Concepts In Fictional Narratives

Is it legitimate to take a concept for granted in order to get on with the story? See Science In SF. In the case of faster than light (FTL) interstellar travel, I think not. Hyperspace became both too convenient and too common a cliche. Poul Anderson addressed this issue by contriving a different rationale for FTL in every discrete story or series but he was able to do this because of his degree in physics. Even his Technic History version of "hyperspace," a rapid succession of quantum jumps, transcends cliche.

I like stories that accept relativistic limitations but nevertheless show interstellar travel happening just as I like stories that accept a single continuous timeline but nevertheless show time travel happening.

I think that it is legitimate to take time travel for granted for the sake of a story. See a 2023 novel by SM Stirling. Anderson wrote that his own Time Patrol series was "loose" because it omitted any real study of the consequences of causality violation. But that was before he had written The Shield of Time which surely is a real study?

The simplest way to take time travel for granted is just to show someone who thinks that he is a time traveller appearing at a time which he regards as the past. Some passages in the Time Patrol series imply not successive timelines but a single discontinuous timeline but it is difficult to describe that second scenario consistently: 

"...history could in fact be diverted by someone who went back and affected a key point." (p. 311) (Refence in the above link.)

In a single discontinuous timeline, history is diverted only from the course that it took in the "time traveller's" spurious memories and he has not gone "back" but has simply appeared like a quantum particle. In fact, this is not really time travel but is something that we arrive at if we start with the concept of time travel, then turn it inside out.

A Flying City In An Anderson Future History

The Traveler before she became the first Nomad ship: 

"We had ridden centauroids who conversed with us as they went to the aerial city of their winged enemies -"

-Poul Anderson, "Gypsy" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 2 (Riverdale, NY, February 2018), pp. 255-270 AT p. 267.

The Nomad ship, the Peregrine:

"'The flying city on Aesgil IV, and the war between the birds and the centauroids.'"

-The Peregrine, CHAPTER XIX, p. 164.

At least two ships had visited this planet. Each of these brief accounts gives us slightly different information. Aesgil IV is either the fourth planet of a star called Aesgil or the fourth moon of a gas giant planet of that name.

There are a few flying cities elsewhere in sf. We would have liked it if Anderson had written a story about this one. However, his works were bound to include more enigmatic references than complete stories. A film or a graphic adaptation could at least present some visuals of the city and the centauroids. 

Intelligent centauroids are one possibility. Such species also appear in the Technic History.

A Gale

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XX.

This chapter begins:

"Two nights later a gale blew from the southeast, out of the sea and over the island and out to the water again. Trevelyan heard it whistle as if it were calling him." (p. 171)

Every reader probably senses the appropriateness and evocativeness of this gale. I had intended to quote only the opening sentence but the second is even more significant.

First, the Nomads will escape from the island and then from the planet under cover of this gale. Secondly, the gale represents the turmoil that the Alori have tried to avoid by concealing themselves from, and also by setting out to subvert, human technological civilization. That turmoil is coming for them and, of course, Trevelyan hears it calling him.

Poul Anderson's action-adventure sf is also literature.

Science In SF

 

Poul Anderson, "Science Fiction and Science" Part 3, "On Imaginary Science" IN James Baen (Ed.), Destinies (New York,  April-June 1979), pp. 304-320.

Anderson identifies what he calls four kinds of sf story. The first two are:

"hard sf," assuming only established facts;

sf about "imaginary science," e.g., FTL, time travel, parallel universes, psionics.

However, unless I am misreading the article, Anderson's total of four kinds comes from dividing the "imaginary" category into three. The imaginary sciences can be used routinely, loosely or brilliantly.

"Routine use takes the concept for granted in order to get on with the story." (p. 310)

"Loose..." means "...some treatment of it for its own sake, but no rigor." (ibid.)

This gets sloppy, generating goofs.

For brilliant use, Anderson just presents examples, starting with Twain's and Wells time travel novels and Heinlein's two circular causality short stories. I disagree only with the inclusion of Twain.

I am unsure whether to discuss this article any further but, in any case, am just about to go to see a "loose" superhero film.

Laters.

External Relationships Between Future Histories

A future history series has both internal and external relationships. Poul Anderson's Technic History has internal relationships between its fictional time periods, mainly those of the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire, and external relationships with other future history series, mainly Robert Heinlein's Future History and Anderson's Psychotechnic History. The Technic History and the Future History are indirectly related through Anderson's Old Phoenix Inn, visited by both van Rijn and Rhysling.

