"...an early Caravel spaceship on a sunburst and the motto All the Traffic Will Bear."
-Poul Anderson, "A Sun Invisible" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 263-315 AT 11, p. 274.
"Caravel" is an appropriate and evocative name. See here.
In Flandry's time, modulated hyperdrive wakes are used for instantaneous communication across a maximum distance of one light-year. In Falkayn's (earlier) time, wakes cannot yet be modulated so Falkayn resorts to sending a message in League code by switching his hyperdrive on and off. Falkayn's achievements on Ivanhoe and at Beta Centauri make him a very young Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League and then the leader of Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew, able eventually to defy van Rijn himself.
Van Rijn's yacht is said to pulse "...in and out of four-space..." ("Hiding Place," p. 558)
I would once have taken that to mean that the yacht spends some of its time in the fourth dimension instead of in familiar three-dimensional space. I now understand "...four-space..." to mean "space-time." Thus, the yacht phases in and out of space-time by making frequent quantum jumps between nearby points in three-dimensional space. This is the unique meaning of "hyperspace" that Poul Anderson invented for his Technic History.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And of course the Sunburst (minus the Caravel) was to become a symbol of the Terran Empire.
Sean
Incidentally, the upper stage spaceship of SpaceX's BFR has about the same cargo and passenger capacity as a 15th-century Iberian caravel.
And as the caravel could go anywhere on the World Ocean, the spaceship will be able to go anywhere in the Solar System (with appropriate basing and refueling provisions).
So the great age comes again... 8-).
Mr Stirling,
Fingers crossed.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I love that bit of information you gave us! I hope so much Elon Musk and SpaceX succeeds in building "Caravel" spaceships and getting to Mars!
And 15th century Iberian caravels also needed bases and ports.
Sean
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