The Rest Of The Day

Today:

I will continue to reread "The Three-Cornered Wheel," probably start "A Sun Invisible" and take notes for blogging;

we will again drive to places like Silverdale Cove (see image) for marine garden materials;

I will attend meditaion group this evening.

Posting will continue tomorrow.

Read Poul Anderson.

Addendum: Meanwhile also read Introducing The Kabbalah and Borrowed Ideas.

Martin Schuster And The Calculus

Martin Schuster introduces calculus, Kepler's laws and Newtonian gravitation to Ivanhoan astrologers. I have two problems with mathematics:

although I think logically and easily accepted at least the principles of symbolic logic when studying philosophy, I cannot perform mental arithmetic - the simplest calculation requires pen and paper;

my school education was seriously deficient because we never even heard of calculus - I understand the phrase, "mathematical study of continuous change," but lose the thread as soon as "functions" are mentioned.

However, it makes sense to be told that the position of a planet is a function of the time. There are two quantities, one dependent on the other. I have had to formulate this basic principle of calculus for myself when thinking about the nature of time and the concept of time travel. People say that they move along time at the rate of sixty seconds per minute yet sixty seconds and one minute are a single quantity. The Time Traveler does not accelerate along time but experiences time dilation which is described as a slowing down, not as a speeding up. Time Patrol timecycles do not move through time but disappear at one set of spatial coordinates and appear at another.

See Space and Time and The Logic of Time Travel: Part I.

Night On Ivanhoe

When David Falkayn is on Ivanhoe, Earth and Hermes are more than four hundred light-years away so the Polesotechnic League covers a volume of space over twice as large as the later Terran Empire.

The second moon rises. We have recently become used to reading stories set on planets with two or more moons. Nights are light on Ivanhoe because of the moons and also because:

"...the stars swarmed and glittered, the seven giant Sisters so brilliant in their nebular hazes that they cast shadows, the lesser members of the cluster and the more distant suns of the galaxy filling the sky with their wintry hordes. A gray twilight overlay the world. Off in the west, the Kasunian mountains seemed phosphorescent." (II, p. 218) (For full reference, see here.)

See also In The Pleiades.

It is because the interstellar medium is thicker than usual that the accident had happened.

On p. 220, the Milky Way (and see here) is mentioned when an Ivanhoan's mane resembles "...a forested mountain..." against it.

Martin Schuster

Martin Schuster, David Falkayn's first mentor, and Max Abrams, Dominic Flandry's first mentor, are both Jewish.

"To hell with any sentimental guff about cultural autonomy, Schuster reflected. This is one society that ought to be kicked apart."
-Poul Anderson, "The Three-Cornered Wheel" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 199-261 AT 111, p. 225.

Thus, Schuster is not a respecter of Non-Interference.

One aspect of this society that Schuster wants to kick apart is that:

"...the Consecrates were in direct touch with God." (ibid.)

A Krishna devotee once told me, "Our spiritual master is in direct contact with God and it is just endless bliss..."

The spiritual complacency was frightening. If there is a God, is anyone in direct touch with him? Schuster, if Orthodox, believes that the prophets were. Being not only Jewish but also a canny Master Merchant, Schuster will subvert the Ivanhoan theocracy not by challenging theism but by introducing the Kabbalah. The resulting confusion and dissension will no doubt lead to some Ivanhoans questioning and rejecting theism, whether or not Schuster had intended this outcome.

Time Travelling And Space Jumps II

See Time Travelling And Space Jumps and Alternative Quantum Mechanics.

(A day away from the lap top enables my brain to elaborate what might have been a simple post into a complicated one. Because my daughter, Aileen, is designing a marine-themed garden, we drove to a nearby coastal village to beachcomb for appropriate materials. However, this does not prevent a Poul Anderson fan from thinking about the Technic History or the Time Patrol.)

Having compared Robert Heinlein's Future History with Anderson's Technic History here, we now compare time machines in HG Wells' The Time Machine and Anderson's Time Patrol with spaceships in the Technic History and in Anderson's World Without Stars.

The Time Machines
If Wells' Time Machine occupies the same space as "some substance," then the jamming together of molecules and atoms will cause a profound chemical reaction, possibly a far-reaching explosion. For how the Time Patrol's timecycles avoid this danger, see Miniaturization.

The Spaceships
In World Without Stars, if a space-jumping spaceship arrives in the same place as a solid body, then the jamming together of atoms will cause a massive explosion.

In the Technic History, the nuclear fusion unit of the micro-jumping What Cheer occupies the same space as a bit of solid matter. With the fusion unit disabled, Captain Mukerji uses every charged accumulator on the ship to keep the engine going until he lands on Ivanhoe, which explains why David Falkayn and three others are stranded there.

This in turn leads into a list of reasons for being stranded in space:

van Rijn was stranded on Diomedes because there was a bomb in the main generator of his skycruiser;

in Anderson's Psychotechnic History, five couples are stranded on an extrasolar planet because, leaving their Star Ship in orbit, they land in a lifeboat only to have its atomic convertors go out of control and destroy the boat;

also in the Psychotechnic History, other starship crews become isolated when they are thrown of course by trepidation vortices. See Lost Starships.

If the premise of a problem-solving story is the need to escape from a particular planet, then the reason for being stranded there has to be plausible in the first place.

The Strike Of '66

When posting about Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind here, I remembered an earlier post about Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children here, linked to that earlier post and also added a few details to it, e.g., the road strike of 1966 is mentioned in Heinlein's Future History Chart, then in Volumes I and IV of the Future History.

