Wednesday 20 January 2021

The God And The Ancestors

"Day of Burning."

Part of my point here is to appreciate the sheer amount of detail in Poul Anderson's Technic History and, the more details we summarize, the more we find to summarize. For example, the first Grand Survey turns out to be a miniature future history within the Technic History. "The Trouble Twisters," recounting the first mission of the Falkayn-led trade pioneer crew, cameos that team's employer, van Rijn, whereas "Day of Burning," at last moving away from van Rijn, focuses on Merseia where Morruchan tells Falkayn:

"'You shall not take the rule of this world. If we surrendered the right and freehold they won, the God would cast back the souls of our ancestors to shriek at us.'" (p. 320)

This passage, perhaps the only reference to a Merseian hereafter, recalls the Bhagavad Gita where Arjuna lists the consequences of family conflicts, including:

"The ancestors also
"Must fall dishonoured
"From home in heaven."
-Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood (trans.), The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita (New York, 1964), I., p. 33.
 
We have previously appreciated the Gita for its teaching of karma yoga.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You're right, this comment by Morruchan Long-ax gives us a hint of Merseian beliefs about the after life. The attitudes of the Vachs, rival Merseian nations, the Star Believers, the Gethfennu, the Demonists, etc., would all play roles in Merseian history.

I can't help but wonder if the Demonists, aleit in a far less crude form, played a role in shaping the ideology of racial supremacism which came to dominate the later Roidhunate? And the Merseians who later settled on Dennitza may partly descend from Star Believers, those who, however naively expressed in "Day of Burning," favored friendly relations with non Merseians.

Ad astra! Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

A bit more broadly, I've speculated that some of the Merseians who settled on Dennitza descended from the losers in the power struggled preceding the rise of the Roidhunate. I can imagine Star Believers, some defeated Vachs, people from other Merseian nations, and even some ex-Gethfennu, settling on Dennitza.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

It was a stroke of genius to transform archetypal space opera villains into worthy citizens.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree. And I remember Kossara Vymezal, mentioning how the new Dennitzan industries, needing labor, were glad to accept these Merseians. I simply think these Dennitzan Merseians had different origins, probably a lot like what I listed above.

Ad astra! Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And of course these Dennitzan Merseians differed from those of the Roidhunate in not being racial supremacists and being loyal to the Emperor, and not the Roidhun.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Yes and that is how we should expect any rational species to be, very varied.

Paul.