Yet Another Time Travel Argument II

See Yet Another Time Travel Argument.

Let us consider another example:

(i) Recently I acquired a timecycle.

(ii) Five minutes from now, I will mount the timecycle and travel twenty years into the past.

(iii) I fully intend, on arrival, to perform an action that will prevent my present self either from existing or at least from having acquired a timecycle.

(iv) I succeed in performing such an action.

(iv) is written in the present tense. Really it should be in some other tense that would exist in Temporal although not in English. (iv) cannot be written in the past tense because (i)-(iii) describe a timeline in which I have not been prevented either from existing or from acquiring a timecycle. This timeline exists at least until I depart on the timecycle. It is logically possible that the timeline will terminate at the moment of my departure although that would contravene the conservation of energy but there is no logical reason why it should terminate then. (iv) entails the existence of a parallel or "later" (different temporal adjective needed) timeline in which (i)-(iii) do not occur.

Yet Another Time Travel Argument

Recently I had yet another argument about time travel which could be relevant to Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series.

Imagine:

(i) Twenty years minus five minutes ago, I appeared/arrived on a Time Patrol timecycle.

(ii) I then performed some action - it does not matter what - which had consequences at the time.

(iii) Possibly, although not necessarily for this example, that past action not only had immediate consequences but also initiated a sequence of consequences that have continued until now.

(iv) Recently I acquired a timecycle.

(v) Five minutes from now, I will mount the timecycle and travel exactly twenty years pastward. 

It should be clear that:

(a) the immediate consequences of my past action occurred twenty years minus five minutes ago;

(b) the sequence of consequences, if any, has already occurred between that past action and the present moment;

(c) none of these consequences is waiting to be activated five minutes hence;

(d) if there was any sequence of consequences, then that sequence has not prevented me either from existing now or from recently acquiring a timecycle.

Needless to say, in a confused argument, it sounds as if the other party is denying some of (a)-(d). But the confusion is so great that nothing is clear.

Hybrid

The Merman's Children, VIII.

When a merman-human hybrid dives into the sea, he blows out, then opens his mouth wide. Water enters through mouth and nostrils to fill lungs and stomach. Merman metabolism extracts oxygen and sieves salt from tissues. Internal combustion counteracts cold. 

Although I have striven to summarize and accept Poul Anderson's account, a humanoid body willingly filling itself with water severely strains my willing suspension of disbelief. However, the description of the descent through successive pressure levels is well imagined. Just keep reading, basically. Also, trust Poul Anderson to take us somewhere interesting.

Theology In Space

Experiences in space and on other planets will challenge received world views. Jiddu Krishnamurti told this parable:

When two cosmonauts who had traveled further into space than anyone else had an audience with the Russian President, he asked them whether, when they had been that far away from Earth, they had seen a large, long-bearded, white-robed, male figure seated on a golden throne and when they answered, "Yes," he said, "I was afraid that you would say that but don't tell anyone." Going on an international goodwill tour, the cosmonauts had an audience with the Pope who asked them the same question and when they answered, "No," said, "I was afraid that you would say that but don't tell anyone."

This is also the point of Poul Anderson's story about the Sun standing still in the sky (title?): life will continue as before even in the face of a miracle. "The show must go on."

However, some sf characters are changed by their experiences. Christians have challenging experiences on other planets in:

a short story by Harry Harrison;

a series by Philip Jose Farmer;

A Case Of Conscience by James Blish;

Perelandra by CS Lewis;

"The Problem of Pain" by Poul Anderson.

 

A Case Of Conscience is Volume III of the After Such Knowledge Trilogy.

Perelandra is Volume II of the Ransom Trilogy.

"The Problem of Pain" is the third installment in the History of Technic Civilization.

 

As I always advise, (re-)read them all.

 

Whereas Blish and Anderson remained agnostic, Lewis explained his conversion from philosophical realism to philosophical idealism to theism to Christianity in Surprised By Joy. I am rereading this work in order to clarify the point at which I disagree philosophically with Lewis.

 

Lewis projects what Blish described as an Anglican-cum-Babylonian theology onto the Solar System whereas Anderson's "The Problem of Pain" presents a genuinely alien theology. 

Sunken Cities And The West

The Merman's Children, VI.

Is Averorn a version of Atlantis? It is a sunken city in the Atlantic. Poul Anderson's main version of Atlantis is in The Dancer From Atlantis and is in the Mediterranean. Anderson also has two versions of Ys. Skafloc sees the sunken tower of Ys in The Broken Sword but all Ysan buildings are leveled in The King Of Ys.

Neil Gaiman rightly tells us that there is more than one Atlantis. He describes it both as sunken and as the fair land in the West. In CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, Numinor, borrowed from as yet unpublished manuscripts of JRR Tolkien, is the True West and Atlantis sank. In Tolkien's Middle Earth History, Numenor sinks and there is land to the West for ships that occasionally follow the straight path instead of the curve of the Earth.

In the Bible, wise men come from the East but, for Chinese Buddhists, wisdom came from the West so there is a mythical Western Paradise.

Imagination and meaning meet.

The Sea Gives...

The Merman's Children.

