The Uniqueness Of The Technic History

Regular readers of this blog might have noticed that I regard Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization as unique among science fiction future history series. It is the ultimate fulfilment of the idea initiated by Robert Heinlein in his Future History: historical processes transcend individual characters - although Anderson, unlike Heinlein, incorporates three series characters into this future history which is just one of several that he wrote.

The Technic History has two equally valid reading orders. Three historical narratives (League, Ythrians and Empire) converge into the Earth Book of Stormgate. The Empire, with one further Ythrian input, emerges from it.

Anyone who reads only the opening story, "The Saturn Game," followed immediately by the concluding story, "Starfog," will discern no direct connection between these two works. However:

one character in "The Saturn Game" was raised in the Jerusalem Catholic Church;

in the much later Terran Empire, Philippe Rochefort, and Fr. Axor, are Jerusalem Catholics;

"Starfog" refers to the historical Terran Empire.

Thus, the connection is indirect and the totality of the series is vastly more than the sum of its parts.

Zalat's Take On Altai

The Game of Empire, CHAPTER ELEVEN, presents a Merseian perspective as Merseians converse with each other while trespassing through Terran space to attack Gorrazan. "A Message in Secret," opening section (unnumbered), combines human and Betelgeusean perspectives as Captain Flandry converses with Captain Zalat en route to Altai. We are reminded that the Technic History is not just human but multi-species.

Zalat makes a point of conversing in his limited and accented Anglic although Flandry would have preferred to practise his Altaian. Betelgeuse is a buffer state between Terra and Merseia but not therefore isolated, Zalat seems to imply. He visits Altai:

"'About onze a Terra-year...'" (p. 342)

-Poul Anderson, "A Message in Secret" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 341-397 AT p. 342.

- to buy furs. Other Betelgeusean merchants buy:

"'...gemz, mineralz, hides, variouz organic productz, even dried meatz...'" (ibid.)

Thus, there are usually one or two Betelgeusean ships at the Altaian capital, Ulan Baligh. Zalat hopes not to be detained there long because there is only one pleasure house for his species. However, "'...de dizturbanzez...'" delay the "'...caravanz...'" (ibid.) Flandry conceals his professional interest in "'...de disturbanzez...'"

Altai was isolated for six hundred years before Betelgeusean trade began and the Kha Khan has recently forbidden most:

"'...of his zubjectz from leaving de planet...'" (p. 343)

De plot thickenz.

Altai From Space

Must any terrestroid planet seem beautiful to human eyes when seen from space? Earth looks beautiful to us because we evolved here. We cannot help liking blue, white and green and these should be the colours of the Terrestrial tricolour. 

Earth is two thirds covered with water. Altai looks beautiful to Dominic Flandry. Altai also has a lot of water but most of it is frozen, more than half the northern hemisphere, and slightly less of the south, polar cap, snow tinged rosy by the sun Krasna, naked ice blue or green. The tropical steppes and tundra are bronze or gold. There are some big lakes, rainbow Saturnian rings and two small moons.

Can you picture it? How do you think it looks?

The Earth Book In The Technic History

Slightly expanding what I have written previously, The Earth Book of Stormgate:

completes the story of the Polesotechnic League;

almost completes the story of human-Ythrian interactions;

refers to the Terran Empire although not to Dominic Flandry.

This encapsulates the place of the Earth Book in the Technic History. It indicates what has gone before:

the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy containing eight instalments, including two novels;

a novel about the war between the Domain of Ythri and the Terran Empire;

three other stories, two of them about the founding and the early period of the Terran Empire -

- what happens in the Earth Book itself:

eight more Polesotechnic League instalments, including one novel;

four human-Ythrian short stories;

Ythrian introductions -

- and what comes after:

the nine-volume Flandry period, including the last appearance of an Ythrian;

four post-Imperial instalments.

If we read the Technic History in its original order, then we read the conclusion of the PL series, Mirkheim, as Volume IV but then read a second PL series with its appropriate conclusion, "Lodestar," in the Earth Book. We had read the last farewells of van Rijn etc but now find them alive again in the Earth Book.

Back To The Earth Book

Proceeding from "Honorable Enemies" to "A Message in Secret," we find that this second story begins as Flandry approaches Altai in an Alfzarian/Betelgeusean spaceship. Flandry was on Alfzar in the Betelgeusean System in "Honorable Enemies." Emil Dalmady, who confronted Nicholas van Rijn in "Esau," was from Altai. This reminds us that children of Dalmady accompanied David Falkayn to Avalon, that one of them, Judith Dalmady/Lundgren, wrote short stories that were published in the magazine, Morgana, named after the Avalonian moon, that Hloch of Stormgate Choth collected three of these stories in The Earth Book of Stormgate and that the first of these stories was "Esau," about Judith's father! In her old age, Judith wrote "Wingless" about David Falkayn's grandson in his youth. Emil Dalmady is a young man when he confronts van Rijn but his daughter is an old woman when she writes about Falkayn's young grandson who is also van Rijn's great-great-grandson. Thus, the Technic History shows us not only centuries of history but also generations of families.

Flandry Reading Order

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume V ends with:

"Honorable Enemies"

"The Game of Glory"

"A Message in Secret"

Volume VI begins with:

"The Plague of Masters"

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

Volume V should end with:

"Honorable Enemies"

"A Message in Secret"

"The Plague of Masters"

Volume VI should begin with:

"The Game of Glory"

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

"Hunters..." comes immediately after "The Game..." which makes an early reference to the events of "Honorable Enemies." Two years elapse between the very beginning of "The Game...," when a monster flees from Conjumar, and the main narrative of that story, when Flandry is on Brae, then Nyanza. "Honorable Enemies" occurs in that two-year period. "A Message in Secret" and its sequel, "The Plague of Masters," must also occur then.

