Philippe born in Selenopolis, a spaceport and manufacturing center;
family moved a lot because of father's work;
Philippe spent several impressionable years among the crime and poverty of Venus, which had never been satisfactorily terraformed;
he joined the Navy not from chauvinism (no?) but to see the universe;
saw several planets for two or three years before commencing pilot training;
commanded a Meteor in the attack on Avalon;
lost his ship and crew and was captured but escaped but only as an unwitting pawn in an Avalonian maneuver;
was hospitalized during the disastrous landing on Avalon;
hoped to settle on Avalon with Tabitha Falkayn but their relationship did not last and she married Chris Holm.
Observations
I would like to know more about the Sociodynamic Service.
Selenopolis must be on the Moon?
Philippe recalls Dominic Flandry in that he "...stretched to the limit the tolerance granted officers as regards their dress uniforms - rakishly tilted bonnet..." etc (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 487).
Flandry also lost his first command.
However, Flandry always turned the tables on his enemies and did not disapprove of mixed colonies.
4 comments:
Kaor ,Paul!
I have wondered about the Sociodynamic Service myself. Did it concentrate on studying how societies, both human and non human, work? And if so, they probably advised the Imperium on how best to handle or govern them. It seems to me their work would be similar to that the psychotechnicians in Anderson's Psychotechnic History.
Sean
Paul:
I've seen lines in a couple of Sandra Miesel's essays that indicate Rochefort was in fact literally an ancestor of Flandry. Does your reading support that notion -- and if so, how? If there's a passage in any of the Flandry stories that connects him to the Rochefort family, I missed it.
David,
Sean and I have agreed somewhere (!) on the blog that there is no evidence that Rochefort is an ancestor of Flandry, although clearly he is a literary precursor.
Paul.
Hi, David!
Paul is correct,we both agree there is no evidence in Anderson's Technic History stories showing Philippe Rocefort was an ancestor of Dominic Flandry. But they did have some things in common, such as a fondness for uniforms as colorful as regulations would permit.
Sean
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