"That was a reason why merfolk were scarce. They required more food afloat than men do ashore. A bad catch or a murrain among the shellfish might make an entire tribe starve to death." (VIII, p. 53)

That might also be a reason why merfolk were either extinct or at least so rare that they were never (?) seen in the twentieth century? A skillful writer makes an inherited fantastic premise seem plausible.

But what initially drew my attention to this passage was the immediately following sentence:

"The sea gives; the sea takes." (ibid.)

It sounds familiar. Can we see Biblical passages not only often quoted in but also sometimes hiding behind Poul Anderson's texts?

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away

-copied from here.

God Language

The Merman's Children.

"That happened which God allowed." (Prologue, p. 3)

"...the ship whereon he served had been wrecked - by God's mercy without loss of life -..." (VII, p. 41) 

The author does not assume that he and his readers share a belief in God. However, the text expresses what would have been the general point of view at the time. Another complication is that this narrative is a fantasy which does assume the existence of supernatural beings just as some sf narratives assume the existence of extraterrestrial beings. Thus, "God" in The Merman's Children is akin to Martians in Anderson's The Shield. Readers who do believe in God should not assume that "God" in a fantasy novel is the same being that they believe in. "God" in The Merman's Children coexists with Norse mythological beings and makes religious images turn to the wall when merfolk enter a church. "God" in James Blish's Black Easter turns out to have died with the consequence that demons, released from Hell, win the battle of Armageddon. 

Into Futurity

 

A time traveler experiences either a time-consuming journey or an instantaneous transition.

Instantaneous Transitions

(i) The timecycles and other temporal vehicles in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series.

(ii) In James Blish's Midsummer Century, John Martels loses consciousness in 1971 and regains it in 25,000 A.D.

Time-Consuming Journeys

One example is the mutant time travelers in Poul Anderson's There Will Be Time. However, I want to focus on those who make a single long journey into a remote future:

HG Wells' Time Traveler goes to 802,701 A.D., then to the end of all life on Earth;

in Poul Anderson's "Flight to Forever," Martin Saunders in the time projector goes to the end of the universe and beyond;

in Neil Gaiman's The Books Of Magic, Volume IV, The Road To Nowhere, Mister E and Timothy Hunter magically walk through possible futures to the end of the universe.

Personified Death returns Timothy to 1991 without delay but tells E that he must walk back one step at a time. In 1991, John Constantine seems to think that E is still making his own way back... Even a writer like Neil Gaiman forgets the difference between time and space.

Titania On Mortality And Imagination

Titania speaks in works by Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman:

"'Ye mortals do have powers, do know things, which are for aye denied the Faerie race,' she said. 'Among them is the strength of mortal love.' Wistfulness tinged her speech: 'Mine ageless, flighty kind knows love ... of sorts ... but simply pleasantly, like songs or sweets. True human love is not a comedy; time makes it tragic. In those heights and depths rise dawns and storms beyond our understanding, the awe and the abidingness of death.'"

-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), vi, p. 53.

 

Titania: You wish to see the distant realms? Very well.

But know this first: the places you will visit, the places that you will see, do not exist.

 

Titania: For there are only two worlds - - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy.

Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there.

 

Titania: These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge, and pain.

 

Titania: They give your world meaning.

They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. Do you understand?

 

Timothy Hunter: No.

 

-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic, Volume III, The Land Of Summer's Twilight (New York, 1991), p. 34, panels 2-5, p. 35, panel 1.

Death And After

The Merman's Children, VI.

Merfolk do not age but will eventually succumb to either accident or violence and lack souls, therefore have no hereafter, whereas Christians, of course, age and die but then expect either Heaven or Hell. However, Aegir and Ran also exist so do they welcome drowned sailors into there hall? Do hereafters change along with pantheons? This gets complicated.

Fantasy writers could adopt a fictional premise shared by the authors of several interconnected DC Comics comic book series: 

human and other intelligent beings have souls that will go somewhere after death; 

however, all particular deities and hereafters are projections based on cultural expectations;

thus, people who wind up in "Hell" go there because that is what they expect and think that they deserve.

This does partly overlap with the beliefs of some Christians. Thus, CS Lewis thought that those who went to Hell did so because, having made a series of wrong moral choices, they refused to learn and amend those choices. Their exclusion from grace and light was of their own choosing.

Ingeborg tells the merman, Tauno:

"'You may live a long while, but when you die you'll be done, a blown-out candle flame.'" (p. 35)

Where does the candle-flame go? Up? Down? North? South? No. It goes out. That is what materialists expect at death and what Buddhists expect at the end of rebirth if I understand Buddhist teaching. I am a materialist who thinks that Zen meditation is beneficial here and now.

(A flame passed from candle to candle before burning down or being blown out is an appropriate image of the Buddhist anatta, "no soul," teaching.)

Poul Anderson's Past Fantasies

Conan The Rebel is set in a remote and entirely fictional past. In The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson), The Broken Sword and The Merman's Children, pagan gods and other beings retreat as Christianity advances.

The King Of Ys: the Three end their Covenant with Ys and the last King of Ys converts from Mithraism to Christianity;

The Broken Sword: a Greek faun flees to Northern Europe;

The Merman's Children: Christian priests exile "...with bell, book and candle, all beings of heathendom..." (p. 24) from an island named after Aegir, the sea giant.

However, on a nearby uninhabited islet:

"Enough of the sea god's older power lingered that merfolk could approach from the south and go ashore." (ibid.)