After "The Plague..." and "Hunters...," Volume VI concludes with:

"The Warriors from Nowhere"

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows

"The Warriors..." was revised to be a prequel to A Knight... Although written much earlier, "The Warriors..." fits with "Hunters..." and A Knight... because all three feature Flandry's Shalmuan servant, Chives, and his private spaceship, the Hooligan. However, "The Warriors..." should also have been revised to recognize Flandry's knighthood in its opening sentence.

Flandry On Alfzar

"Honorable Enemies."

Aline spikes Flandry's drink with sorgan, the drug that will make him believe whatever she tells him. She then lies about an elaborate Terran plot to seize a beachhead on the Betelgeusean capital planet, Alfzar. Aline's plan is that Aycharaych, reading Flandry's mind and therefore believing her lie, will give inappropriate advice to his Merseian superiors. We notice two features of the lie that she tells. First, it is less absurd in Poul Anderson's revised version of the text. In the original version, Flandry says that the Terran action as she describes it will mean war with both Merseia and Betelgeuse and she simply agrees! In the revised version, she tells Flandry that Fenross's best judgement is that the Betelgeusean monarch, the Sartaz, will be furious but will not risk war.

Secondly, Aline's fiction-within-the-fiction establishes yet more character continuity within the Flandry series. The original version refers to both Fenross and Walton. Both allegedly think that Betelgeuse will surrender before Merseia can respond. The revised version emphasises Admiral Fenross's supposed work on the case. Thus, Flandry's future superior officer is introduced in both versions.

Another feature of this story is the genuine friendship that develops in two conversations between Flandry and Aycharaych. Such conversations continue, between conflicts, in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. However, when, at the end of A Knight..., Aycharych, addressing Flandry as "Dominic," asks him to help save Chereion, Flandry has to refuse. Compliance would have required too many betrayals.

Pathways Through The Future

We travel through Poul Anderson's Technic History by different routes.

The need for a mind-screen is recognized in "Honorable Enemies." That led to checking information on mind-screens in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. 

In A Knight..., a mind-screen was concealed under a turban from Ramanujan. That led to checking information on Ramanujan in "Hiding Place," The Day Of Their Return... and A Knight...

"Honorable Enemies" introduces Aycharaych and the Merseians. This leads to checking appearances of these characters in subsequently written works.

"Honorable Enemies" is set on Alfzar so we can check on other appearances by Alfzarians. These are in "A Message in Secret" and "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson."

The question of how Borthudian dragons fly on Alfzar leads to a comparison between the original and revised versions of this story and also with works dealing with winged Ythrians.

There is probably more.

Ramanujan

In "Hiding Place," Captain Bahadur Torrance from Ramanujan wears a turban bearing the Ship-and-Sunburst of the Polesotechnic League.

In Mirkheim, Free Hermetian commandos sabotage XT Systems in the city of Maharajah on Ramanujan.

In The Day Of Their Return, Chunderban Desai from Ramanujan has a spectacular holograph of Mount Gandhi in his office on Aeneas.

In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Dominic Flandry wears what he claims is the latest fashion in Dehiwala on Ramanujan: colourful, embroidered civilian garments and a turban held together by a plumed emerald brooch.

I think that that is all the information that there is about Ramanujan.

Technological Innovation In The Terran Empire Or "Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention"

"'We'll have to get a research and development effort mounted on Terra,' she said. 'For some kind of helmet or whatever, that screens off transmission of thoughts.'

"'Of course. That doesn't help us today. Not very much in the long run, really. Our people don't often encounter Chereionites, do they/'"

-"Honorable Enemies," p. 288.

"'Welcome, Sir Dominic. The cloakroom slave will furnish you with a mind-screen.'

"'What?' Despite himself, Flandry started.

"'If you want one.' Ruethen bared powerful teeth at Lady Diana."

-Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 149-301 AT I, p. 156.

Flandry recognizes "...the gaunt black shape among the rainbow Terrans..." (ibid.) and runs to the cloakroom where he snaps, "'Mind-screen...'" (ibid.) When the slave girl replies that she has only a few and that:

"'His lordship told me to keep them for -'" (ibid.)

- Flandry interrupts, "'Me!'" (p. 157), snatches the gadget and places it on his head. It is a:

"...cap of wires, transistors, and power cells..." (ibid.)

- which:

"...heterodynes the energy radiation of the cerebral cortex in a random pattern. Makes it impossible to read what I'm thinking.'" (ibid.)

"'Aren't you the gaudy one, though. What style is that?'"

-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Sir Dominic Flandry..., pp. 339-606 AT IX, p. 455.

Flandry wears a turban from Dehiwala on Ramanujan to conceal his mind-screen. When:

"'...poor mortified Tachwyr is gone...'" (p. 460)

- and Aycharaych has joined Flandry, the Chereionite comments:

"'I could wish your turban did not cover a mindscreen and powerpack, my friend. Not merely does the field make an ugliness through my nerves amidst this frozen serenity; I would fain be in true communion with you.'" (p. 459)

Flandry's men are also screened. Aycharaych asks:

"'Does not that apparatus on their heads make sleep difficult?'" (ibid.)

