"Starfog": Some General Observations II

"Starfog."

Myths are retold in different versions, e.g.:

"A crackling noise beat out of that roiling formlessness, like flames. Energies pulsed through his marrow. He remembered the old, old myth of the Yawning Gap, where fire and ice arose and out of them the Nine Worlds, which were doomed in the end to return to fire and ice; and he shivered." (p. 756)

Well, no. In the Norse myths as they have come to us, the narrative ends not with the return of fire and ice but with a new heaven and earth, as in the Bible. But there must have been versions where the end was just fire and ice. This summary by Anderson in the imagination of his character, Daven Laure, is a valid and appropriate retelling.

The Ginnungagap is a dialectical materialist origin story. Life and consciousness are generated by the interactions between opposed material forces. See Voluspa.

"'You need to be drawn out of your fantasizing,' Jaccavrie said. 'Though you recognize your daydreams for what they are, you can't afford them. Not now.'" (p. 758)

This echoes the theme of the opening Technic History story, "The Saturn Game."

Laure wonders about the symbolism of the silver mask on the Kirkasanter captain, Demring's, door. (p. 762) Then he thinks of an explanation:

"He's afraid to let down his mask - is that why their art uses the motif so much?..." (pp. 763-764)

Maybe, but Laure has switched to a metaphorical meaning of the word, "mask." The Kirkasanters may or may not associate literal masks with their culturally inculcated personal reserve. (The culture and language of the Makt crew are "Hobrokan" (p. 740) although, of course, there are others on Kirkasant.)