Thus, all of these works read like a single long series. The Three of Ys include Lir, god of the sea, and Mananaan Mac Lir (son of Lir) is in The Broken Sword. 

Agnete's Children

The Merman's Children.

In the Danish ballad, Agnete bore seven sons. In Poul Anderson's novel, she had seven children. Three died young. That leaves:

Tauno, male, twenty-one;

Eyjan, female, nineteen;

Kennin, male, sixteen;

Yria, female, youngest.

 

After the destruction by exorcism of the off-shore merfolk town of Liri, Tauno, Eyjan and Kennin must depart for deeper waters but first they leave the weakest, Yria, with the priest, Knud. Christened as Margrete, Yria receives a soul, becomes physically mortal and forgets her earlier life.

 

Thus, of Agnete's seven children, three continue their lives as halflings. 

A Sequel To A Ballad

The Merman's Children.

"...that day fourteen years ago when Agnete came back out of the sea." (p. 9)

This assumes that someone called Agnete had gone into the sea. Indeed she did, in an earlier story. Thus, Anderson's novel is not an adaptation of but a sequel to that previous story, as its title indicates. In fact, Agnete, the title character of the Danish ballad, has died and her children have grown to adulthood before this novel opens. Anderson is free to invent whatever happens next. There are two limitations. First, he must not contradict any known history. Secondly, he must acknowledge the empirical fact that there are not nowadays any merfolk towns in the waters around Europe. Where did all the magic go?

A Stag And The Wind

 

Poul Anderson, The Merman's Children (London, 1981), Prologue.

A stag leads hunters on a tiring chase, then disappears. An attendant protests:

"'Sir, this is no place for Christians. Old heathen things are abroad. That was no buck we hunted, it was the very wind, and now it has vanished to wherever the wind goes. Why?'" (p. 3)

The wind often intervenes in Poul Anderson's texts, sometimes as explicitly as this. When the chase ends, the lake gleams, timber glooms, the sun sinks, the sky darkens, a star trembles, mist streams, bats flit, there is cold and silence. The Christians cling to their faith. Then they encounter a vilja.

The Merman's Chldren In Context

Nothing that has not been said before but to recapitulate, Poul Anderson wrote three novels set B.C.:

Conan The Rebel (heroic fantasy)

The Dancer From Atlantis (historical science fiction)

The Golden Slave (historical fiction)

- and three set in the fourteenth century:

The Merman's Children (historical fantasy)

Rogue Sword (historical fiction)

The High Crusade (science fiction)

Between these two triads are:

The King Of Ys Tetralogy (with Karen Anderson) (historical fiction with fantasy elements)

five Viking volumes (fantasy)

The Last Viking Trilogy (historical fiction)

We are beginning to refocus on The Merman's Children but first we see it in the context of the vast panorama of Poul Anderson's Past. Its two literary precursors were:

Agnete og Haymanden, "Agnete and the Merman," a Danish verse narrative

"The Forsaken Merman," a poem by Matthew Arnold

More From Gaiman

Reading on, we find more dialogue relevant to Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, Hrolf Kraki's Saga The Merman's Children, Three Hearts And Three Lions, Operation Otherworld and A Midsummer Tempest. Anderson also has a version of Atlantis but in historical sf, not fantasy.

Tim Hunter: It doesn't seem like there's any real magic anymore. Not like it was. Where did all the magic go?

The Phantom Stranger: Much magic was lost when the last vestiges of Atlantis sank - - although misplaced would perhaps be a more precise term.

The Phantom Stranger: Between the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages many of the powers of Faerie and Gramarye left this plane for good. Some for one place, some for another.

The Phantom Stranger: And as science arose it left little room for magic.

Tim Hunter: Why?

The Phantom Stranger: The difference in viewpoint.

Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality.

Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore.

The two are rarely compatible.

 

Tim Hunter: So what are you saying? That magic died out by my time?

 

The Phantom Stranger: No. But wild magic is a thing of the past.

-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic, Volume I, The Invisible Labyrinth (New York, 1990), p. 40, p. 41, panels 1-2.

"...the Otherworld, the halfworld, Faerie, whatever you want to call it."

-Poul Anderson, The Merman's Children (London, 1981), Author's Note, pp.vii-x AT p. vii.

Tim Hunter: Constantine said we were going to FAIRYLAND. He was kidding, wasn't he? 

Doctor Occult: We travel through the fair lands, child. Call them AVALON, or ELVENHOME, or DOM-DANIEL, or FAERIE, it matters not. It id the Land of Summer's Twilight.

-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic, Book III, The Land Of Summer's Twilight (New York, 1991), p. 5, panel 5.

Although Anderson and Gaiman parallel each other in fantasy, Gaiman does not write sf.

Late Night Reading: Neil Gaiman

These words were written by Neil Gaiman but all true Andersonians will recognize their relevance:

"The true Atlantis is inside you, just as it's inside all of us. The sunken land is lost beneath the dark sea, lost beneath the waves of wet, black stories and myths that break upon the shores of our minds.

"Atlantis is the shadow-land, the birth-place of civilization. The fair land in the west that is lost to us, but remains forever, true birthplace and true goal.

"It is Lyonesse, and Avalon, and Hy-Brasail."