- and warns:

"I warn you in any case, wear the things not overmany days at a stretch. Even for a race like yours, it is ill to keep the brain walled off from those energies which inspirit the universe, behind a screen of forces that themselves must roil your dreams.'" (ibid.)

And I think that that exhausts the information about mind-screens.

How Do Dragons Fly?

If the texts of the Technic History must elaborately explain how Ythrians can be heavy enough for intelligence yet nevertheless can fly, then surely we need some explanation of how the ten-meter-long Borthudian dragons on Alfzar can fly?

In the original text:

"Huge leathery wings bore them aloft..."

-"Honourable Enemies," p. 67.

In the revised text:

"The beasts were less heavy than they appeared, and glided more than they actually flew. Just the same, a high-energy metabolism kept such a mass aloft."

-"Honorable Enemies," p. 285.

Just the same... More explanation was necessary.

In the best tradition of speculative fiction, imagine that the original and revised texts describe alternative Technic History timelines. In the original version, Martians are natives of Mars. In the revised version, they are colonists from an extra-solar planet who have been incorporated first into the Solar Commonwealth, then into the Terran Empire. Someone sometime might list all the differences.

Flandry And Aycharaych

Poul Anderson, "Honorable Enemies" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 277-302.

"Too bad also that we're on opposite sides...isn't it?" (p 285)

Dominic Flandry is loyal to Technic civilization which is the Terran Empire in his lifetime. Aycharaych, we later learn, is loyal not to the Merseian Roidhunate but to the Chereinonite heritage. Imagine if you were the sole heir of Terrestrial arts and sciences. If Aycharaych survives the bombardment of Chereion, then he will no longer have any reason to serve the Roidhunate but might also no longer have any reason to live.

If you move Kirk from Starfleet to Intelligence and Vulcan from the Federation to the Klingon Empire and increase Spock's telepathic abilities, then you have (almost) transformed Star Trek into the Technic History. But we know which series and which characters we prefer.

Vodan And Others

In the previous post, I should also have mentioned Vodan of Stormgate Choth, commander of Three Stars, an Avalonian torpedo launcher, similar to a Terran Meteor but bigger because Ythrians do not wear spacesuits and need to spread their wings. A bigger craft can be better armed.

Three Stars disables Hooting Star, killing Wa Chaou. Rochefort surrenders but friendly fire from Avalon destroys Three Stars, killing Vodan and his crew of four. Rochefort crash lands Hooting Star on Avalon where Draun kills Helu.

Casualties Known To Us In This Exchange:

Vodan and his crew

Ferune and his staff, also caught in crossfire

Rochefort's crew of two

With the death of Ferune, Second Marchwarden Daniel Holm becomes First Marchwarden and another Ythrian becomes Wyvan of Mistwood. Rochefort escapes from Avalon, carrying misleading military intelligence to Admiral Cajal. 

A vast cast of characters interacts exactly as their creator directs.

Earlier Naval Careers

In two recent posts, we listed thirteen Terran Naval careers, plus Edwin Cairncross's five-year hitch, but these all happened during Dominic Flandry's lifetime. Earlier in the Technic History:

John Reeves was a Lieutenant in the Solar Commonwealth Navy but became a Rear Admiral in the Imperial Solar Navy under Manuel I;

Commander Helena Jansky, commanding HM Ganymede during the expedition into the Black Nebula, was accompanied by Basil Donovan, formerly a Captain in the independent Ansan Navy;

Fleet Admiral Juan de Jesus Cajal y Palomares led the Terran fleet against the Domain of Ythri;

Lieutenant (j.g.) Philippe Rochefort captained the Meteor-class ship, Hooting Star, which was crewed by fire control officer, CPO Wa Chaou, and engineer-computerman CPO Abdullah Helu;

Ferune, Wyvan of Mistwood Choth and First Marchwarden of the Lauran System, commanded the fleet defending Avalon.

Science In SF

Sf exists in the context of other sf and the same applies to future histories. Recent posts have compared:

Mental sciences in -

Asimov's Foundation History

Anderson's Psychotechnic History

Anderson's Technic History

Out-dated science in -

Heinlein's Future History

Niven's Known Space History

Anderson's Technic History

These comparisons highlight two insights about science:

that scientific understanding continually changes;

that scientific method applies to objective reality but not to subjective mentality.

Surely a predictive science of humanity is a fantasy? Either a minority tries to understand and control the rest of society or all the members of society individually and collectively understand and control themselves in which case they act freely and unpredictably in the present.

Obsolete Universe

"...our knowledge of the universe is changing all the time. My universe is beginning to look hopelessly obsolete. For instance, in a Flandry tale I gave Betelgeuse planets, on some of which were life; in another, I gave Jupiter solid land masses. Both these assumptions were reasonable when I was composing, but are so no longer. I've written rationalizations into later stories. Yet this can be done to just a limited extent before it becomes ridiculous."

-Poul Anderson, "Concerning Future Histories" IN SFWA Bulletin, Fall 1979, p. 13.

Solid Jovian land masses seem dated. Maybe Betelgeusean planets do as well to the better informed. But an author does not need to rationalize beyond a certain point. Any future history series assumes past history up to the time of writing and scientific knowledge as at the time of writing. Beyond that point, the series is set in an alternative history and might even have different laws of physics. Robert Heinlein's Future History has a habitable Venus. Larry Niven's Known Space future history series has an outmoded Mercury with one side permanently facing the Sun in its very first instalment and Niven made the decision not to rewrite the texts on the assumption that fans wanted to read the series as it had originally been written.

