Some Details On Avalon

Tabitha Falkayn tells Phillipe Rochefort that she is an Ythrian because:

"'Avalon belongs to the Domain.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 569.

Similarly, in the Empire, members of other species can have Terran citizenship. Tabitha, in particular, is a third generation member of Highsky Choth, was brought up by Ythrians and is in business with one.

Rochefort's Catholicism is more than skin deep. He prays:

"O all you saints, St. Joan who burned for her people, help me!" (p. 610)

and:

"Father, show me your will." (p. 611)

When he swears, "'Body of Christ...'" (p. 624), he signs himself before Admiral Cajal's crucifix.

At the same time, I am pleased to see that Rochefort enjoys sex with Tabitha and with women friends on Esperance.

Like cities on Dennitza and Freehold, Fleurville has a cathedral and churches (p. 577). Thus, Esperance is another of the planets to which human beings have taken Christianity.

Recuperating in an improvised Avalonian hospital, the Terrans:

"...had no entertainment except reading and bitching." (p. 644)

Most prefer the latter! Rochefort wears earcups and reads The Gaiila Folk. He had been interested in studying Avalon even when attacking it. The southern hemisphere has three large islands or small continents:

New Africa, exporter of beer;
Equitoria, uncolonized because its tool-shaping centaurs might become intelligent if unmolested;
Gaiila, which must be colonized if it has "Folk."

Regarding the centaurs: imagine being a member of a species that becomes intelligent, then finds alien intelligences not on other planets but on other continents.

The distribution of planets in the Lauran System is similar to that in the Solar System and the human Avalonians have bestowed exotic names:

Elysium is near the sun;
Camelot has many moons;
dark Utgard is out near the cometary halo;
Phaeacia is frigid but blue and peaceful.

European literature started with Homer but Tabitha first hears of him from Christopher Holm.