 -Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic, Book I, The Invisible Labyrinth (New York, 1990), panel 2, p. 27.

 

"It's all going to be a dreadful mess. I mean, I'll get Arthur up and running, swords out of stones, all that. 

"Create the fleeting wisp of glory called Camelot, like a firework, a Roman candle, that sputters its light through the Dark Ages and then fades from sight once more."

-ibid., p. 34, panel 4, captions 1-2.

Two Endings

A story ends when it has arrived where it was going to whether or not we regard that as an ending. At the end of "The Faun," we have learned that the city dweller lost in the forest was the planetary president and that the Faun who rescued him was his son. The story ends:

"'All right, Dad.'" (p. 90)

-which reads like a prologue. However, this story of only five pages was originally published as a one-off in Boys' Life and has sufficiently conveyed its central notion of an individual trained to tune in to his total environment.

"In The Shadow" ends when a spaceship crew has agreed not to return to Earth, currently ruled by a  dictatorial Gearch, but instead to remain in the outer Solar System, there to spend years communicating with the inhabitants of a newly detected shadow planet. We might expect to learn some of what they learn from this interplanetary, even inter-universal, communication. Instead, the story ends when its viewpoint character articulates his reason for staying where he is:

"'Freedom. I'm my own man now.'" (p. 111)

Rouvarataz's Moment Of Realization

"In The Shadow."

Rouvarataz thinks:

"Let me charge my enemy head on." (p. 103)

Then he thinks:

"Charge!" (ibid.)

Then:

"An oath tore from him. Wheeler asked what he meant. Rouvaratz ignored the question, scarcely heard. His lips moved with unspoken calculation and he stared out at the stars like a blind man." (ibid.)

We recognize all the signs of an Andersonian moment of realization. And maybe there is a subset of such moments, those that are triggered by a single word? In another story, Webner tells Turekian to:

"'...take the supercharger off your imagination.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Wings of Victory" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 75-102 AT p. 98.

At this:

"The other man froze where he stood.

"'Aram.' Yukiko seized his arm. He stared beyond her. 'What's wrong?'

"He shook himself. 'Supercharger,' he mumbled. 'By God, yes.'" (ibid.)

Yes, we realize that he has realized something. We will be told what it is in due course.

Poul Anderson's Pasts And Futures

By Poul Anderson's "Past," I mean his many works of:

heroic fantasy

historical fantasy

historical fiction

historical fiction with fantasy elements

historical science fiction

 

This is such a broad spectrum, extending from the mythical past to concretely realized historical periods with or without sf elements, that it really splits into two or three distinct groups united only by the past as opposed to the present or the future.

 

Anderson's many fictional futures include:

 

his two major future history series, both accepting the sf cliche of "hyperspace" but doing something interesting with it;

 

his shorter future history series, mainly Kith and Rustum, which assume slower than light interstellar travel. 

My main current point is that, when I am rereading any one part of Anderson's vast Past and Future canon, I am reluctant to leave it and to return to any of the others. Recently, we have been inside the rather diffuse "Directory" slower than light scenario but it becomes necessary to move on.

Tau Ceti And Coldsleep

"In The Shadow."

Karl Rouvaratz wants to:

"...propagandize for a real interstellar trip. Tau Ceti, say; that one must have planets, and you could coldsleep during the decades of the voyage." (p. 94)

Again Tau Ceti.

Again also decades-long interstellar journeys with the passengers in coldsleep. This idea links the stories collected in The Queen Of Air And Darkness... even though they do not form a consistent series. In the multiverse, these timelines will be close together.

Dead Together

Poul Anderson, "In The Shadow" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darknesss And Other Stories (London, 1977), pp. 91-111.

"If they did not work together, they were dead." (p.92)

True on a ship, in a spaceship and ultimately on a planet. The issue has taken millennia to come to a head on a planet although millions have died unnecessarily meanwhile.

As in this story, sf writers imagine high tech dictatorships perpetuating themselves into indefinite futures but surely they are now at the point of self-destruction?

(Right now, Ukrainians are counter-attacking!)

About The Future

Sf can be about the future in two ways: set in the future or about people learning about the future - in different ways.

HG Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come begins with Raven dreaming the book of the future.

Wells' Time Traveler and Poul Anderson's Jack Havig recount future events to their present-day narrators.

Robert Heinlein's Future History begins with a story about a machine that accurately predicts dates of death. Insurers are concerned about how this will affect the future of society.

Both Asimov and Anderson imagine a predictive science of society:

"'The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking.'"

-Isaac Asimov, Foundation (London, 1967), PART I, 6, p. 27. 

"...Valti's matrices...simply told you that given such and such conditions, this and that would probably happen. It was a cold knowledge to bear."

-Poul Anderson, "Marius" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 1, pp. 1-17 AT p. 7.

 

James Blish's instantaneous Dirac transmitter always emits a flash of light and a beep of sound when switched on:

 

"'The Dirac beep is the simultaneous reception of every one of the Dirac messages that has ever been sent, or ever will be sent.'"

-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1973), CHAPTER EIGHT, p. 93.

 

Wells, twice

Anderson, twice

Heinlein

Asimov

Blish 

Futures And Pasts

Science fiction can be set in the past, present or future of this or another timeline and can involve multiple timelines, as in Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix sequence. Anderson found three ways to set sf in the past:

aliens visit Earth in a historical period;

mutant immortals live through history;

time travelers visit historical and prehistorical periods.