In sf written before 1922, our galaxy would have been the entire universe.

Enter The Continuing Villains

"The door swung open behind him and a voice murmured gently: 'Good evening, Captain Flandry."

-Poul Anderson, "Honourable Enemies" IN Anderson, Agent of the Terran Empire (London, 1977), pp. 57-81 AT I, p. 59.

With that single sentence, Captain Flandry became a series character. This story introduces the Merseians as a collective continuing villain. They were retconned as background information into the revised version of the first Captain Flandry story, "Tiger By The Tail." "Honourable Enemies" also introduces Aycharaych, an individual villain with the potential to become a recurring villain. In fact, Aycharaych did recur but only in two works as an antagonist of Flandry. Some characters generate the impression of having appeared more often than they in fact did. Aycharaych spread himself across the Flandry period, getting a mention in A Circus Of Hells, appearing without Flandry in The Day Of Their Return and finally remembered, if nothing else, in The Game Of Empire, although with a question mark over a possible return.

Aycharaych works for Merseia but is Chereionite by species. Flandry needed an opposite number among the Merseians themselves and this role was played by Tachwyr the Dark in no less than four novels, overlapping just once with Aycharaych. All of these conflicts between Flandry and his Merseian or Merseian-employed antagonists grew from "Honourable Enemies."

Less Distinguished Naval Careers

See Imperial Officers.

In Sector Alpha Crucis, Admiral Hugh McCormac rebels and tries to become Emperor but is forced into exile by Flandry.

On Hermes, Edwin Cairncross, youngest son by a second marriage of the Duke, enlists for a five-year hitch, is promoted during the suppression of the Nyanzan revolt and again during the Terran-Merseian confrontation at Syrax, leaves with the rank of lieutenant commander, forces his older half-brother to abdicate, becomes Duke and plans to seize the Imperial Throne by force but is defeated by Flandry.

Admiral Olaf Magnusson, a Merseian sleeper, rebels and tries to become Emperor but is defeated by a small group, including Flandry's illegitimate daughter, Diana Crowfeather.

Fleet Admiral Sandberg and Admiral da Costa must deal with Dennitza during the difficult period when that planet and the whole Taurian Sector nearly split from the Empire. Sandberg threatens to have Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich removed as sector viceroy but later da Costa accepts the good faith of the provisional government run by Flandry.

Thus, we add five more prominent Naval names:

McCormac

Cairncross

Magnusson

Sandberg

da Costa

Sword Fights

"Tiger By the Tail."

Poul Anderson describes a sword fight between Flandry and Cerdic. I read past the details because I am unfamiliar with fencing and because it is a foregone conclusion that Flandry will win. We have heard or read fencing terms and they are all here but let us this time pay attention to them. Flandry parries, retreats, withholds a stop thrust, parries again, ripostes, lunges, feints, glides, beats, deflects and smites. Cerdic slashes and hews. There are more terms than I had expected when I started to list them. At the end of the following story, "Honorable Enemies," Flandry thrusts whereas Aycharaych feints, thrusts and parries. I could google all these terms but for once I will leave that to interested blog readers.

Conan is Swords and Sorcery. John Carter is Swords and Science. Dominic Flandry's first two short stories climax with scenes of Swords and Science. For the rest of his series, Flandry visits more modernized futuristic planets not inhabited by archaic humanoids but colonized by technological human beings.

Yesterday evening, we attended a solo violin concert where the performer stood beneath a massive rotating globe of Mars. We started to become familiar with surface details. I remembered Wells, Burroughs, Bradbury, Lewis, Anderson and scenes in Alan Moore's Watchmen.

Fictional Mental Sciences

Isaac Asimov's Second Foundationers use the mathematical science of psychohistory for sociological manipulation. They have also developed what seems to me to be the entirely separate ability to exercise mental control over the thought processes and actions of others.

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic Institute uses the science of psychotechnics for sociological manipulation and for psychophysical training.

Anderson's Chereionites developed neurology and psychology until at least one of their number was a universal telepath.

Four practical applications emerge here:

sociological manipulation

mental control of others

psychophysical training

universal telepathy

The first and second are bad. 

The fourth is implausible, if not impossible. 

The third is highly necessary.

Conclusions And Interventions

 "...the New Hampshire sky was filled with the thousands of starships of the Galactic Milieu, and the Great Intervention had begun."

-Julian May, Intervention (London, 1987), 32, p. 665.

"They looked up to the bright sky. Far above them, the first of the descending Imperial ships glittered in the sunlight like a falling star."

-"Tiger By The Tail" (original), p. 36.

"Far above them, the first of the descending Imperial ships glittered in heaven like a falling star."

-"Tiger By The Tail" (revised), p. 276.

Three texts end as spaceships descend. Interstellar intervention begins. Anderson's texts end with the symbolism of the falling star that has always meant something coming from heaven.

From Winter To Spring On Scotha

"Tiger By The Tail."

At winter solstice, there are religious ceremonies, then feasts, music and drunkenness. Castle and town are bright with lights. Mountains are white with snow. Flandry withdraws from the party because his presence would cause too many fights. Gunli withdraws because the savages are bad for her nerves. Flandry and Gunli come together.

Spring breezes blow through the Ilrian garden built for Gunli. There are green odours and bird-like song. Flandry and Gunli meet. Their plan approaches fruition. A Terran task force will arrive soon. Flandry has sabotaged the Scothanian Empire as Aycharaych will later attempt to sabotage the Terran Empire. However, Gunli's divided loyalties still threaten Flandry. 

