(i) Arinnian has:
"...got large-scale drills going throughout his district and was well along on the development of doctrine, communications, and supply." (p. 499)
This is facilitated by the facts first that most Avalonians hunt, often in groups, and secondly that it is easy to revive a military tradition left by the Troubles. (Changes are helped by precedents.)
(ii) The Ythrians have new torpedo launchers, similar to Terran Meteors.
(iii) "'...the movement into the choths has begun snowballing.'" (p. 510) This exacerbates the problem that some bird men have with women.
(iv) Finally, the anticipated war starts.
Maybe I am noticing it more because I am simultaneously reading about historical revolutions but this chapter continually conveys the sense of changing times.
2 comments:
Humans adapting to a culture generated by a species without continuous sexuality would be a recipe for problems.
Particularly considering how much of human culture revolves around precisely the control and management of that phenomenon.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: That dreadful word "revolutions" makes me grimace! I'm slowly reading Solzhenitsyn's exhaustively researched MARCH 1917 and I can already come to some conclusions. One being that the March revolution in 1917 was so unnecessary. The front with Germany was stable, the best of the Tsarist armies were still loyal, there were no problems about food in Petrograd, etc.
The minor disturbances which led to that revolution could and should have been brought under control by quick and decisive action by the authorities. Instead, they were hesitant, uncertain, fearful of what "Progressive" opinion would think of them. The last Tsarist Prime Minister, Prince Golitsyn, and his Interior Minister Protopopov, declined to order that kind of decisive action, including firmly backing up the police and assigning solidly loyal troops in support. Worse of all, they kept minimizing the increasing gravity of events in Petrograd to both the Tsar and the Empress.
I can't help but think of how so many millions of people would not have died in the agonizing decades to come if firm and decisive men had been in charge!
Mr. Stirling: Good point, one I never thought of before, but should have because of Christopher Holm's sexual problems, due to Ythrian influences.
Ad astra! Sean
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