On Talwin:
"...the banners of those Vachs and regions that had members here whipped on their staffs."
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT Chapter Twelve, p. 277.
Cultural unification has not gone as far on Merseia as on Terra. In Falkayn's time, the Vachs did not yet dominate and Chee Lan met Olgor hu Freylin, Warmaster of the Republic of Lafdigu in the southern hemisphere. Flandry meets Cnif hu Vanden who:
is yellowish and flat-faced;
belongs to no Vach;
is descended from Lafdiguans;
belongs to a community that maintains cultural peculiarities, its old language and many old laws;
was born on a colony planet;
visited Merseia only for advanced education;
found many of its ways strange.
Merseian xenologists, including Ydwyr and Cnif, have named one of the Talwinian intelligent species "Ruadrath" after "...nocturnal supernatural beings in a Merseian mythology - 'elves.'" (p. 278)
Anderson writes not "Merseian mythology" but "...a Merseian mytholgy...," recognizing that an entire inhabited planet would have many mythologies. In Doctor Who, when a planet was identified to the Doctor by a number, he asked for its name and was told, "Skaro" - home planet of Thals and Daleks. Of course, his informant should have said something like, "Its name, in the principal language of its dominant species through much of its history, was Skaro..." In any case, the Doctor and informed viewers immediately think, "Daleks!"
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And many persons and groups left Earth during the Breakup precisely because Western civilization, which was becoming Technic, was absorbing or morphing together all Earthside nations and peoples. These disgruntled emigrants wanted to preserve at least some of Earth's older ways and languages and cultures, etc., on new colonies. I can imagine something happening on Merseia as the Wilwidh Ocean Vachs were overcoming their rivals and competitors.
Sean
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