Heinlein never wrote a story about that strike but didn't need to. These three references serve their purpose. There was technological progress but also social turmoil during the second half of the twentieth century. This strike was just one of the many conflicts that occurred in that period and it is also one of the several events that help to unify the History. That is sufficient. In Britain, we refer to the General Strike and to the Great Miners' Strike. Heinlein's citizens of the future have their equivalents.

It is good to spend some time again in that Future History written so long ago and also to reflect that Anderson's Technic History far surpasses Heinlein's series in both length and complexity. As yet, I have not tired of summarizing sequences, sub-series and interconnections in the Technic History although this generates a certain amount of repetition on the blog. Tomorrow, we will return to young Falkayn's predicament on Ivanhoe.

Falkayn On Ivanhoe

David Falkayn converses with Rebo on Ivanhoe. See here.

Dull red sunlight slants through narrow windows;

flames crackle inside and wind booms outside;

smoke is acrid.

OK. Just three senses this time.

Falkayn and his companions cannot eat Ivanhoan food and need local help with transportation so they are in the same position as Nicholas van Rijn and his companions on Diomedes in The Man Who Counts. Falkayn is a young trainee so he is in the same position as Dominic Flandry on Starkad in Ensign Flandry.

Falkayn, apprenticed to Master Polesotechnician Martin Schuster, imagines himself as "...a Prometheus come to Larsum..." (p. 204) (For full reference, see the above link. For Prometheus, see the image.) Where is Larsum? (Addendum: It is on Ivanhoe. I took it to be a place in Greek mythology.)

Meanwhile, I need to eat Chinese food so I will be back later.

No!

Uranium fission;
lasers;
artificial positive and negative gravity fields;
the quantum hyperjump.

Vance Hall, commenting on the Philosophy of Noah Arkwright, cites these four technological achievements as examples of phenomena that were supposed to be impossible until they happened. Since two of them have already happened, this generates the impression that Hall is merely living at a later stage of the same history as the readers of Poul Anderson's Technic History.

Hall's remarks are inexplicably presented as an Introduction to "The Three-Cornered Wheel," which then begins:

"'No!'"
-Poul Anderson,"The Three-Cornered Wheel" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 199-261 AT I, p. 201.

The speaker is "Rebo Legnor's-Child, Marchwarden of Gilrigor..." (ibid.), on the planet Ivanhoe, springing back while addressing apprentice David Falkayn.

In the following volume, "Day of Burning" begins with two and a half pages of the omniscient narrator informing the reader about a supernova. After a double gap between paragraphs:

"'No.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Day of Burning" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 209-272 AT p. 213.

The speaker is "Morruchan Long-Ax, the Hand of the Vach Dathyr..." (ibid.), on the planet Merseia, addressing Master Merchant David Falkayn who steps backward in startlement.

We notice that:

Falkayn has advanced in his career (indeed, I have skipped over two intermediate stages);

both of these stories begin with a misunderstanding, which would be all too frequent in negotiations between members of different rational species.

We will stay with Falkayn on Ivanhoe for a while. Nicholas van Rijn has been introduced in an earlier story but there is as yet no connection between Falkayn and van Rijn. 

Culmination And Transition

Poul Anderson's The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, culminates in The People Of The Wind, which could also be described as "Falkayn's Legacy" and which provides the background material for Hloch's Introductions to the twelve works that had been collected as The Earth Book Of Stormgate and that are now distributed through The Technic Civilization Saga, Vols I-III.

Saga, Vol IV, Young Flandry, set over a century later than The People Of The Wind, is the first of four volumes with Flandry - of the Terran Empire - as their title character. Thus, the transition from Vol III to Vol IV is a major turning point in the Technic History. This is where two futuristic series were fused into one future history series.

In The People Of The Wind, the human-Ythrian colony of Avalon, which had been founded by David Falkayn, successfully resists annexation by the Terran Empire.

"Wings of Victory" introduces the Ythrians;
"The Problem of Pain" introduces Ythrian religion and Avalon;
"The Three-Cornered Wheel" introduces David Falkayn;
six subsequent works feature Falkayn;
"Wingless" describes the colonization of the Hesperian Islands on Avalon;
"Rescue on Avalon" describes the colonization of the Coronan continent on Avalon;
"The Star Plunderer" is about the Founder of the Terran Empire;
"Sargasso of Lost Starships" describes the Terran annexation of the planet Ansa.

Thus, The People Of The Wind is a culmination of thirteen previous works.

See also Thoughts.

Three Men Who Succeed And Prosper Under Van Rijn

Eric Wace shares a novel with Nicholas van Rijn and is often the viewpoint character of that novel but is never seen by us again. However, because of his performance on Diomedes, van Rijn offers Wace an important job back on Earth.

Emil Dalmady is the hero of the short story, "Esau," which has the framing device of his report to his employer, van Rijn, who then invests in Dalmady as an entrepreneur. Dalmady subsequently soared high for many years, according to Hloch. Some of Dalmady's children moved with Falkayn to Avalon where his daughter, Judith, wrote stories for the periodical, Morgana, two of them based on incidents reported to her by her father. Thus, in the Earth Book, we read, in this order:

Hloch's Introduction to "Esau";
a confrontation between Dalmady and van Rijn;
Dalmady's experiences on an extrasolar planet;
the conclusion of the conversation between Dalmady and van Rijn;
Hloch's Introduction to "The Season of Forgiveness," which does not not involve Dalmady but nevertheless recounts a narrative that Dalmady had relayed to Judith;
"The Season of Forgiveness."