Mike, whom I have mentioned before, has just borrowed Anderson's Genesis and says that his son might also read it so I might get some local discussion of this work. Given that Anderson set out to write some different kinds of future histories after the Technic History, I prefer Genesis to the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy because Genesis is shorter, just one normal-sized novel, also more compact and comprehensive.

In the Psychotechnic and Technic Histories, intelligent organic beings traverse interstellar spaces faster than light whereas, in Genesis, post-organic intelligences traverse such spaces slower than light - a complete antithesis. I think that the Genesis scenario is less implausible. Are post-organic intelligences possible? Given that they are more and other than computers, they must be theoretically possible. Brains can be intelligent so artefacts duplicating brain functions can be intelligent.

Will there be or is there already interstellar travel, whether STL or FTL, anywhere in the universe? Astronomers have found no evidence of it. Reality always turns out to be different from whatever has been imagined.

Genesis is the culmination of Anderson's future histories, Stapledonian in time-scale. Anderson stated that he had followed Stapledon's example with fictional time-scales when writing Tau Zero.

Technic History Languages

Poul Anderson's Technic History presents six stages of human linguistic development.

(i) The twenty-first century: English and other national languages. (No change yet.)

(ii) The Solar Commonwealth period: League Latin, Anglic etc.

(iii) The Terran Empire period: Anglic, Fransai, Ispanyo etc.

On Dennitza: Serbic, Anglic and archaic Merseian Eriau.

(iv) The Long Night: Anglic semantic divergences.

(v) The Allied Planets period: planetary languages derived from Anglic etc.

(vi) The Commonalty period: Anglic is now described as ancient.

In (i), other national languages include Romance languages descended from Latin and English includes many Latin-derived words. Do any Latin roots survive into the galactic languages of the Commonalty period?

Think how much fictional history this implies. How many generations speak a language before it becomes a different language?

"'We're a long way from home in space, and even longer in time. It's been twelve hundred years since the breakup of the Commonwealth isolated [the Gwydiona]. The whole Empire rose and fell while they were alone on that one planet. Genetic and cultural evolution have done strange work in shorter periods.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Night Face" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 541-660 AT I, p. 549.

"'Sir, the League, the troubles, the Empire, its fall, the Long Night...every such thing - behind us. In space and time alike. The people of the Commonalty don't get into wars.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Flandry's Legacy, pp. 711-794 AT p. 722.

These quotations span nearly the whole Technic History.

Tiger And A Knight

In "Tiger by the Tail," the Terran Empire is a colourful setting for space opera: action-adventure fiction involving spaceships and sword fights. In A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, that same Empire has become the setting for serious speculation about the causes of civilizational decline. Flandry now works for a usurper and the experienced Imperial administrator, Chunderban Desai, expounds a cyclical theory of history. 

In "Tiger...," Flandry does not stay with Gunli because in those days he did not stay with anyone. And indeed, in this case, it would have been difficult for them to stay together. In A Knight..., he cannot marry Kossara Vymezal because she is assassinated. Thus, however the author contrives it, Captain Flandry remains a series with rotating heroines. Only in A Stone in Heaven, the single novel to feature Admiral Flandry as its central character, does he finally settle down with his old mentor's daughter, an outcome that Anderson cannot have anticipated when he peripherally mentioned Miriam Abrams in Ensign Flandry. In fact, adult sons and daughters of various characters become major players in the later novels of the Flandry period. Then the narrative leaps across several centuries from the novel about Flandry's daughter and Dragoika's son to the short story set during the Long Night.

Scotha And Dennitza: Compare And Contrast

In The Technic Civilization Saga, the pre-Flandry periods comprise twenty-four instalments collected in three omnibus volumes whereas the Flandry and post-Flandry periods comprise nineteen instalments in four omnibus volumes. There are more full-length novels as the series proceeds.

Volume IV is Young Flandry. Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy, features Admiral Flandry and the post-Flandry periods.  Thus, the earlier-written Captain Flandry series is collected in Volume V, Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire, and Volume VI, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra.

Captain Flandry began in "Tiger by the Tail" (1951) and ended in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (1974).

In "Tiger...," Flandry:

visits the extra-solar planet, Scotha, inhabited by horned humanoids;

has an ambiguous relationship with the Scothan Queen Gunli;

foments revolutions that destroy the Scothanian interstellar empire;

thus, prevents Scothanian attack on the Terran Empire.

