"We know that other branches of humanity have their distinctive ways, and hear rumors of yet stranger ones. But so vast is the galaxy - these two or three spiral arms, a part of which our race has to date thinly occupied - so vast, that we cannot even keep track of our own culture, let alone anyone else's."
-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 718.
"We...
"...our race...
"...we...
"...our own..."
This is not the omniscient narrator but a citizen of:
"...that civilization wherein the Commonalty operates." (ibid.)
The future historians have become anonymous but are still present.
Most of the Technic History refers to the outer edge of a single spiral arm that "we" have partly explored whereas, in "Starfog," "we" have thinly occupied two or three spiral arms so this story is set considerably later but the galaxy remains vast.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And this diffusion of the human race across two or three galactic spiral arms inevitably meant Old Earth and the regions once ruled by the Empire became more and more obscure and forgotten.
Ad astra! Sean
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