Stories originally published separately are relocated into a larger context.

David Falkayn soars much higher first as van Rijn's protege, then as an independent operator. We should revisit the early Falkayn stories.

Explanation

Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY), pp. 337-515.

At the end of Chapter XIX and the bottom of p. 491, Nicholas van Rijn begins to address Diomedeans. At the beginning of Chapter XXI, half way down p. 497, he finishes speaking. Chapter XX on pp. 492-497 is an essay on Diomedean evolution. For summaries, see Alien Evolution. Van Rijn has imparted the same information in simpler words.

In response to environmental changes, a small arboreal carnivorous glider became a large intelligent migratory flier. Two factors stimulated intelligence:

flying between many diverse environments;
the intense natural selection of the annual migration.

In Diomedeans, exertion causes mating. Migrators mate once a year after migrating whereas settled equatorial populations work strenuously and therefore mate continuously. Each regards the other as bestial and van Rijn must explain that they are one species and can therefore do business. He is almost a savior of Diomedes as Flash Gordon was of Mongo. (The diverse intelligent species of Mongo cannot unite against Ming because he practices divide and rule. Only an outsider, Flash, can unite the opposition.)

Sometimes a hard sf writer must devote a chapter to explanation. Chapter XX could have presented the explanation in terms of van Rijn's malapropisms and Spoonerisms but Anderson opted instead to summarize the necessary background information by addressing the reader directly. When, discussing a settled community, he writes:

"Drak'ho Fleet was one of several which have now been discovered by traders." (XX, p. 496) -

- we realize that we are being addressed not by an omniscient narrator but by an observer living a short while later within Technic civilization.

In a screen dramatization, the adaptation of Chapter XX would show us the highlights of the development from the arboreal carnivore to Flock and Fleet with a voice over.

Wind, Waves, Sun And Sea

"The wind ruffled waves and strummed idly on rigging. The sun struck long copper-tinged rays through scudding cloudbanks, to walk on the sea with fiery footprints. The air was cool, damp, smelling a little of salty life." (XIX, p. 483) (For full reference, see here.)

Four senses - or five if we imagine the taste of salt.

See also South Pacific Sunset II, which discusses a passage in the concluding novel of the Polesotechnic League period of the Technic History. In this later passage, the sunset symbolizes the end of that era. The Man Who Counts is not an end but a beginning, the first novel to feature van Rijn, collected in Volume I of The Technic Civilization Saga. Readers can move forwards, then backwards, in the series whereas the characters, like the readers in real life, can move only forwards. Even Time Patrol agents, who are able to re-live and re-experience past periods, find that entropy still flows in only one direction.

No Atheists In Foxholes?

(I am unable to access saved images at present.)

"There are no atheists in foxholes." (See here.)

Maybe there are not always very clearly defined theists either? We argued that Eric Wace was Catholic (see here). However, in the heat of battle:

"So far, thought Wace, Diomedes' miserly gods had been smiling on him. It couldn't last much longer." (XII, p. 472) (For full reference, see here.)

Phrases about God and gods are part of our language and can be used without belief or at least without reflection. And we have heard about miserly gods before, in the Time Patrol universe. See here.

Believing in and hoping for a higher power are two distinct mental operations. Addressing such a power hypothetically or suppositionally is yet another mental act. Those who "believe" in a strong sense of that word cannot convince us merely by pointing out that some of us say, "Please, God!" in a crisis.

Addendum: My saved images are again accessible. If you google images of "No atheists in foxholes," you will find this reply attributed to more than one person. I have copied the image quoting Kurt Vonnegut because he is an sf writer.

Reflections On The War On Diomedes II

Since we have recently mentioned demons, it is appropriate to remark that bat-winged Diomedeans wielding flame-throwers are very like demons.

On Earth, when a half-ton stone from a ballista sinks a canoe, its crew goes into the water. On Diomedes, they whirl up - but then the aerial command pounces. Van Rijn dances with the ballista captain, bawling:

"'Du bist mein Sonnenchein...'" (XII, p. 466) (For full reference, see here.)

I did start to deduce the meaning of that phrase as I was googling it.

Posting while rereading, I now find that Anderson writes:

"Bat-winged devils sought each other's lives through one red chaos." (p. 469)

Not only are the Diomedeans devils but "...one red chaos..." sounds like Hell and particularly like Anderson's chaotic Hell in Operation Chaos. (Scroll down the post, past the long Milton quote.)

Reflections On The War On Diomedes

Nicholas van Rijn is a fat parasite and an old pig, according to Eric Wace. Readers might wonder why our hero is being painted in such an unflattering light but all this is building towards Wace's grand finale realization of van Rijn's importance.

Van Rijn calls his flagship the Rijstaffel and I expect that he will eat several of them when he has escaped from Diomedes where he and his colleagues are slowly starving.

When van Rijn comments that, in certain circumstances, most of the Diomedean young will die:

"'They are replaceable,' said Trolwen, with a degree of casualness that showed he was, after all, not just a man winged and tailed."
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT IX, p. 401.

Thus, the text itself comments on the inappropriateness of the publisher's title, War Of The Wing Men.

Wace is not fanged, winged or caudate but is heavier than Diomedeans.

Fighting without flying is as disgusting to Diomedeans as fighting with teeth alone would be to a human being. The Lannachska have been introduced to the idea whereas the Drak'honai run from it like rats.