 

Anderson wrote some, although not much, sf set in the present and a lot set in alternative futures.

 

The future begins tomorrow. The Time Traveler passed through "tomorrow" before proceeding to 802,701 AD, then to "The Further Vision." Much sf is set in the future, i.e., later than its publication date. CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength was first published in 1945 and, according to its Preface, is set:

"...vaguely 'after the war'."

-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT p. 354.

That might have been "the present": 1945, immediately after the war. However, the Preface is explicitly dated "Christmas Eve, 1943." (ibid.) Thus, at the time of writing, the outcome of the war was not yet known and, curiously to us now, "after the war" counted as the future.

 

Section 6 of "Time Patrol" by Poul Anderson begins:

 

"London, 1944."

-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 6, p. 44.

 

However, "Time Patrol" was published in 1955 so the London blitz was then a past period visited by Manse Everard of the Time Patrol. The younger Everard was at that time across the Channel and CS Lewis had completed writing That Hideous Strength although it had not been not published yet. Of course, we do not think of Lewis or of many other people when reading "Time Patrol." However, we are supposed to imagine that everyone else is proceeding as they did in 1944 when Everard visits the blitz.

 

Works of fiction are usually fictions to each other. Time Patrol and That Hideous Strength are mutually incompatible. Thus, either they are set in alternative timelines or, willingly suspending disbelief, we accept that Everard visits the blitz between the completion and the publication of That Hideous Strength. Another idea is that what is fictional in one timeline is real in another.

 

Fictional detectives usually refer to Sherlock Holmes not as an illustrious predecessor but as a fictional character. I can't say "another fictional character" because they are not fictions to themselves. However, Holmes is real in "Time Patrol" and in Lewis's The Magician's Nephew even though these works are mutually incompatible. Holmes and Watson show up in the Old Phoenix and Holmes has a collateral descendant who emigrates from the colonized planet, Beowulf, to the colonized planet, Roland. But these are different versions of Holmes. 

Resistance

"Time Lag."

"More than one sentry had been found in the morning with his throat cut." (p. 128)

If every man, woman, child and dog set out to kill just one invader, then there would not be enough invaders to go round. Of course, every man, woman etc will not set out to do that but, if enough of them did, then there would not be enough invaders to go round.

By leaving thirty years between expeditions, the Chertkoians gave the Vaynamoans enough time to develop technologies to defeat the Third Expedition. When the victors ask Elva what should be done with Bors Golyev, she replies:

"'There's been too much suffering already...'" (p. 142)

So Bors is to be spared?

"'Just take him out and shoot him.'" (ibid.)

Next, action must be taken against Chertkoi. But that planet sounded ripe for revolution. The pitched battles audible underground need only spread up the towers.

It has been only months for Elva but her young son is now a great-grandfather. Of course, we want to read more about this future history.

In 569 A.C.C.

 

"Time Lag."

Bors Golyev has become Fleet Admiral and now lives in an eight-room apartment at the top of a tower. The fog has risen up the towers. The noise of underground battles can be heard in the upper levels. The slag heaps on the horizon are being converted into tenements. Workers from one conquered planet have been moved to another to cover a labor shortage caused by the suppression of a revolt. Is this what mankind will export to the galaxy? At least it means that human beings are living on those planets and maybe things are better elsewhere. Imagine an indefinite number of colonized planets mostly cut off from each other by interstellar distances. Poul Anderson's idea of an optimal future is human multiplicity and diversity - and preferably also freedom which sometimes has to be fought for.

"'Some Directors did vote to keep hands off Vaynamo.'" (p. 133)

"'...the Directorate makes policy.'" (p. 134)

We are, of course, free to imagine that the Directorate which had ruled Earth in "Home" and "The Alien Enemy" was chased into space and eventually settled on Chertkoi. Some passages by Sandra Miesel could link these stories together.

Thirty Years

"Time Lag."

"...Vaynamo...would have thirty-odd years to recover and rearm itself against the Third Expedition." (pp.127-128)

So why do the Chertkoians allow Vaynamo thirty plus year to recover and rearm between expeditions? More fundamentally, why do the Chertkoians not:

control their own population growth?

propose cultural and commercial exchange with Vaynamo?

Why all the destruction? Very soon in our timeline, humanity will either outgrow its Pournellean "There Will Be War" mentality or go under.

Poul Anderson, like Joe Haldeman in The Forever War, set out to write about time dilated interstellar war.  And it is possible that, several millennia hence and a thousand parsecs away, some colonized planet will try to solve its resources problems the way Chertkoi does.

Fascinating Details On Chertkoi

"Time Lag."

The towers and spires of the city, Dirzh, stretch to the horizon in every direction.

On the eastern horizon are mines and a colorful desert.

Between buildings, elevated trafficways. 

Overhead, aircars.

When Elva looks down from a balcony, dust, smoke, fumes and vapors hide the bottoms of the towers.

Underground, there are workers of the lowest category and armed gangs.

Even a space fleet commander lives in three cramped rooms in a tower apartment with a single servant.

Five billion Chertkoians, numbers constantly growing, inhabit a bleak planet.

Interstellar conquest is necessary - obviously!