In A Knight..., Flandry:

has been knighted;

so far, has avoided promotion to Admiral;

visits the extra-solar planet, Dennitza, colonized by human beings and Merseians;

becomes engaged to the niece of the Dennitzan head of state;

prevents Dennitzan secession from the Terran Empire.

Thus, there are some parallels between the original short story and the eventual novel.

What We Appreciate

"Poul Anderson Appreciation" really does mean that we appreciate Poul Anderson's works. I have repeated myself a lot about the Earth Book and the Technic History because these works always seem fresh to me every time that I get re-involved with their details. If they ever cease to seem fresh, then I will presumably blog about them less. The mid-point of The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, really is pivotal. The colonization of Avalon points back to David Falkayn who had lived through the decline of the Polesotechnic League whereas the founding of the Terran Empire points forward to Dominic Flandry who will defend that Empire during its decline. Thus, the rise and fall of civilizations is not merely discussed but brought to life and through a vast cast, not just the big three: van Rijn, Falkayn and Flandry. None of these three is present at this mid-point but Hloch signs off from the Earth Book and Ayeghen introduces Reeves who describes Argos. What more do we need? Apart from a much longer Technic History?

A Rich History

When Poul Anderson collected twelve Technic History instalments as The Earth Book of Stormgate, he added twelve new fictional introductions and one new fictional afterword, thus thirteen new albeit brief pieces of writing by Anderson, substantially enriching the Technic History by creating the Avalonian Ythrian editor, Hloch of Stormgate Choth, who explains the origins and fictional authorship of the twelve narratives. When, later, these twelve instalments were collected with twelve others as The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III (of VII), the works that had been in the Earth Book retained their new introductions and their afterword appeared after the twelfth of these stories at the mid-point of Volume III.

This rearrangement of the instalments into fictional chronological order generated intriguing anachronisms, e.g., the Terran War on Avalon is mentioned in Hloch's opening introduction which appears early in Volume I although the War itself is not described until the last instalment collected in Volume III.

Hloch's afterword, less than a page in length, states:

"Now The Earth Book of Stormgate is ended."

-Poul Anderson, AFTERWORD in Anderson, Rise of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), p. 323.

- and ends:

"Fair winds forever." (ibid.)

Thus, this short passage retains its status as an afterword not just to the story that it follows, "Rescue on Avalon," but also to Hloch's entire Earth Book, although the latter's contents are now scattered across three volumes of the Saga.

When Anderson's "The Star Plunderer" was originally published, it already had an introduction fictitiously written by Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society. Since "The Star Plunderer" immediately follows "Rescue on Avalon" in the Saga, Volume III, readers have this rich future historical experience. They read, in this order:

"Rescue on Avalon," about the colonization of the Coronan continent on Avalon;

Hloch's afterword;

Ayeghen's introduction;

"The Star Plunderer," which is Admiral John Reeves' account of Manuel Argos, Founder of the Terran Empire.

If there is a richer future history series anywhere in sf, I would like to know about it.

Different Kinds Of Temporal Sequences

See the previous post, "Missing Empires"

As a matter of fact, Poul Anderson's "The Star Plunderer" was published in Planet Stories in 1952 whereas his "The Chapter Ends" was published in Dynamic Science Fiction in 1953 so that, in this case, the Technic History story preceded the Psychotechnic History story. However, disparate stories were not pulled together into the Technic History until 1959. Add to this that the position of "The Chapter Ends" in the Psychotechnic History is disputed. Thus, these two stories were written at a time when they might have been either one offs or instalments of some third, First Empire/Sol City, series.

Nevertheless, for most of their publication histories and in their creator's mind, the Psychotechnic History precedes the Technic History. In fact they form not a chronological trilogy but a conceptual triad with Robert Heinlein's original Future History:

Future History, the model

Psychotechnic, modelled on the model

Technic, not modelled but growing organically into a Heinleinian future history

Missing Empires

One word can imply volumes. How many years, lives and even different empires are connoted by the single word, "Empire"?

"'...the First Empire fell, fifty thousand years ago.'"

-"The Chapter Ends," p. 202.

"...it was undoubtedly written in the early period of the First Empire..."

-Poul Anderson, "The Star Plunderer" IN Anderson, Rise of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 325-362 AT INTRODUCTION, p. 325.