Solstice and spring symbolize new beginnings.

Imperial Officers

Captain Chang commands the Imperial cruiser, HMS Isis, in "Outpost of Empire" and Admiral Thomas Walton's flagship in "Tiger By The Tail." Walton has become a Fleet Admiral in "Hunters of the Sky Cave." This is good future history character continuity.

Lieutenant Dominic Flandry is under Admiral Julius in A Circus Of Hells. Lieutenant Commander Flandry receives his secret orders from Vice Admiral Kheraskov in The Rebel Worlds. Captain Flandry's superior has become Admiral Fenross in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and "The Warriors from Nowhere." In A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Flandry, still Captain, receives his orders directly from Emperor Hans but suggests that Hans should:

"'...tip the word to - better be none less than Kheraskov - I'll contact him as soon as may be and make arrangements.'"

-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT III, p. 383.

Flandry becomes a Vice Admiral in A Stone In Heaven and a Fleet Admiral in The Game Of Empire. We first saw him, in terms of fictional chronology, as Ensign Flandry under Commander Max Abrams and Admiral Enriques in Ensign Flandry.

That is quite a collection of Naval careers:

Chang

Walton

Flandry

Julius

Kheraskov

Fenross

Hans Molitor

Abrams

Enriques

Flandry's Subversion

"Tiger By The Tail."

Flandry begins subverting the Scothani from the moment he is a prisoner in their spaceship:

he pretends to be slow in learning Frithian so that his captors will continue to speak openly in front of him;

he wins money and clothes by cheating with cards and dice;

in his audience with King Penda, he senses and encourages dissatisfaction among subject species, sets Penda and his son, Cerdic, against each other and initiates what will become an intrigue with Queen Gunli;

he misleads -

General Nartheof

Prince Torric

Earl Morgaar

Sviffash of Sithafar

Duke Asdagaar

They could not have known it in advance but the Scothani would have done better to have left Flandry on Llynathawr.

Villages And Castles

"Tiger By The Tail."

Scotha is appropriately like and unlike Earth:

slightly larger;

slightly further out;

not one large moon causing rhythmic tides but three small moons causing turbulent tides;

a nineteen-hour day;

green vegetation but of different shades;

no pollution because industry was moved into space;

no mines, highways or megalopolises;

children taxed and untaxed children enslaved;

colonies in space and in other systems.

In particular, the "...picturesque old villages, steep-walled castles..." (p. 256) remind me of 1920s and '30s Europe as described in the novels of Dornford Yates.

Flandry admires the architecture and achievements and might here spot some clues as to whether it was the Merseians that had initiated Scothan industrialization.

Scotha cannot compete with Hermes, Avalon, Aeneas or Dennitza because it is described on only one page of only one short story but it is one of the many planets of the Technic History. 

The Scothanian Interstellar Empire

"Tiger by The Tail."

About a hundred planetary systems;

most pay tribute in raw materials, manufactured goods or specialized labour;

client states start industrialization and planetary unification;

war on the Terran Empire is planned;

plunder yields wealth more quickly and easily than colonization;

Scothan society needs external glory.

Flandry reflects on:

"...that darker longing for submergence of self which humankind had also known, too often, too well." (p. 254)

Self can be submerged or transcended. On Earth, the word "Aryan" (Noble) is used in both contexts.

Rewrite

"'Then go.'

"Flandry got."

-Poul Anderson, "Tiger By The Tail" IN Anderson, Agent of the Terran Empire (London, 1977), pp. 7-36 AT p. 17.

"'Go,' snapped Cerdic.

"Flandry went."

"Tiger By The Tail" IN Captain Flandry..., p. 252. (Full reference here.)

But I liked "got" as a past tense of "go."

"Tiger By The Tail" is extensively rewritten. As with "Margin of Profit," I do not propose to analyse the alterations in detail. Sometimes, they show a rethink. In the original version, when Flandry's guard summons others not by using an intercom or a speaking tube but by blowing a horn, Flandry interprets this as confirming that his captors are barbarians. However, in the revised version, he thinks that the horn is:

"...pure flamboyancy; anyone who could build or buy spaceships would have intercoms installed." (p. 243)

But he also acknowledges that old customs often linger. Indeed, the references to both slaves and temples in the Terran Empire make us think simultaneously that the Empire is in the far future and is very old. The Roman god, Janus, looks backward and forward and so do we.

To Outwit A Telepath

When the Scothani kidnap Dominic Flandry in "Tiger By The Tail," Chunderban Desai and Aycharaych have already met on Aeneas even though Flandry has not yet met either of these characters and also even though neither of them had yet been created when "Tiger By The Tail" was published. Aycharaych was perhaps approaching his creation since "Honorable Enemies," which introduces him, was published only four months after "Tiger By The Tail." Nevertheless, my impression from the whole of Poul Anderson's career and particularly from this early pulp period is that very little time elapsed between the conception and the completion of a work, whether short story or novel.

The theme of "Honorable Enemies" is how to lie to a telepath. Erannath had had to outwit the telepath, Aycharaych, in The Day of Their Return. He, Erannath, lying on a mattress, is constrained by a manacle around his left wrist. Aycharaych enters and holds a blaster on Ivar Frederiksen who has just discovered Erannath. Realizing that Aycharaych can read his mind, Ivar drops his knife. But Aycharaych cannot concentrate on reading both minds simultaneously and knows that Erannath is manacled. Erannath grabs Ivar's knife with his right hand, balances on one wing while protecting Ivar with the other and severs his left hand. Shot twice and mortally wounded by the blaster, Erannath nevertheless stuns Aycharaych who drops his gun which is grabbed by Ivar. Excellent teamwork although fatal for Erannath.