Backgrounds And Points

A story can have both a background and a point, e.g.:

The Points Of Some Stories Sharing The Psychotechnic History Background

"Maurai": Good military leaders are not good political leaders.

"Quixote and the Windmill": a redundant robot.

"Cold Victory": History turns on accidents.

"What Shall It Profit?": A dead-end kind of immortality.

"The Troublemakers": Psychotechnics applied in a generation ship.

"Gypsy": Nomadism can become a preference.

"The Pirate": The past should be respected.

 

The Points Of Two Stories With A Slower-Than-Light Interstellar Background

"The Faun": Ecological coordination is a good idea.

"Time Lag": Interstellar war affected by time dilation.

 

Obviously, the same point can be made against different backgrounds.

The Agoric Drive

"Time Lag."

Poul Anderson's Foreword to The Queen Of Air And Darkness... states that there is no faster than light space travel in this collection. In "Time Lag," the Chertkoians have an "agoric drive" which, like a hyperdrive, cannot be switched on too deep in a gravitational field. This drive apparently jumps to near light speed without having to accelerate. Thus, the fifteen light-years between Chertkoi and Vaynamo can be crossed in just over fifteen years which are only a few weeks aboard ship. 

The agoric drive accounts for both the title and the dates. (See the above link.) Thus, as in Poul Anderson's Starfarers, a faster means of interstellar travel is introduced without resorting to FTL and this in turn initiates an inter-generational narrative.

A.U.C. And A.C.C.

Poul Anderson, "Time Lag" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness (London, 1977), pp. 112-144.

"522 Anno Coloniae Conditae:" (p. 112)

"538 A.C.C.:" (p. 121)

"553 A.C.C.;" (p. 126)

"569 A.C.C.:" (p. 132)

"583 A.C.C.:" (p. 135)

Two tall inscribed stones on the road to Ys were:

"'Raised DCLXXXVIII AVC obedient to orders of the SPOR, year XIII since the Sign came upon Brennilis, who with C. Julius Caesar did make the Oath.'"

-Poul Anderson, The King Of Ys: Roma Mater (London, 1989), VI, 2, p. 99.

 

AVC/AUC = Ab urbe condita, "from the founding of the city," or anno urbis conditae, "in the year since the city's founding."

 

ACC = Anno Coloniae Condita, "in the year since the founding of the colony."

 

While this Latin dating style links "Time Lag" to The King Of Ys, we notice again how often the wind intervenes in Poul Anderson's texts:

 

"The centurion did not argue, but rose and went forth on the deck, into the wind."

-Roma Mater, IV, 1, p. 66.

 

"Gratillonius felt the unknown touch him, cold as the wind."

-Roma Mater, VI, 3, p. 116.

Cooperation With Nature

"The Faun."

"But he felt now, in his bones, that he belonged to city and machine. He did not quite understand the new generations, scattering themselves thinly across the world, speaking of cooperation with nature rather than war against it." (p. 87)

For cities as opposed to nature, see Cities. For war against nature, see The Enemy. However, we cannot be merely at war with nature. If we were, then it would not have produced us. Some environments we are adapted to. Most environments are hostile to us. To survive in them, we must apply, thus cooperate with, the laws of physics. As Hegel said, conscious beings are both at one with and in conflict with the rest of nature. The conflict is incorporated into a higher synthesis not fully comprehended yet.

The Faun, like the Life Mothers in the Harvest of Stars future history, personifies nature-consciousness synthesis.

Epsilon Eridani In Two Timelines

"'...Epsilon Eridani...has no planets of use to any Christian.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Robin Hood's Barn" IN Anderson, Orbit Unlimited (New York, 1961), pp. 7-41 AT 2, p. 17.

 

"...he saw Epsilon Eridani. The sun disk showed twice as big as the Sol he dimly remembered from his childhood, and red-gold in a purple sky. He had always believed Arcadia lovely, an undespoiled planet waiting for man like a bride..."

-"The Faun," p. 87. 

This is positive proof that the Rustum History and "The Faun" are set in different timelines. "The Faun" shares with the Rustum History and the two Directorate stories interstellar travel at sub-light speeds with suspended animation:

 

"...an undespoiled planet waiting for man like a bride, more than worth decades in coldsleep aboard a spaceship, toil and danger of pioneering, isolation from the rest of mankind." (ibid.)

 

"The Faun" can be regarded either as independent or as occurring later than the Directorate stories.

Dragon, Wyvern And Faun

"'No dragons are flying -'"

-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 1.

 

"A wyvern flew up in a thunder of splendid wings."

-Poul Anderson, "The Faun" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories (London, 1977), pp. 86-90 AT p. 86.

 

What These Passages Have In Common

(i) Dragons, wyverns and fauns are mythological beings.

(ii) Each passage is the opening sentence of an sf story.

(iii) Each story is set on a humanly colonized extra-solar planet.

(iv) Each opening sentence implies fantasy, not sf.

(v) However, each story is in an sf collection.

 

Apart from all this, they are completely different.

The Face Of The Alien Enemy

Poul Anderson, "The Alien Enemy" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories (London, 1977), pp. 69-85.