Van Rijn's Inspirations

To inspire his Diomedean allies, Nicholas van Rijn translates and recites:

This England (see also here)
Pericles' funeral speech
Scots Wha' Hae
the Gettysburg Address
St. Crispin's Day

Is it possible to reproduce not only the content but also the tone of these works in an alien language and effectively enough to inspire an alien audience?

Doubt it. In fact, how does van Rijn even remember each speech or song?

Something of the tone of Anderson's The High Crusade has crept in here. The Terrestrial past conquers the galaxy.

Pandemonium (All Demons)

Previously on this blog, we:

contrasted Neil Gaiman's winged Lucifer Morningstar with Poul Anderson's more abstract Adversary here;

mentioned James Blish's SAC attack on Dis here;

cited the devil tempting Jesus here;

accompanied John Milton's winged Satan flying through Chaos here.

We may add that:

Lucifer Morningstar retrieves his severed wings in Mike Carey's Lucifer;

Blish's The Day After Judgment climaxes with Dante's winged Satan speaking in Miltonic verse;

Anderson's The Merman's Children ends with a preacher speculating that Satan will repent after Armageddon. (See Through The Western Gate.)

Thus, a powerful figure in mythology, literature and fiction and, some believe, in reality. Various fictional multiverses, including Anderson's, open the possibility that Satan exists in some universes although not in others. Creative imagination is the Everything Box.

A Hidden Biblical Reference

Eric Wace, tired, and Sandra Tamarin, restless, walk and talk, then pause on the ridge of a cliff hundreds of meters above a canyon with a foaming river, red-tinged snowy mountains and an upward wind striking them in the face.

Wace describes his ascent from poverty to the factorship on Diomedes (see Eric Wace) and concludes:

"'So here I am, on a mountain top with all Diomedes below me, and what's next?'"
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT XI, 424.

Wace echoes Matthew 4: 8 but ironically because no one is offering him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

We Approach The Point Of The Novel

Thesis: van Rijn says that he is not an engineer but hires engineers. See here.

Antithesis: Wace, the engineer, thinks that van Rijn is an old blubberbucket, doesn't work, strolls around, talks to the local bosses, complains, is a bloated leech, a lardy old hog and a bragging old goat who lounges around superfluous.

Synthesis: Later, Sandra will explain to Wace that van Rijn is "The Man Who Counts," the organizer and motivator without whom the local bosses would neither accept nor use the new weapons designed by Wace and manufactured to his orders by the local population.

Every society, not just the mercantile capitalism epitomized by van Rijn, has natural leaders who are not necessarily rulers. My example of moral leadership is the one person who steps forward when he and others witness an act of cruelty. The others may follow his lead and overwhelm the perpetrator or they may not, in which case he is on his own. But someone with a gift for leadership can gauge probable responses. Don't put your head above the parapet if the only result is that it will be blown off. But don't hold back every time, either.

Van Rijn's Innovations

See Diomedean Weapons and Diomedean Weapons II.

Nicholas van Rijn introduces:

a repeating dart-thrower with a belt feeding darts to a swivel-mounted wheel turned by a walking beam;

a ballista throwing large stones to wreck walls or sink boats.

He thinks that someone like Miller or de Camp built the first dart-thrower.

Walter M. Miller Jr. wrote A Canticle For Leibowitz which gives us one of the fictional immortals.

L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall is one of the precursors of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol. See "The Time Travel Archives," here.

De Camp's time traveler introduces a weapon on this cover of Lest Darkness Fall.

Fighting On Foot

Because the Diomedeans fly, they are used to fighting in flight. Nicholas van Rijn shows them that foot soldiers can:

hold shields above them for defense against attack from above;

occupy and hold a town that the enemy had not thought to defend on foot.

Lateral thinking. Van Rijn says:

"'In Earth history, it took some peoples a long time to learn there is no victory in air power alone.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT XI, p. 418.

Who does he mean?

"Even after the complete failure of air power in Vietnam to pound one half of a tenth-rate power into submission, General McKnight remained a believer in its supremacy; but he was not such a fool as to do without ground support, knowing very well the elementary rule that territory must be occupied as well as devastated, or even the most decisive victory will come unstuck."
-James Blish, The Day After Judgement IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 427-522 AT 10, p. 495.

Thus, McKnight is both one of the "peoples" referred to by van Rijn and one who also recognizes that ground forces must at least support the Air Force.

Again, we have jumped from hard sf to dark fantasy. McKnight prepares to attack the demon fortress of Dis, now raised to Earth's surface in Death Valley after Armageddon. The Heavenly Host has been defeated but not yet the Strategic Air Command.

FTL III

The previous post, FTL II, was written in haste. I allow almost zero time to walk from Blades St up to the Friends' Meeting House. Now that I am back home under less time pressure, I am able to search the blog and find that I have previously summarized the space jump technology as presented in World Without Stars. See:

Dark Matter, Dark Energy And Intrinsic Unity
World Without Stars

So far, four FTL rationales:

quantum jumps
the Mach Drive
the superlight drive
the space jump

These rationalizations are ingeniously different yet all serve the same purpose of moving a ship through space faster than light.

The Psychotechnic History has a more conventional sounding hyperdrive. I do not think that it is rationalized. For Love And Glory (FLAG) has hyperspace and even "hyperbeaming," instantaneous interstellar communication. Does anyone remember whether FLAG rationalizes its FTL space travel?

FTL II

See FTL.