Barbarians

"Tiger By The Tail."

When Flandry sees that his gaudily kilted guard carries a knife and two shrivelled hands on his belt, he thinks:

"Barbarians!" (p. 243)

Barbarians are in space because unscrupulous merchants have sold them modern weapons and spaceships. The guard carries a knife but wields a blaster. They act barbarically on an interstellar scale:

"...we are they from whom the Alarri fled.'" (p. 244)

In Flandry's youth, the Terran Navy had had to smash the Alarri fleets at the Battle of Mirzan.

Anderson projects Terrestrial history onto the cosmos. The Schotani who had displaced the Alarri are referred to as:

"...another tribe..." (p. 245)

We do not usually envisage extra-solar rational species as rival "tribes." And these "tribes" have names with Latin plurals: Schotanus, Schotani; Alarrus, Alarri.

Poul Anderson also wrote about Terrestrial history:

"'Afterward came renewed conflicts, battles, migrations - the Volkerwanderung was under way.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 333-465 AT 43, P. 462.

"The last thing he heard was thunder. It sounded like the hoofs of horses bearing westward the Hunnish midnight."

-ibid., 374, p. 465.

(The headings, 43 and 374, are year dates, not consecutive chapter numbers!)

SF Cliches

"Tiger By The Tail."

When Captain Flandry wakes in a cell in a non-human spaceship, sf genre cliches abound:

hyperspace;

humanoid aliens;

interstellar politics that are merely a continuation of international politics.

I do not expect the future or the galaxy to be anything like that but certain conventions became standardized in pulp sf. Stories set in different series are virtually interchangeable. "Tiger By The Tail" could easily be adapted as a Star Trek episode although there are some differences. First, Flandry, prisoner, is naked which would not usually happen on screen. Secondly, the clues informing him that his captors are not human are mostly too subtle to be shown on screen:

the air is breathable but chilly with peculiar odours and denser than Terran;

the artificial gravity is stronger than Terran;

sheets are of vegetable fibre;

blankets are of blue-gray hair;

a wooden chest is carved in a style unfamiliar to Flandry.

The guard outside the door is very white and horned with pointed, convoluted, mobile ears. Star Trek make-up would be able to cope with that although often screen aliens are indistinguishable from Terrestrials, which does not happen in the Technic History:

"Among countless worlds, evolutionary coincidences are bound to happen now and then, but never evolutionary identities." (p. 242)

Nevertheless, the coincidences are too frequent for my liking.

Poul Anderson wrote both space opera and serious speculative fiction and even incorporated these two kinds of writing into a single future history series. In his much later novel, Genesis, post-organic intelligences, travelling at sub-light speeds, explore a mostly lifeless galaxy, a far cry from the Technic History.

The Two Flandrys

"Captain Flandry opened his eyes and saw a metal ceiling."

-Poul Anderson, "Tiger By The Tail" IN Anderson, Agent of the Terran Empire (London, 1977), pp. 7-36 AT p. 9.

"When Captain Flandry opened his eyes, he saw metal."

-Poul Anderson, "Tiger By The Tail" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 241-276 AT p. 241.

Two versions of an opening sentence. Two versions of a text: original and revised. Two slightly divergent fictional timelines.

In the first case, imagine that we are reading about this "agent of the Terran Empire" for the very first time. In the second case, imagine that we have already read the two "Young Flandry" novels followed by two non-Flandry works set in the same period and are now reading about Dominic Flandry after his promotion to Captain. Next, try to keep both perspectives in mind while reading. We can remember Flandry as Ensign, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander and Commander but can then forget - like closing one eye - that we ever knew any of this.

How much can we learn about the Terran Empire from this single story without referring to any of its later-written prequels? Both versions of the text refer to Catawrayannis so that strangely named city has been part of Technic History continuity since January 1951. Reread with fresh eyes and find new aspects of Poul Anderson's narratives.

Up Through Clouds

See Storm And Splendour.

The image of someone rising vertically through dark rain clouds into a clear sky above them is a powerful symbol of the potential for human enlightenment.

Once, after sitting for meditation with some recurrent dark thoughts, I stood up and was instantly elated, exactly as if rising through rain clouds into a clear blue sky. I remained standing for a short while, knowing, first, that there was a place above the clouds, secondly, that I would soon be back down beneath the clouds and, thirdly, that that did not matter. That has happened once in thirty-seven years of zazen practice. I remembered it when rereading Poul Anderson's account of Ivar Frederiksen's flight through storm into splendour. 

Explaining Universal Telepathy

The Day of Their Return, 20.

How does Aycharaych read the surface thoughts of any being of any species even without knowing that being's internal symbolism? We cannot know the arbitrary meaning of a symbol merely by looking at the symbol.

Erannath suggests first that there is an ultimate mental quality deeper than language. Secondly, he suspects that Aycharaych:

analyses a mental pattern;

identifies logical and conational universals;

reconstructs an entire mental configuration.

This would require not only telepathic sensitivity to mental radiation but also an advanced organic semantic computer.