"The Chapter Ends" refers to the first interstellar empire in Anderson's Psychotechnic History whereas "The Star Plunderer" refers to the Terran Empire in his Technic History. Thus, both histories have at least one more such empire about which we learn nothing. 

We are told much about the Terran Empire and a little about the earlier First Empire. Here, "earlier" refers not to the temporal sequence within either history but to their publication history.

Both Empires, modelled on the Roman Empire, include slaves. However, the First Empire slaves remain foreign captives whereas Anderson later rationalized the Terran Empire slaves as convicted criminals coerced into a possibly finite period of public or personal service.

We can only speculate about the second or any later interstellar empires in either future history. They might encompass equivalents of Argos, Flandry, Josip, Molitor, Desai etc. Admiral Olaf Magnusson is a Merseian sleeper in the Terran Empire. Do any of these other empires have a rival imperium that would plant such a sleeper?

There is a ruined Sol City in both histories although the capital of the Terran Empire is called, appropriately, "Archopolis." "Sol" and "City" are evocative words so their combination is particularly powerful. "Archopolis" is a brilliant coinage.

Beyond Sagittarius

"'You will go the Sagittarian frontier of the Stellar Union...'"

-The Peregrine, CHAPTER IV, p. 23.

"'You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'"

-"The Chapter Ends," p. 201.

Poul Anderson tells us somewhere and Wikipedia confirms that the Galactic centre is in the direction of Sagittarius. In The Peregrine, human civilization has a Sagittarian frontier whereas, in "The Chapter Ends," the whole civilization has moved beyond that frontier to the Galactic centre.

Thus, in the Psychotechnic History, mankind moves through time from World War III in 1958 to the evacuation of the Sirian Sector fifty thousand years after the fall of the First Empire and through space from Europe to the Galactic centre beyond Sagittarius. 

A long way. Unfortunately, our last sight of the history is just on Earth, not at the centre.

A Changed Galactic Periphery

Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3 (Riverdale, NY, July 2018), pp. 195-215; Chronology of Future, pp. 217-218.

This story is set fifty thousand years after the fall of the First Empire. (p. 202) That Empire begins some time after the Third Dark Ages which in turn begin in 3200. (p. 218)

We are invited to imagine a very different Galactic periphery after the events of "The Chapter Ends." The comparatively few human beings that had remained in the Sirius Sector of the Galaxy after the fall of the First Empire were scattered through hundreds of planetary systems, including those of Sol, Alpha Centauri, Procyon and Sirius. However, all of these populations will soon be evacuated to join the human quadrillions and their non-human allies in:

"'...the great star-clusters of Galactic center.'" (p. 201)

The periphery will be occupied by the Hulduvians, inhabitants of gas giant plants like Jupiter and Saturn, who, centuries hence, will colonize such planets in the Solar System. Hulduvian brains utilize cosmic energies in a way that differs from and interferes with the way that artificially adapted human brains utilize those same energies. Hulduvians, propelling themselves across interstellar space without needing spaceships, will arrive in the Solar System but will have no need for any of the inner planets. On Earth, the ruined towers of Sol City and the City Hall, market square and fountain with its statue of a dancing girl in Solis Township will continue to crumble. Also crumbling will be the long dead body of the one old man who had refused to leave.

Try to imagine such a Galactic periphery - although we would not be able to visit it.

Future History Culminations II

Andersonian Culminations

Kith: revival of interstellar travel. 

Maurai: resumption of interplanetary travel.

There Will Be Time: time travel, interstellar travel and "Star Masters" long after the Maurai period.

Genesis (a single-volume future history, not a series): re-creation of extinct humanity by a planetary post-organic intelligence and the Frankenstein question, "Was it right to create human life?"

Technic History: human beings at the edge of another spiral arm do not know whether Earth still exists.

Psychotechnic History: human beings leave Earth forever. Human civilization is at the Galactic centre. The Galactic periphery becomes the domain of dwellers on gas giant planets.

(When species divide the galaxy at the end of the Psychotechnic History and when Ythrians and human beings divide Avalon in the Technic History, Poul Anderson shows inter-species cooperation instead of the frequent conflict.)

Future History Culminations

We are working our way back to Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic and Technic Histories but first we will survey the field as far as I know it.

Culminations

Robert Heinlein's Future History: resolution of social conflicts and beginning of interstellar travel.