FTL? summarizes the quantum jump hyperspace of the Technic History and the FTL drive in The Star Fox. Fire Time, the sequel to Star Fox, informs us that this drive is based on the Mach hypothesis.

Another Means Of FTL summarizes the superlight drive in After Doomsday.

In World Without Stars, space has an intrinsic unity and all points are equivalent, distinguished only by the n-dimensional coordinates of the mass at a point. Artificially altering the configuration of the matter-energy field described by these coordinates instantaneously moves the mass to another corresponding point.

More later.

FTL

(I think that this image resembles Star Trek but it is the cover of a collection by Keith Laumer.)

Keith Laumer, "The Limiting Velocity of Orthodoxy," Science Feature IN Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1980, pp. 187-190.

Laumer discusses the light speed velocity. This is an opportunity:

to try to understand what Laumer says;
to review Poul Anderson's fictional faster-than-light (FTL) space drives.

Trying to summarize Laumer:

it is said that, at light speed, a spaceship's mass would be infinite, its length would be zero and its duration would also be zero;

it is argued that infinite mass, zero length and zero duration are impossible, therefore light-speed travel is also impossible.

Comments So Far
This argument is a syllogism -

If there is light-speed travel, then there is an infinite mass, a zero length and a zero duration.
There is no infinite mass, zero length or zero duration.
Therefore, there is no light-speed travel.

I am not sure that there cannot be zero duration. This idea exists in sf as temporal stasis.

Back to Laumer:

He asserts that infinite mass, zero length and "no time" (p. 188) are impossible, not super-light velocity.

Comment
But there are equations to prove that light-speed travel would involve these impossibilities.

Laumer:

A radio source recedes from Earth at 0.75C;
another radio source recedes from Earth in the opposite direction, also at 0.75C;
0.75 + 0.75 = 1.5;
therefore, these radio sources should be receding from each other at greater than the speed of light;
but physicists say that, in this case, "The velocities don't add." (p.189)

Comment
Why do the velocities not add? As I understand it, common sense ideas reflect our experience which is limited to masses visible to our sense organs moving at speeds much lower than the speed of light. As Hegel argued, quantity affects quality. We should expect the properties of subatomic particles to differ from those of macroscopic objects and the properties of very fast objects to differ from those of very slow objects.

Laumer:

"LIGHT IS A CONDITION, NOT AN EVENT. (Laumer's Theorem)." (p. 190)

He argues that:

light has no velocity;
the radiating sun sets up conditions extending in all directions;
the light rays do not move at the same speed relative to the sun and to Earth and to each other and to those going in the opposite direction;
a velocity implies a time and a distance;
we are told that, at high velocities, time and distance are variables;
if time on a receding object is standing still, then so is the object;
what is our frame of reference for measuring speeds?

Comment
That is as much as I can extract from Laumer. At most, he has the makings of another FTL rationale. We will revisit Anderson's rationales in the next post.

Pathetic Fallacy In Different Genres And Media

Deciding to stop posting and also to escape from reading prose, I turn to Frank Miller's graphic fiction and invariably find a parallel with Poul Anderson. Anderson's pathetic fallacies can be as subliminal and pervasive as his grammar. For example, the Huns and a storm approach together. See here.

But Miller writes in the same way. A heat wave accompanies and partly causes a rising crime wave in Gotham City. Bruce Wayne edges towards resuming his violent vigilantism while simultaneously - a cold front approaches. The storm and the Bat hit the streets simultaneously.

We have already seen the end of Wayne's "Return." At the same time as he is thought to have been killed - a cloud caused by a nuclear detonation has almost completely cleared. See "Late Night Parallel," here. In that post, I mentioned a cathartic battle between Kent and Wayne so, this time, we have an appropriate image. As Wayne says, "May the best man win."

Algis Budrys On Poul Anderson's After Doomsday And On Poul Anderson

For references, see here.

Budrys says that After Doomsday "...cheats a lot. But that's okay." It wouldn't be okay if I knew how it cheated.

Budrys:

admires Anderson's range;
suspects that Anderson can write stories just to test "...analytical notions...";
comments that Anderson writes every kind of and many different kinds of stories and therefore is a "...classicist."

Write on.

Algis Budrys On Poul Anderson's Guardians Of Time

For reference, see here.

Budrys thinks that this volume resembles "...a collection of adventure pulp 'historical' romances..." I disagree. I think that Anderson perfectly synthesizes historical fiction with science fiction. It seems to be an unwritten rule of the series that, although the Time Patrol operates in our past, present and future, all the cases that we read about are set in our past. However, there is plenty of futuristic sf among Anderson's many other works and the Time Patrol series does impart some information about its future history.

The original Doctor Who TV series alternated between past and future settings because the TARDIS was out of control, operating something like Flash Gordon's Time Pendulum. Thus, the audience learned some history but not every time.

Budrys continues that Guardians Of Time is "...one of the few collections of time patrol stories that isn't obviously immediately inconsistent with its own premises." I might go further. How many "...collections of time patrol stories..." are there? And how many of them are not "...obviously immediately inconsistent..."?

Budrys identifies the common theme of the four stories as "...decency circumvented..." and the common motive as "...nostalgia inverted..." and thinks that this makes the book "...too even reading." I disagree. This original tetralogy, which has since grown into a much longer series, builds to a climax:

Everard is recruited, completes his first mission and is promoted to Unattached;
he makes a minor historical change to rescue a friend;
he learns that the Patrol itself alters the course of history when necessary;
history has been changed and Everard must change it back.

A rather bumpy ride.

