Friday 4 November 2016

Life on Avalon II

Unlike Stormgate, the Weathermaker Choth is a single extended household. (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 297) This household's stone tower houses "...core families..." (p. 298), not just the senior members of a single family and their children. See here. We know that choths differ. Here is one example.

The Avalonian rotation period is just under half the Terrestrial, the year is just under three quarters and gravity is 80%. These are big differences but organisms can adapt. The Ythrian colonists had to adapt their breeding cycle to a different day, year, weight, climate, diet and environment. Their first generations were of low fertility but then they flourished.

Daniel Holm reflects that:

"He was born here. His ancestors had lived here for centuries; they arrived with Falkayn." (Rise..., p. 452)

And these lineages will unite when Holm's son, Christopher, who is Arinnian of Stormgate Choth, marries Tabitha Falkayn, who is Hrill of Highsky Choth. See here.

Holm and Anderson do not tell us how many centuries, let alone a precise period of time or years AD. I might compile a loose Chronology of the Technic History but it will be monumentally vague and will indicate only an approximate number of centuries between major events.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

We do get a few hints in the stories themselves about when certain events happened. E.g., Ivar Frederiksen mentioned in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN that the war between the Empire and the Domain occurred two centuries before TDOTR.

But, by and large, I think the Chronology worked out by Sandra Miesel (and my revision of it) is the best we will get--barring any posthumous revelations from unpublished papers of Poul Anderson.

Sean