Heinlein's Juvenile Future History: beginning of interstellar travel.

Asimov: extragalactic threat.

James Blish's Cities in Flight: new creations.

Blish's The Seedling Stars: colonization of a changed Earth by Adapted Men.

Anderson's Flying Mountains: beginning of interstellar travel.

Anderson's Twilight World: colonization of the outer Solar System.

Larry Niven's Known Space: a society so utopian that Niven cannot write about it.

Pournelle: First Contact.

I know that there are more but my knowledge has its limits.

The End Of A Series

Any fictional series must have a chronologically last episode usually although not necessarily identical with its last published episode. This has to be true of any kind of series. We will shortly return to the special case of future history series, including Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic and Technic Histories.

The chronologically last episode of a series can be just another episode, interchangeable with any of the others. Alternatively, the author can try to create some kind of culmination or climax, with greater or lesser success. A central character can die since he is no longer required to appear in any subsequent episode. Poul Anderson knew when he was writing the last Polesotechnic League novel and the last novel to feature Dominic Flandry. In both cases, the text reflects this fact. Both van Rijn and Flandry sign off by telling us what they think about life. In van Rijn's case, the League has gone into terminal decline. In Flandry's case, a new generation, represented by his own daughter, is coming forward and, of course, the Long Night cannot be postponed indefinitely.

Sherlock Holmes is relevant both because Anderson mentions him several times and because Anderson's Time Patrol series crosses over with the Holmes series. That latter series survives the apparent death, then the retirement, of its title character and eventually ends with just an ordinary episode. Agatha Christie wrote her Poirot culmination earlier to be published later. The James Bond series survived, by my count, three apparent deaths of its title character, then ended with an appropriate epitaph for the character in the concluding sentence of the posthumously published novel.

Should a future history series build towards some kind of climax or culmination? More on this later.

Old Days And Silence

The Peregrine.

"'It's almost as if [the Alori] were fanatics, like the militant religions of the statist tyrannies of old days on Earth,' he said." (CHAPTER XVIII, p. 159)

(Obviously, "...of the statist tyrannies..." should read "...or the statist tyrannies...")

Sf can show us our current evils as in the past. In James Blish's and Norman L. Knight's A Torrent of Faces, the characters find an enigmatic object that turns out to be an ashtray from the Age of Waste.

Parallel histories can have the same effect. In Poul Anderson's "Eutopia," a cross-time traveller has visited the dystopian America. In Alan Moore's Watchmen, a character thinks that the US would have gone mad if it had lost in Vietnam.

When some of the Nomads plan to escape from Loaluani and Sean sets out to play his part:

"There was silence, wind and surf and the high crying of the birds." (CHAPTER XIX, p. 167)

Contradiction? The sentence means that there was silence from the Nomads so that they heard wind, surf and birds. Wind underscores everything in Poul Anderson's works. The three sounds together emphasize the natural environment which the Alori offer and which the Nomads plan to escape from.

Freedom And The World As It Is

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XVIII.

Trevelyan asks Nicki whether she wants to go out to the stars again not for a purpose but just because it is her life and she chooses what to do with it. In the Buddhist monastery in Northumberland, the monks once a week watch a film chosen by one of them. A member of our meditation group asked a monk whether he missed the freedom to do what he wants and to watch what he chooses. Although he saw what she was getting at, monks have subordinated that kind of freedom to concentrated meditation practice. Meditation group members value regular practice but not in that concentrated a form. If we valued the latter more, then we would be monks. And a monk remains in the monastery only by his own continual choice. The Alori are not offering the Nomads a choice.

Trevelyan adds that we must live in the world as it is, not as we think it should be. Fine words. Human beings are differentiated by the fact they have changed their environment with hands and brain and have thus changed themselves into the species that we are now. Assuming survival, even greater changes are assured. There is a prayer about changing what can be changed, accepting what cannot be changed and knowing the difference but what is the difference? A British daily newspaper lectured black South Africans that it was not in their power to end Apartheid.

Trevelyan is right to resist the Alori, to defend the Stellar Union and to join the Nomads who are the bridge to a greater future civilization.

Fresh Wind On Loaluani

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XVIII.

"...Alori culture...had little use for the aggressive individual; nevertheless, each individual was fully developed, very much himself, free to choose his own endeavor within the pattern." (p. 157)

That "nevertheless" speaks volumes. Individuals are not aggressive but nevertheless are fully developed and free. There is an implied assumption that aggression would be necessary for individual development and freedom. The Alori have something to teach as well as a lot to learn.

