-Poul Anderson, "Margin of Profit" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 135-173 AT p. 138.
"Above [Master Beljagor] hung the emblem of the Polesotechnic League, an early Caravel spaceship on a sunburst and the motto All the Traffic Will Bear."
-"A Sun Invisible," II, pp. 273-274.
This is the kind of background continuity that we appreciate in a future history series. Does the League emblem show up anywhere else? I think that Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire has a similar emblem but am not about to look that up.
In my teens, the Foundation Trilogy was up front in our faces but the Technic History was still coming together.
Beljagor's liaison officer is a Kraok, another species that squat on their tails. We appreciate the diversity of Technic civilization.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
We still see a stylized sunburst being used as an emblem by the Empire centuries later. And Asimov's Galactic Empire used the Spaceship and Sun as a symbol. Maybe Anderson picked that idea up from Asimov to use as the logo of the Polesotechnic League?
Ad astra! Sean
Interestingly, humans evolved our backsides -- the distinctive buttocks -- because we -didn't- have tails. When we became bipedal, we needed a different balancing mechanism. Buttocks turned out to be more efficient than tails, and help account for our outstanding efficiency as long-distance runners.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that you mentioned it, I can see how our backsides helps to balance us. Incidentally, some people are still born with tails, even tho most have them surgically removed.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, that is interesting. Especially considering how -long- we've been without tails; probably well over 8 million years.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You just reminded me of how chimpanzees, the simians closest to humans genetically, don't have tails.
Ad astra! Sean
We had what is called a "braided" differentiation from the chimps. That is, the two lineages began separating as long as 10-12 million years ago, but episodes of interbreeding occurred for many millions of years after that -- certainly as recently as 6 million years ago and possibly as recently as 4 million years.
Australophithicines are essentially bipedal chimps, particularly the early ones. Their brains are in the chimpanzee range (thought towards the upper end of it) and their hands only gradually became more human-like.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Interbreeding between chimps and hominins might have been even more recent that, if I recall correctly what I read in Kermit Pattison's book FOSSIL MEN. Possibly less than four million years ago.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: possibly. It's hard to tell, because the fossil record is spotty and while going ever further back, ancient DNA is not yet anywhere near that range.
We have to depend on things like dead-reckoning from the time between random mutations, and that's unreliable because such "biological clocks" vary between species.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Of course I agree. All we have, sometimes, are estimates.
Ad astra! Sean
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