Algis Budrys On Poul Anderson's Tau Zero

Algis Budrys, "Galaxy Bookshelf" IN Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1970, pp. 93-95; 191-192 AT p. 192.

According to Budrys, in Tau Zero:

time is "...expressed in dying, contracting space...";

space is expressed "...as a blossoming function of rolling time...";

both "...become no more than captive media for the drama of the mighty machine masters."

Are they? Do they? I don't think that space-time becomes "captive." It and the groups of groups of groups of galaxies and the cyclical cosmos dwarf the Ship of Man.

Budrys thinks that the novel's biggest problem comes when Anderson tries to "...tell both a superscience story and a humanistic one..." because anyone who does this is "...doomed to re-tell Aniara..." From what Budrys tells us about Aniara, I do not think that Tau Zero re-tells it.

British sf writer, Bob Shaw, said in conversation that Tau Zero merely alternated between its human and cosmic narratives instead of integrating them.

An interesting google fact is that Aniara's translators included Hugh MacDiarmid whom we have mentioned before. See Historical Material.

Budrys concludes that "...the moment of triumph is the moment of letdown in this attempt." Far from it.

A Grain Of Sand On A Dusky Beach

"The lone star that had spawned Man's home was now only a bright dot among thousands of other dots; no longer Zarathustra's and Mithra's great object of worship, but only a grain of incandescent sand on a remote, permanently dusky beach.
"Dane was expatriate, as no man had ever been before - nor would he ever see that Sun again."
-James Blish, "Darkside Crossing" IN Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1970, pp. 5-25 AT p. 23. See here.

I quote this passage because it joins our collection of space/sea comparisons. See here. Poul Anderson and James Blish excelled at making this comparison.

Unfortunately, the work by Robert A. Heinlein in this issue of Galaxy is the concluding installment of I Will Fear No Evil.

Algis Budrys, discussing Poul Anderson, says that Anderson is "The single man best qualified to analyze the classics..." (p. 191) of science fiction and adds that Anderson does analyze past sf in order to write more. Recently, in 1970, Tau Zero and Tales Of The Flying Mountains had been published and Guardians Of Time, Brain Wave and After Doomsday had been republished.

More later.

Some Details On Diomedes

See Distances And Vastnesses and Something Else Terrifying.

We established that human beings would be terrified by a horizon twice as far away as they and their ancestors have always been used to. Here are two similar phenomena. Rodonis has always heard waves, timber and cordage but now hears only silence. Her wings tense. She wants to fly and scream. A James Blish character making an interstellar crossing, looks back, cannot see the Sun, realizes that he is expatriate like no man before, panics and has a breakdown.

An sf writer imagines an alien environment, then presents psychological reactions to it.

Here is a merely physical detail: Diomedeans, like Merseians, can squat on their tails. (X, p. 409) (For full reference, see here.)

Addendum: Rereading the relevant passage in Blish's "Darkside Crossing," I have had to edit this post. There will be at least one more post about the contents of this issue of Galaxy (December, 1970), some of it Anderson-related.

Digressions are amazing things.

A Cross-Cosmic Comparison

Some of you must be thinking, "This guy, Shackley, finds some grotesque comparisons to make." However, a phrase in a work of prose fiction can recall an image in a work of graphic fiction even if the settings are as diverse as an extrasolar planet in a hard sf novel and Hell in a dark fantasy comic strip.

On the Fleet flagship, Rodonis hears the rattling of wings that have been cut from a slave and hung on a yardarm. (Ythrian slaves also have clipped wings although I think that, in that case, they can grow back.) Rodonis imagines her imprisoned husband bearing red stumps on his back.

When, in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Season Of Mists, Lucifer Morningstar resigns and retires as Lord of Hell, he asks Morpheus to cut off his wings. One panel, which I could not find by googling, shows red stumps on his back.

A single fictional universe can contain realms as diverse as Gotham City, the Dreaming and Hell. A multiverse contains even more. A version of the Adversary speaks in Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos although, since this prosaic, non-visual version is more like a personified abstraction of evil, he is not described as either embodied or winged.

Addendum: Concerning Ythrians:

"'...the feathers could grow back...'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT IV, p. 486.

Languages

On Diomedes, the Drak'honai call the Lannachska the "Lannach'honai." (p. 405) (For full reference, see here.) Linguistic usage is consistent. See Flock Attacks Fleet.

We want to know more about the languages in Poul Anderson's universes:

Diomedean,
Anglic;
Eriau;
Planha;
Lunarian;
Temporal, especially the tenses;
Exaltationist.

Apparently, some Star Trek fans emulate Tolkien. See the Klingon Language Institute here.

A living artificial language is Esperanto.

Sila kaj mi lernis la lingvon sed ni ne parolis gin flue.

Urban Decay

This is the time of night when I read something else and find a parallel.

"I walk the streets of this city I'm learning to hate, the city that's given up, like the whole world seems to have."
-Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns (London, 1986), Book One, p. 5.

Bruce Wayne refers to a fictional city, based on New York, that is not only decayed but also increasingly dangerous. Poul Anderson's Carl Farness refers to New York becoming uninhabitable and also, perhaps at an earlier date, to its dirt, disorder, danger and decay. For both quotations, see "Knowing The Future III," here.

Wayne's lament for a city reminded me of Farness'.

See also "Darkness And A City," here.

Once again, good night. 

Moons Worship

See The Man Who Counts, Chapter X.