I do not think that universals can give him specific meanings. How does this sound? At each moment, the other being thinks with a set of symbols and knows the meanings of those symbols. Aycharaych's brain detects and reproduces the surface contents of the other being's mind, including both the symbols and their meanings. A moment later, Aycharaych remembers that mental content, including knowledge of the meanings.

Storm And Splendour

The Day of Their Return.

Ivar Frederiksen escapes in an aircar:

"The storm yelled and smote.

"He burst above, into splendor." (20, p. 231)

Passage through a storm into splendour recapitulates the trajectory of the novel. The splendour includes silvered and shadowy clouds beneath familiar moons and stars. The uncountable blazing stars are the Empire, its enemy and the universe beyond both. The Flone becomes the Linn, a waterfall thundering down from the high Ilian continental shelf. Ivar sees his people's world and resolves that no stranger will control it.

Earlier, he had said:

"'I've heard propaganda against Merseians till next claim about their bein' racist and territorially aggressive will throw me into anaphylactic shock.'" (16, p. 195)

Ivar is right as far as he goes. What he hears is propaganda and he should not accept it at face value. We happen to know that the current regime on Merseia is as described. I was pleased when Desai said:

"'Oh, I know how useful the Merseian threat has often been to politicians, military lords, and bureaucrats of the Empire. That does not mean the threat isn't real.'" (20, p. 235)

Two issues: it is good that the first is acknowledged as well as the second. Desai continues:

"'I know how propaganda has smeared the Merseians, when they are in fact, according to their own lights and many of ours, a fairly decent folk.'" (ibid.)

The folk, not the Rodhunate. We see fully sympathetic Merseians on Dennitza.

"'That does not mean their leaders won't risk the Long Night to grasp after supremacy.'" (ibid.)

The causes of supremacism on Merseia are outlined in "Day of Burning." Poul Anderson's Technic History is a future history series that really does show historical causes and consequences.

Out Of The Deceiver, Truth

The Day of Their Return, 20.

Aycharaych to Ivar Frederiksen:

"'Existence always begets regrettable necessities. Be not overly proud, Firstling. You are prepared to launch a revolutionary war if you can, wherein millions would perish, millions more be mutilated, starved, hounded, brought to sorrow. Are you not? I do no more than help you. Is that horrible?'" (p. 229)

Aycharaych does a lot more than help but his question to Ivar is valid. Ivar has just accused him of treachery, murder, torture etc. What is Ivar proposing to do?

This week, a Russian bombardment of Ukraine killed, among many other people of course, a two-day old baby.

A two-day old baby.

The purpose of changing society is to prevent further wars killing millions, not to launch another one. Ivar changes course of necessity but does not seem to come to grips with what he nearly started.

Chereionite Psychology And Neurology

The Day of Their Return, 20.

"'Their abilities naturally led Chereionite scientists to concentrate on psychology and neurology.'" (p. 227)

What is the relationship between psychology and neurology? Apart from the fact that the latter causes the former?

All that happens in a brain is that neurons fire electrically and interact electrochemically but those processes can be fully described without ascribing consciousness to the brain. We say that an organism is conscious because we observe its behaviour, including linguistic behaviour in human beings, not because we study its neurons.

A brain contains no "black box" or mysterious area such that we do not know what is happening inside it. There is also no Cartesian centre. That would be a single point with unconscious inputs to it and unconscious outputs from it, with consciousness existing either in or beyond that point. Instead, the entire brain somehow generates consciousness.

A single neuron is not conscious just as a single water molecule is not wet. Solidity is caused by and reducible to molecular cohesion whereas consciousness is caused by but not reducible to neuronic interactions.

Consciousness does not happen in parallel with physical processes. Instead, conscious intentions, pleasures, pains etc cause bodily movements and actions. An organism, unlike an inanimate object, unconsciously repairs bodily damage if possible. Consciousness enhances this process, pulling away from a source of heat as soon as the heat becomes painful. This explains why organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations was naturally selected and therefore quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation. A mobile marine organism moving randomly passed a source of heat, approached the source while its energy was beneficial, then retreated when the heat became dangerous. At some stage, an organism with a central nervous system experienced what we would call "comfortably warm becoming uncomfortably hot." The first moment of consciousness. A qualitative transformation.

Problems And Solutions

The Day of Their Return.

After arriving on Aeneas, Aycharaych of Chereion has to show himself to the High Commissioner, Chunderban Desai. When Desai has been alerted that Aycharaych is a Merseian spy, he describes the Chereionite to Tatiana Thane who relays this description in a letter secretly carried to the fugitive, Ivar Frederiksen. Ivar asks Jaan the prophet to describe Caruith the Ancient... This is the single thread that unravels Aycharaych's scheme to foment a jihad.

An Andersonian narrative presents a problem and its solution. Poul Anderson's heroes are problem-solvers. In this case, the solution arises from an unwitting cooperation between the political opponents, Desai and Ivar, with Tatiana as their intermediary. When Tatiana writes to Ivar, she believes that the Merseian agent is an instrument of liberation.

There can be other kinds of narratives, e.g., a day in the life of a character living in the future or a story where everything goes wrong. Anderson shows us not the dissolution of the Polesotechnic League but the beginning of its decline, not the fall of the Solar Commonwealth but the beginning of the Terran Empire, not the Fall of the Empire but Roan Tom rebuilding an interstellar alliance, then the Allied Planets' recivilization of abandoned colonies. In the overall scheme of a future history series, some stories could end with no apparent hope.

