Thursday 13 January 2022

Future Historical References

The People Of The Wind, VII.

Any new installment of a future history series can and should both refer to information presented in previous installments and introduce new information. Thus, when the Terrans attack Avalon, their superdreadnaught command ship is named Valenderay, after the supernova that had nearly devastated Merseia in "Supernova"/"Day of Burning," as regular readers should remember, whereas the Avalonian command ship is named Hell Rock which, we are told for the first time, was:

"...the site of an ancient battle on Ythri." (p. 518)

Intending to show the Terrans why such a name was chosen, First Marchwarden Ferune has had its Anglic translation painted in large letters on the sides.

Similarly, The Game Of Empire, the last novel to feature Dominic Flandry, tells us where the Starkadians, from Ensign Flandry, had been settled but also imparts a ton of new information about:

the planets Imhotep and Daedalus in the Patrician System;
 
the genetically engineered Zacharians;
 
a long term scheme, only now reaching fruition, that had been spearheaded by Aycharaych even though that persistent opponent of Flandry had been probably killed or at least certainly neutralized two novels previously.

Also, a new addition to an earlier period of a future history can be designed to explain later events. Thus:

Mirkheim, the last Polesotechnic League novel, informs us that Supermetals profits funded the weather stations that we see on Vixen in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" during the later Imperial period;

I think that the demoralization of the Merseians at the end of The Game Of Empire is the beginning of their decline which helps to explain why they are not still around as an interstellar power in the stories set after the Fall of the Terran Empire.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

THE GAME OF EMPIRE shows Anderson introducing new ideas and characters which could have richly extended the Technic series. Whether or not that should be regretted, Anderson chose to move on to very different themes, as we would see with THE KING OF YS, THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS, and THE HARVEST OF STARS books, etc.

While I hesitate to read too much into the dejection seen with Tachwyr the Dark and his fellow Grand Councilors at the end of GAME, that could mark the beginning of the decline of Merseia.

It does seem a bit odd that while see mention of non humans in Anderson's four post-Imperial stories, we don't see any such beings. That might be attributed to, during the chaos of the Long Night and a slow painful recovery, to most humans focusing on their own problems.

Ad astra! Sean