Popular devotions are practiced in particular social contexts. When Rodonis pledges to the mother Moon a song composed by the Fleet's finest bards, the moons brighten and Rodonis hears:

lapping waves;
creaking timbers;
tautening cables;
wind in the shrouds;
a slatting sail;
a remote, plaintive flute;
homely noises.

These sounds, like the devotion, are strong comforts especially when the Fleet has been obliged to move into the cold Achan Sea where the gods may be hostile.

Familiar devotions are part of a familiar environment. Poul Anderson shows us this with oil in a lamp at the temple of Tanith in ancient Tyre (here) and also in the Fleet on Diomedes in the time of the Solar Commonwealth.

See also Bribing The Gods and Phoenician Religion II.

Van Rijn On Lannach

On the Diomedean island of Lannach, home of the Flock, the settlement called Salmenbrok is fortified but only against aerial attack because all the higher life-forms on Diomedes, whether animal or intelligent, are winged:

there is no stockade;
ground floors have no doors and only slit windows;
entrances are in upper floors or roofs;
covered bridges and tunnels connect buildings;
houses are of mortared stone, not logs as in the valley;
wooden locks are designed like Chinese puzzles;
there is a communal windmill, a sail-propelled railway, a wooden lathe with a diamond cutting edge and a wooden saw with volcanic glass teeth.

We are told that van Rijn is delighted but are we to understand that he acts delighted for his own reasons? Much of his apparently spontaneous behavior is an elaborate dramatic performance. He says that he and the Lannachska can do business but we know that, centuries later, they will still be failing to integrate into Technic civilization. See Diomedean Demands. Meanwhile, in any case, van Rijn must help the Lannachska against the Draksha.

Alien Evolution

In his hard sf, Poul Anderson describes aliens and their environments. Sometimes, he tells us how those aliens evolved and even how they became intelligent. For example, the Diomedean population grows slowly because, on their annual migration, so many are lost to:

storm;
exhaustion;
sickness;
barbarians;
wild animals;
cold;
famine.

Van Rijn deduces:

"'Ah-ha! Natural selection... It does give one notion of what made your race get brains. Hibernate or migrate! And if you migrate, then be smart enough to meet all kinds trouble, by damn!'" (IX, pp. 396-397) (For full reference, see here.)

I find that I have summarized from The Man Who Counts in Diomedean Evolution. In Diomedean Evolution II, I completed the account, then commented on human childhood and education, then mentioned Anderson's treatment of this issue in his earlier future history. On Diomedes, polar species hibernate and did not become intelligent although there are intelligent hibernators and estivators on Talwin.

Here I quoted Anderson's explanation of how intelligence evolved in the sea on Starkad. Ythrian evolution is summarized here.

On Dido:

there was a long hot spell millions of years ago;
ancestors of nogas had eaten soft plants made scarce by drought;
instead, they caught leaves torn loose by ancestral rukas gathering fruit;
they also had a tickbird relationship with proto-krippos;
krippos spied forage and guided nogas to it;
rukas got protection and kept stripping trees;
a giant blood-sucking bug injected a microbe to keep wounds open in nogas;
rukas and krippos swatted and ate the bugs, then sipped the blood themselves;
the three species began to link up and formed the tripartite Didonians. See also here.

Draka

I have only just noticed the similarity between "Draka" (SM Stirling) and "Draka" (Poul Anderson). Are they connected?

Stirling's "Draka" is a noun derived from the surname of Sir Francis Drake whereas Anderson's "Draka" is an adjective in a language of an extra-solar planet so, on the face of it, there is no connection.

In a Stirling alternative history, the Draka are a human national and racial group whereas, in an Anderson future history, the Drak'honai or Drakska are a Diomedean nation/race. The Drak'honai have an internal master-serf culture whereas the Draka, although using the term "serf," aim to enslave all other human beings.

Nicholas van Rijn helps the enemies of the Drak'honai but only because it is in his interests to do so. The Drak'honai find it easier than their enemies to accept integration into a technological economy. The Draka are unintegratable and bad news for everyone else.

Flock Attacks Fleet

We walked to Morecambe (see image) and got the bus back. Meanwhile, I am mentally immersed in Poul Anderson's Technic History. Although the Diomedeans are fliers, not amphibians, one of their societies lives entirely on a "Fleet" of sea rafts, like the floating city of Delfinburg on Earth.

Commander Trolwen of the Flock, who is "...young and gray..." (VIII, p. 386) (for full reference, see here) leads three thousand males to rescue three human beings from the Fleet. As he dives, he thinks:

"...where was that double-cursed Eart'a monster - there! The distance-devouring vision of a flying animal picked out three ugly shapes on a raft's quarterdeck, waving and jumping about." (p. 388)

Even Sandra Tamarin is "ugly," of course. When the human beings are being carried away, the Fleet decides that it is not worth the trouble to try to retrieve the "Eart'ska," as "'...the fat Eart'ska...'" (p. 391) had predicted. Thus, "Eart'a" is an adjective and "Eart'ska" is a noun, either singular or plural.

The Diomedeans of the Fleet call themselves the "Drak'honai" (p. 388) whereas their enemies in the Flock call them "Drakska." (p. 388) "Draka" (p. 390) is an adjective and an individual of the Fleet is a "Drak'ho." (p. 384) - if I have understood linguistic usages correctly...

Diomedean Weapons II

A volcanic-glass dagger.
Spears.
Rakes.
Tomahawks.
Burning oil pumped from a ceramic nozzle.
Catapults throwing vases of the oil.

There will be some innovations under van Rijn's direction. He is not a "hawk" but he needs to win a war to escape from Diomedes where he cannot survive indefinitely.