Flandry In The Technic History

The Technic Civilization Saga Volumes:

I-III, various pre-Flandry periods;

IV-VI, the Flandry period;

VII, the Flandry period + 4 post-Flandry.

The earliest written and published Flandry story is collected on pp. 241-276 of Vol V. The contents of Vol IV and Vol V, pp. 1-240, were written later but are set earlier. A future history series, especially a long one like the Technic History, can be constructed out of sequence.

In Vol V, the reader proceeds directly from The Day of Their Return, published in 1975, to "Tiger By The Tail," published in January, 1951. The reader has to appreciate both the fictional chronological sequence and the actual publication order, two dimensions of the author's achievement.

Yakow And Ivar II

The Day of Their Return, 16.

Yakow's valid points:

a miracle is a suspension of natural law, therefore cannot be experimentally repeated;

an apparent miracle might turn out to be scientifically explicable;

if a particular saint never lived, the basic creed might still be valid.

However:

if the Buddha never lived, then the Four Noble Truths may still be valid;

but, if Christ never lived, then his Resurrection could not have happened.

(I believe that Christ did live but that the accounts of his activities are propaganda, propagating the beliefs that he was the Messiah and replying to the counter-claim that a crucifixion victim could not have played that role.)

Yakow And Ivar

The Day of Their Return, 16.

Yakow Harolsson, The High Commander of the Companions of the Arena, to Ivar Frederiksen, Firstling of Ilion:

"'Religion' means faith in the supernatural, does it not?'" (p. 199)

It does not - although the supernatural, if it existed, would transcend nature and thus would be one kind of transcendence.

Yakow:

"'...if we could show that there was in fact a Jesus Christ who did in fact rise from his tomb, he may have been in a coma, not dead.'" (ibid.)

That is plausible if a crucified man lost consciousness after a few hours, his legs were not broken and he was then placed in a chamber. However, crucifixion victims were thrown into a mass grave. The earliest accounts of the Resurrection are not of a reanimated corpse emerging from a tomb but of a different kind of "spiritual" body emerging from the earth like a plant from a seed. The pious story of a decent burial in an unused tomb could have originated in the oral tradition before the first Gospel was written: "We couldn't prevent the death but we treated the body right." The disciples are more likely to have scattered and fled from Jerusalem.

I agree with other points made by Yakow.

Rites And Symbols

The Day of Their Return, 13.

Religion is response to transcendence, to a transcendent being, reality or state. If the chaplain says that his practice is not strictly religious, then he should not be called a chaplain. The Kuang Shih preach nothing about gods but seek allness, unity and harmony through rites and symbols, knowing that they are rites and symbols. The River is fate. The Sun is life. Moons and Stars are the transhuman. So there is transcendence.

The sun is the source of light and life. I coined a mantra: "One, Sun, Now," meaning that the One knows itself by the light of the sun in the present. If I were to travel along the Flone, then I would participate fully in the Kuang Shih rituals. 

Too Old

The Day of Their Return, 12.

The man under whom Tatiana Thane had studied is:

"...too old to care about politics." (p. 170)

It is certainly possible to lose interest in which of the two main parties is in office at present but there are wider issues that at times press on everyone and, of course, some people continue to care however old they are.

Sheila and I frequent a cafe run by a veterans' charity. Occasionally, we are asked whether we have been in any of the armed services because that would entitle us to a discount. I reply, "We are non-combatants." Once, a guy behind me laughed harshly, said, "The way society is now, we are all combatants!" and walked out without allowing any discussion. On reflection, I probably agree with him but also would quite possibly be on the opposite side in any combat that arose.

Aenean separatists do two things that I disagree with: (i) murder a pro-Imperial merchant; (ii) link their political separatism to an expected transhuman Advent. Probably the best policy for Aeneas as for many other planets is to exercise as much autonomy as possible within the Empire while also preparing to survive its Fall.

Water Pigs And The River

The Day of Their Return, 12.

See On The River.

What is the "flesh" taken from the river?

There are:

chuho, fat, flippered, snouted water pigs;

osels, long, brown, web-footed "herd dogs." (p. 168)

By searching the text, we find answers to some of the questions raised.

More about the river:

herding keeps Riverpeople alert and lets them enter the peace and beauty of the river;

the Flone is "...mighty as time..." and "...a foretaste of eternity..." (p. 169)

Aenean Christianities

Peter Berg, a Christian from Aeneas, says:

"'Way back before space travel, the Church decided Jesus had come only to Earth, to man. If other intelligent races need salvation - and obviously a lot of them do! - God will have made His suitable arrangements for them. Sure.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 103-134 AT 110.

Yet the Jerusalem Catholic Church later converts and ordains a Wodenite, Axor.

On Aeneas, Ivar Frederiksen refers to:

"...any Bible-and-blaster yeoman."

-The Day of Their Return, 13, p. 174.

These are two completely different versions of Christianity:

(i) Christians are members of an institution that adopts an official position on various issues.

(ii) Christians are individuals who accept personal salvation as proclaimed in the New Testament. They have no official position on whether extra-terrestrials can be saved or possibly regard them as outside salvation.

I once formulated the differences as follows -

Catholicism: the Word of God is the teaching of the Church;

Protestantism: the Word of God is a Book;

Christianity: the Word of God is a Person.

If God's self-expression is neither a set of doctrines to be accepted by believers nor a collection of texts to be regarded as authoritative by believers but a person directly encountered by believers, then religion is a matter not of words but of experience. In my experience, life and meditation are not an encounter with a person although practice continues.