"The Faun" does not refer to the Terrestrial Directorate but does not contradict it either. It and the two stories that do refer to the Directorate are set in periods when people from Earth make round trips to nearby extra-solar planets whereas "Time Lag" is set in a period when planets much farther away have been colonized for centuries.
The opening section is set on the planet Vaynamo in the year 522 Anno Coloniae Conditae.
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Googling "Vaynamo," I find references only to this text.
The ACC calendar is named after AUC.
We do not (yet) know how long a Vaynamoan year is but we may infer that 522 years is a long time.
The viewpoint character has married into a family that has held a Freehold for nearly two hundred years.
Whereas Rustum has a Swift and a Smoky River, Vaynamo has a Swiftsmoke River.
Old Sol is said to be a thousand parsecs away.
The Directorate will not still exist even if we are still in that timeline.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think it is very likely the planet Vaynamo was settled by Scandinavians of Finnish origins. I'm almost sure "Vaynamo" comes from the Finnish collection of legendary poems called the KALEVALA. And since the capital city has a cathedral named after a Christian saint, the people there are Christians, possibly Lutherans.
Sean
Sean: agreed, though at that remove in the future, things have probably changed a good deal -- for example, if everyone on an (isolated) planet was a Lutheran, what would being Lutheran mean?
Mr. Stirling:
Well, are they good Missouri Synod Lutherans, or those Lutheran Church in America heathens?
(Joking. But it's like the question "Are you a Protestant Jew or a Catholic Jew?")
Carl Sagan said that we can't go out into the galaxy and ask, "Hi, there! Are you fellows Prespetarians?" It is going to be much harder than that to establish a common conceptual framework - although maths should work.
Kaor, Mr. Stiring and DAVID!
Mr. Stirling: I agree, if thousands of years from now everyone on Vaynamo were Lutherans and had never been in contact with either Catholics or other Protestants, "Lutheran" might very well might not really mean much to most Vaynamoans.
David: I used to know online an ELCA Lutheran who was sometimes grumpy about the Missouri Synod Lutherans. He did not agree with them refusing Communion to other Lutherans who were not Missouri Synod. I told him the Missouri Synod Lutherans were RIGHT, because it would not make sense for them to give Communion to others who did not agree with their view of the Eucharist. Which, btw, is the position taken by the Catholic Church on WHO can receive Catholic Communion.
In addition, I respected the Missouri Synod Lutherans because they had not caved in about abortion and homosexuality, refusing to agree they were morally licit. So I have some sympathy for the Missouri Synod!
Sean
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