"And at once, like a blow to the guts, wildly swearing to myself I must be wrong, I saw the face of the alien enemy." (pp. 80-81)

The enemy, usually, is someone else, other, foreign, alien, to be fought against. But we have found two other meanings of "enemy." See The Enemy. Which meaning applies here? Because the colonists on Sibylla have found their environment to be an insuperable enemy, they have practiced a deception, faking an attack by "the alien enemy," in order to oblige the Directorate government to ship them back home. The government might regard the perpetrators of this elaborate deception, when it is uncovered, as an enemy.

However, a creative solution is proposed. Naturally selected by Sibylla, then returned to Earth, the former colonists can easily conquer the Sahara and the conspirators are allowed to expiate their deception by leading this reclamation project. Poul Anderson's characters are problem-solvers, none more than in "The Alien Enemy."

Home And Other Stories

New America ends with:

"The Queen of Air and Darkness"

"Home"

"Our Many Roads to the Stars"

 

The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories begins with:

 

"The Queen of Air and Darkness"

"Home"

 

"Our Many Roads to the Stars" could be moved to a collection of Poul Anderson's short non-fiction works. "Home" could be removed from New America. "The Queen of Air and Darkness" could be removed from The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories which would therefore have to change its title.

If, in addition, "In The Shadow" were to be removed from Home And Other Stories (or whatever it came to be called), then this collection would comprise four short stories about STL interstellar travel, the first two referring to a Terrestrial government called the Directorate and the second two arguably not inconsistent with the first two. The fourth story, "Time Lag," constitutes a miniature future history in its own right.

Alternative Directorates?

In "Home," the Directorate terminates scientific bases on Mithras and other extra-solar planets whereas, in "The Alien Enemy," the Directorate maintains extra-solar colonies on Zion, Atlas, Asgard and Lucifer although it loses the one on Sibylla. Are these simply alternative "Directorates"? Both "Directorates" generate the impression that they operate in the first wave of interstellar travel.

In "Home," the time-dilated spaceship captain, Yakov Kahn, speaks English with an Israeli accent, refers to history that is familiar to us and was born pre-Directorate. His father was in the Solar (pre-interstellar?) War. Neither story shows any sign of being set in a further future when many extra-solar colonies have become independent and after Earth has had a long period of withdrawal from interstellar travel which would have had to be the case if the Directorate stories were to be seen as set later in the timeline of the Rustum History.

However, the main point is that we enjoy the individual stories whether or not we conceptualize them as interconnected.

STL Future Histories

Future Histories By Poul Anderson With STL Interstellar Travel

Kith (two versions)

Rustum

Directorate

 

Rustum

The Federation world government sends Constitutionalist dissidents and later neo-Confucianists to Rustum, a planet of E Eridani. Over many centuries, several other exo-planets are colonized although Earth stops launching spaceships.

 

Directorate

The Directorate world government establishes scientific bases on a few extra-solar planets, including Mithras in the system of Groombridge 1830. After a century, the bases are discontinued but later the Directorate establishes extra-solar colonies.

 

New America follows Orbit Unlimited and overlaps with The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories. The overlap generates the impression that the Directorate stories are set in the same timeline as the Rustum History.

An Interstellar Situation

"The Queen of Air and Darkness."

Several extra-solar planets have been colonized. Some have natives. Earth has stopped launching spaceships. New colonies are not yet able to launch new ships and even their survival is in doubt. Older colonies launch ships that might visit any particular planet two or three times a century at most. Colonists must be strongly motivated and must also take with them germ plasm for plants, animals and human beings.

Beowulf:

like Rustum but more advanced, has a densely populated city and a lowland frontier for those with a high carbon dioxide tolerance;

launches an expedition to seek new ideas among several colonized planets, especially those unable to maintain laser contact.

Eric Sherrinford, born on Beowulf, joins the expedition and decides to stay on Roland. He knows of Rustum.

This situation has clearly existed and developed for centuries. It seems quite unlike the scenario in "Home" and "The Alien Enemy" where a Terrestrial government called the Directorate has established a few extra-solar colonies before closing, then later re-opening, them.

On Roland

Poul Anderson, "The Queen of Air and Darkness" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories (London, 1977), pp. 9-51.

This story increases our knowledge of the Rustum History timeline. Terrestrials have colonized other extra-solar planets:

"...in the hope of preserving such outmoded things as their mother tongues or constitutional government or rational-technological civilization..." (p. 12)

Colonized planets other than Rustum include Roland and Beowulf. Eric Sherrinford has traveled from Beowulf to Roland. Beowulf has more domestic technology than Roland. Roland is further from the Solar System than Rustum because, from it, Sol is invisible without a telescope. Roland has concealed natives, a complication that does not exist on Rustum but did on Nerthus in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. One Rolandic species has been named "satans" (p. 14) just as a Rustumite species was named "tarzans" and an Avalonian species, in Anderson's Technic History, is named "draculas."

We find parallels between three future history series by a single author.

The Federation/Directorate Future History?

I would like to see the Rustum History collected in a single volume although maybe "Rustum History" becomes an inappropriate title if we find that it is possible to incorporate a few more of Poul Anderson's stories into that same future historical timeline? There should be no explanatory note between the eighth and last Rustum story and "The Queen of Air and Darkness." Instead, readers should first realize that "The Queen..." is set on another planet, then find its textual reference to Rustum. We would like to read a story set on Beowulf, another colonized planet mentioned in "The Queen..." So far, three extra-solar planets have been named after not gods but heroes of different Terrestrial traditions.