Necessity is the mother of invention?

Diomedean Weapons

Bows and arrows.
Bolas.
Sharp boomerangs.
Flung weighted nets in which an enemy can fall to his death.
Blowguns imported from the tropics.
Bolt operated repeater guns with fire-hardened wooden bayonets.

Poul Anderson does not miss any detail.

Winged War

Maybe War Of The Wing Men was not such an inappropriate title for The Man Who Counts? This cover illustration exactly reproduces a scene from p. 389 (For full reference, see here):

the backbone of a flying army is the archers;

each has a bow as long as himself;

he grips it in his foot talons;

he draws the bow with both hands;

he gets the next arrow from his belly quiver with his teeth and is instantly ready to nock it;

the archers lay down a curtain that none can cross;

in this respect, they resemble SM Stirling's Emberverse archers, described somewhere on the blog (see Details Of War here);

soon, they must return to the bearers for more arrows;

the rest of the army guards them.

War is Hell but we enjoy reading about it.

The Fat One

Again we read about Nicholas van Rijn from an alien perspective. He is described as "'...the fat one...'" (p. 386) (For full reference, see here.) It is reported that he has anticipated a contingency and has said that he will manage to cope with it. Already, through the agency of the escaped interpreter, van Rijn has persuaded a Diomedean military leader to mount a risky rescue operation. Van Rijn does not wind up ruling Diomedes only because he does not aim to. In fact, his influence is vastly wider than one single planet. The "fat one" who is "The Man Who Counts" is also the "Trader To The Stars."

How much luck is involved in van Rijn's success? Audentes Fortuna Iuvat. There must be League merchants who died on alien planets but Poul Anderson tells us about one who didn't.

And that is plenty of posts for one day.

Whistling

"A Whistler, with the slim frame and outsize wings of adolescence, emerged from a fog-bank. The shrill notes of his lips carried far and keenly. Tolk, who as Chief Herald guided the education of these messenger-scouts, cocked his head and nodded. 'We guessed it very well,' he said calmly."
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT VIII, p. 387.

Sheila and I attended a demonstration of the Canary Islands whistling language. See here. Someone hid three items, e.g., a hand bag, a camera, a scarf, in a large room full of people in sight of a whistler. A second whistler entered the room, found the items and returned them to their owners as instructed entirely in whistles by the first whistler

The Man Who Counts: Grammar And Engineering

"'What's so unusual about the motion of Ikt'hanis?' It was his name for this planet, and did not mean 'earth' but - in a language where nouns were compared - could be translated 'Oceanest,' and was feminine."
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT V, p. 366.

I had some problems with nouns being "compared," but Sheila, a Modern Languages graduate, helped:

"big," "bigger" and "biggest" are the positive, comparative and superlative forms of the adjective, "big";

"ocean," "oceaner" and "oceanest" would be the positive, comparative and superlative forms of the noun, "ocean," if such forms were to exist in English.

Nicholas van Rijn says:

"'I am not an engineer. Engineers I hire. My job is not to do what is impossible, it is to make others do it for me.'"
-op. cit., VI, p. 371.

Thus, early in the story, its title character states the entire point of the story. "The Man Who Counts" is the one who motivates others. He hires, bribes, threatens, pleads, acts, does not mind if he comes over as stupid or pathetic - whatever it takes. The job gets done. Van Rijn is Anderson's equivalent of Harriman, "The Man Who Sold The Moon." Harriman is neither a rocket engineer nor an astrogator - but he makes sure those guys do their stuff.

Because van Rijn - and not just because of his physical bulk - is like a planet with the others as his satellites, we see him from their points of view. Only (I think) in "Margin of Profit" are there a couple of passages narrated from van Rijn's pov.

Learning And Manipulating

Someone with Polesotechnic League training need only be told a thing once.  That would be very helpful.

Nicholas van Rijn simultaneously learns two alien languages, his captors' language, which he pretends to speak very badly, and a captive Diomedean interpreter's language while concealing from his captors that he is learning the latter. Successfully feigning ignorance and naivety, he makes a show of declining a noun to ensure that he has the meaning right although I do not think that he can have learned to recite declensions because he is learning the languages conversationally. Long before his employee, Eric Wace, van Rijn has discerned tension between two factions among his captors. Making a great public show of being afraid and confused, he foments civil war merely to cover the escape of the interpreter with whom he has conspired. The interpreter will then bring others to rescue van Rijn and his companions.

Is all this humanly possible?

The Fleet

One raft of tough balsa-like logs holds about a hundred Diomedeans plus wives and children but they are divided into three social classes (!):

ten aristocratic couples have private apartments;
twenty skilled ranking sailors have one room per family;
seventy common deckhands are barracked.

Other rafts in the squadron are dwellings, cargo-carriers or fish and seaweed processors. The rafts, sometimes temporarily linked, are patrolled by canoes and flying guards.

Other divisions of the Fleet stretch as far as a man can see. Most fish. Diomedeans pull long nets by muscle power alone. Continuous labor has freed them from the seasonal breeding cycle of migratory Diomedeans.

Ignorant Men

Sure but men are partly informed as well as partly ignorant. They can program computers to answer questions beyond the computational powers of human brains.

A genuine artificial intelligence, duplicating, not merely simulating, consciousness would, of course, be an artifact but might transcend the usual meaning of "machine." A mechanism merely does what it is designed to do whereas conscious intelligence is innovative and creative - partly ignorant but also partly learning.