When Trevelyan and Nicki discuss the predicament of the Nomads who have become unwilling "guests" of the Alori:

"They were standing on the southern coast, atop a rocky headland. Before them lay the sea; a fresh damp wind blew in under the high sky, tossing Nicki's dark yellow hair." (p. 159)

Nicki is beginning to feel content on the Alori planet. Sea, sky and particularly fresh wind tossing her hair signify the oneness with nature that is offered by the Alori. Predictably, that is not enough for Andersonian characters represented by a Nomad crew and a Coordinator. Like the Enterprise crew in similar situations, they resist and return to space.

Communication And Intelligence-Gathering In Two Future Histories

The Peregrine.

"'Incredible as it seems, I'm beginning to think that the forest here forms a communication network.'

"'The original grapevine telegraph, huh?'"

-CHAPTER XVII, p. 149.

On Freehold in the Technic History, a specially created kind of plant carries signals across a continent at neural speeds. John Ridenour comments:

"'Grapevine telegraph!'"

-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 44.

- and has met similar setups on nonhuman planets which would include the Alori if they were in the same timeline.

In an interstellar multispecies civilization, it will be easy for "barbarians" in the Roman sense, outsiders, to pass themselves off as members of just another species from within the borders:

"'Among so many races, it was easy to pose as members of yet another. I myself have spent years wandering about your territories, investigating them in every aspect."

-CHAPTER XVI, p. 145.

And, in the Technic History, a leader of the Scothani tells Flandry:

"'You're typical of your kind. I've studied the Empire long enough to recognize you; I've traveled there myself, incognito, and met persons aplenty.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Tiger by the Tail" IN Captain Flandry..., pp. 241-276 AT p. 246.

And Aycharaych from Chereion within the Merseian Roidhunate passes himself off as from the Imperial planet, Jean-Baptiste, which does not exist.

Finally, here we have two more Latin plurals: Alori and Scothani.

Unity And Conflict

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XVI.

"'The Alori are a unified culture. They evolved as one, whereas your kind did not. That is again a reflection of the gulf between us." (p. 143)

Yes! I am all for the Alori. However, on a few planets:

"'We exterminated the natives. It was gently done. They hardly knew it was happening, but it was carried through. We needed the worlds and the natives could not be made to cooperate.'" (p. 145)

No! United with each other, they lack empathy for others:

"Trevelyan's will surged out to clamp on his feelings. Man's history had been violent. If he respected intelligent life today, it was because he had learned by fire and sword and tyrant's gibbet that he must." (ibid.)

We are learning the hard way. But we are learning. I think.

Religions In Two Future Histories

In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, the Cosmic religion remains in the background whereas, in Anderson's Technic History, we learn comparatively more about:

Mahayana Buddhism

Jerusalem Catholicism

Dennitzan Orthochristianity

Ivanhoan religions

Diomedean beliefs

the Ythrian Old and New Faiths

Merseian polytheism

the Wilwidh religion of "the God"

Djana's Christian-Wilwidh blend

Ikranankan demonism and polytheism

Cosmenosis

Didonian mysticism

eclectic Aenean millenarianism

probably more

The Psychotechnic History is like a draft of a future history. The Cosmic religion maybe prefigures Cosmenosis.

Interstellar Messianism

If a science fictional interstellar empire not only resembles the Roman Empire but also, like it, either incorporates or generates diverse religious movements, will the contradictions between Imperial rule and religious aspiration generate Messianism and even a major Messianic military leader?

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, even before the interstellar stage, the contradiction between technological progress and social regression generated the First Prophet, Nehemiah Scudder, and his theocracy. In Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, not part of the Future History but sharing the same race of Martians, a prophet called Foster founded the Church of the New Revelation.

On the interstellar scale, we have Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert's Dune and Jaan in Poul Anderson's Technic History and here there is a link back to Heinlein. In the Future History, the Angels of the Lord used television to fake the Miracle of the Incarnation, the annual return of the First Prophet to Earth. In the Technic History, Aycharaych uses mental technology to fake the personality of Caruith, the supposed Ancient who possesses Jaan. 

Beware of technology in the hands of manipulators of religion.

Highest Heavens

"Hosanna in the highest heaven!" (Mt. 21:9)

"High is heaven and holy."