Maybe four other stories can be included, making a total of thirteen, but I am not going to post any more about that tonight! After Blackpool and London, tomorrow I will exclusively be in Lancaster.

A Publisher's Note

"Publisher's Note:

"Here ends the story of High America. But other worlds than Rustum were to receive the seed of Earth. Each responded in its own way to the men and women who had fled their own ruined planet...."

- IN Poul Anderson, New America (New York, 1982), p. 158.

This passage, presumably not written by the author, separates four Dan Coffin stories set on Rustum from "The Queen of Air and Darkness," set on Roland, and "Home," set on Mithras. Thus, we are presented with a generic future history in which:

Earth is "ruined";

Mithras exists in the same timeline as Rustum and Roland.

We would also have liked to read stories in which:

Coffin's grandchildren and great-grandchildren respond to newly arrived neo-Confucian colonists;

Rustumites have at last spread across the entire surface of their planet.

(I have got up early to catch a coach to London.) 

The Unhuman And Its Eternity

"To Promote The General Welfare."

Looking at the town of Anchor from a balcony of Wolfe Hall, Dan Coffin reflects:

"...I only have to walk a few kilometers out...and I'll be alone with the unhuman and its eternity.

"I'm also close to them in time, of course, his mind added. Soon I'll be among them. It was a strange feeling." (p. 149)

 

And also a strange way of expressing it. He means that he will soon be dead. The matter that composes his body will soon return into, or re-merge with, its eternal unhuman environment. Eternal unhumanity sounds apocalyptic but Coffin's consciousness will have ended, of course. At least, he seems to expect it to end and I agree with him. Coffin has not retained his foster-father's Christianity.

 

However, at the very end of the story, Coffin addresses the portrait of his dead wife, Eva:

 

"'I wish you could have seen.' He shook his head, ran fingers through his hair. 'Maybe you did? I don't know." (p. 157)

 

The totality of experience is what we see, think, feel - and don't know.

Time And The Wind

"To Promote The General Welfare."

Today was an afternoon trip to Blackpool and tomorrow will be an all day trip to London so blogging suffers but life continues.

"Of course, these days time went like the wind...." (p. 123)

Time and wind are two big themes in Poul Anderson's works. Here they are together in a single phrase that could have appeared in any fictional narrative about the lives of human beings.

A Rustumite lowland winter:

"French doors opened on a balcony. The panes were full of rain, wind hooted, lightning flared, thunder made drumfire which shuddered in the walls." (p. 121)

Dan Coffin receives a disturbing phone call:

"For several heartbeats he stood moveless. Chills chased along his spine and out to the ends of his nerves. Lightning glared, thunder exploded, rain dashed against the glass." (p. 125)

His reaction is physical and nature seems to agree with it but, when Coffin presents a problem to George Stein:

"Stein rode sunk in thought. Wind lulled, leaves whispered." (p. 133)

Nature quietens as if to aid Stein's thought!

Dan Coffin On Rustumite Society

Poul Anderson, "To Promote The General Welfare" IN Anderson, New America (New York, 1982), pp. 117-157.

Dan Coffin:

"'Not everybody on High America succeeded in becoming an independent farmer, a technical expert, or an entrepreneur.'" (p. 131)

Why didn't everyone succeed? Might they have? Coffin continues:

"'There are also those who, however worthy, have no special talents. Laborers, clerks, servants, routine maintenance men, et cetera.'" (ibid.)

So, if everyone had special talents, then everyone would have become an independent farmer, technical expert or entrepreneur and no one need have become a laborer, clerk, servant or maintenance man? Well, no. An economy that is organized around farmers and entrepreneurs requires a smaller number of farmers and entrepreneurs employing a larger number of laborers, clerks, servants and maintenance men. Technical experts can be either independent contractors or higher-salaried employees. The economy has this structure and individuals have these different roles within it whether or not they also have any special talents. One person might have a central role because of their talents or for various other reasons.

Coffin's "...however worthy..." expresses a social bias in favor of holders of central roles who he thinks have special talents. Those who are less talented, according to Coffin, lose their jobs because of automation and then work for lower wages at "'...the bottom of the social pyramid.'" (ibid.) He claims that he is not scoffing at such people. Indeed:

"'Mostly they're perfectly decent, conscientious human beings.'" (p. 131)

Mostly? So some aren't? The same qualification applies to members of every social stratum but here Coffin patronizes wage- and salary-earners.

"'They were absolutely vital in the early days.'" (ibid.)

But now they are less valuable? Surely we need a social ethic and policy that values every member of society through every socioeconomic change?

Coffin spells out what will happen:

more machines and workers;

end of labor shortage;

impoverished masses;

concentration of wealth and power;

growing collectivism;

demagogues preaching revolution;

the rootless well-off applauding the demagogues;

a depersonalized society;

upheavals;

tyranny.

 

No, it need not end in tyranny, especially if people have learned any lessons from what happened on Earth. Of course some people, whether demagogues or not, will advocate radical social reorganization if wealth and power are concentrated while the masses are impoverished but should such a society just be left as it is?

 

Coffin says that he means:

 

"'...to make a damned radical proposal when the convention reopens.'" (p. 135)

 

So let's read on and find out what his proposal will be.