"The space around a giant star, a close double, like Capella, and especially around its biggest planet, was certain to be full of cosmic junk. Billions of meteors hit Sarai every day. Hundreds of them got through to the surface."
-Poul Anderson, The Enemy Stars, 3, p. 24.
So the colony planet, Sarai, is struck by many meteorites, including a bolide (p. 23), whereas the colony planet, Krasna, has a "...melodrama of codes, countersigns, and cell organization..." (4, p. 26) because there is secret opposition to the Protectorate! Poul Anderson's sf always gives us future physics and politics.
The Terrestrial Protectorate is socially stratified. Although David Ryerson's new wife is a high-class common and a Professor's daughter, it is expected that she will go into the kitchen to prepare teas as soon as she has been introduced to her father-in-law, Magnus. Further, if David joins the expedition to the dark star, then she will be expected to stay with Magnus during her husband's absence.
Terangi Maclaren spends time with a higher ranking technic woman whose guardian is a general. Some of this sounds like the regime on Earth in the Kith History. Since the woman is "...of a carefully selected Burmese mutant strain...without so much as an amazon for chaperone." (1, p. 9), maybe there is a genetic element to the aristocracy?
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's interesting to compare the different Protectorates we see in THE ENEMY STARS/"The Ways of Love" and "The Bitter Bread." By and large I like the Protectorate of "The Bitter Bread" better than I do the one in the other two stories. The Protectorate of "Bitter" comes across to me as milder and more tolerable.
Sean
Sean,
There are two Protectorate/teleportation futures.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I know the story you have in mind, but it's not part of the timeline seen in "The Bitter Bread." Also, the Protectorate of that story does not have teleportation.
Sean
Sean,
The two futures I meant were THE ENEMY STAR/"The Ways of Love" and "The Bitter Bread."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Now I understand. And there is one more story where Poul Anderson used the idea of teleporting matter (altho I'm not sure, offhand, of the story's title).
Sean
Sean,
Yes. It is somewhere about in one of the collections. There is even teleportation in one Technic History story.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You mean "Sargasso of Lost Starships." Which admittedly does NOT fit in very well with the other Technic stories.
Sean
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