhere on the planet, for processing and shipping of such products. With the usual services cities also offer.
But, I agree all this does not contradict what THE REBEL WORLDS said about Llynathawr.
Sean
I spotted another galactographic inconsistency in A MESSAGE IN SECRET - Flandry muses that a Merseian base on Altai would "outflank us at Catawyarannis" - which of course is nowhere near Betelgeuse, being the capital city of sector Alpha Crucis on the near opposite end of the Empire (this is explicitly stated in THE REBEL WORLDS, in the opening scene where Kheraskov gives Flandry his mission).
One would think that the author was thinking of Irumclaw, which is the main Terran base in the area and simply mixed his names, but I'm considering another possibility: Since this is almost the exact thing which happened in WE CLAIM THESE STARS, where the Merseians are trying to outflank Antares (again, at the exact opposite end of the Empire from them), I'm beginning to think Mr Anderson was having a bit of fun on his readers expense, to se how many of us were as quick on the uptake as Flandry is.
Johan,
Thank you. There are depths here that I did not suspect.
Paul.
Kaor, Johan!
Thanks for noticing things nobody else seems to have thought of noting. I did wonder if the inconsistency you found came from "A Message In Secret" being an older story mentioning details Anderson could or should have remembered while writing THE REBEL WORLDS about ten years later.
Or was the hostile Merseian Roidhunate really was busy trying to make trouble for the Empire on all sides of it?
Sean
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