-Poul Anderson, The People of the Wind IN Anderson, Rise of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 437-662 AT XIX, p. 662.

Here is an echo of Biblical language although not a direct quotation but there are also many of those. This language reminds us or at least me that Poul Anderson's The Earth Book of Stormgate is like an Eriau scripture recounting an exodus, a new world and a period of resistance to Imperial rule. The Bible is a past history of God and man whereas Anderson's Technic History is a future history of man under the shadow of God the Hunter where contradictory concepts contend. Tachwyr affirms that the God steels the Race whereas Axor seeks the Universal Incarnation and is funded by Flandry who does not know what the score of the game of empire or life will be.

We can look beyond with the help of another Terrestrial scripture:

"There is a Light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all, beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the Light that shines in our heart."

-Chandogya Upanishad, 3. 13. 7.

Cosmos And Contemplation

Just after discussing a Nomad altar, we referred to a Christian altar in another timeline. The Nomad example is a family altar so does that mean an altar used by the family or devoted to the family? Probably the former since the Captain's cabin also has a family portrait and there is no mention of ancestor worship among the Nomads. I suggest that Cosmos cannot be prayed to but can be contemplated. Zazen, just sitting meditation, is contemplation of the Cosmos as it manifests here and now. The Cosmos is not a thing but everything, including all life and consciousness. We are both a part of It and its point of self-consciousness. Burning incense symbolizes the all-pervading. We can practice the Cosmic religion now.

Jesus And Time Travel

I know of at least two stories that apply the circular causality paradox to the events of the New Testament. Poul Anderson describes timelines in which Christianity does not exist. In SM Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy, whether the time travellers will prevent Christianity is an issue. 

Poul Anderson avoids questions about the historical claims of Christianity both in his Time Patrol series and in There Will Be Time. The Preface to Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict informs us of Assassin 33 A.D., in which time travelling Islamist terrorists plan to assassinate Jesus. Crossley and Myles believe that assassinating a single "Great Man" would not necessarily deflect historical and material forces.

Maybe it is a sign of the times that, when we pass from Poul Anderson's time travel fiction to a scholarly work on the historical Jesus, the Preface of the latter work begins by citing a film like Assassin 33 A.D. Let's have film adaptations of the Time Patrol.

Heaven Speaks II

Steve Matuchek, narrator of Operation Chaos, continues to share the consciousness of a soul from Heaven:

"Of course, I couldn't share his afterlife, nor the holiness thereof. My mortal brain and grimy soul didn't reach to it. At most, there sang at the edge of perception a peace and joy which were not static but a high eternal adventure. I did, though, have the presence of Lobachevsky the man to savor. Think of your oldest and best friend and you'll have a rough idea what that was like." (XXX, p. 237)

Neither conflict nor static peace but dynamic peace: I think that it is possible - although not in a hereafter.

We can expect CS Lewis to contribute something about communication from Heaven. Lewis the character and first person narrator of a short story by Lewis the author finds himself inside the mental landscape of a self-absorbed young woman. An unseen hand knocks on the sky of the Shoddy Lands:

"And with that knocking came a voice at whose sound my bones turned to water: 'Child, child, child, let me in before the night comes.'"

-CS Lewis, "The Shoddy Lands" IN Lewis, The Dark Tower and other stories (London, 1983), pp. 104-111 AT p. 110.

In this sentence, beginning "Child...," I feel that reality addresses us. Lewis personified reality. Reality speaks through him. 

Heaven Speaks

If a voice could speak literally from Heaven, what would it sound like? I thought that there was something relevant in Operation Chaos. What I have found is this. After a prayer has been offered:

"There was another stillness.

"Then the cross on the altar shone forth, momentarily sun-bright, and we heard one piercing, exquisite note, and I felt within me a rush of joy I can only vaguely compare to the winning of first love."

-Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (New York, 1995), XXIX, p. 231.

A soul has come from Heaven. But then, immediately, without even a change of paragraph:

"But another noise followed, as of a huge wind. The candles went out, the panes went black, we staggered when the floor shook beneath us." (ibid.)

Another soul has come from Purgatory.

I want to compare this with something in CS Lewis but am being interrupted. More later.

Fiction And History

Reading historical fiction or time travel fiction can encourage the reading of history. At school, I translated a Latin sentence about the Scipios at the Battle of Ticinus and reflected that the Time Patrol was there.

Both in his Time Patrol series and in There Will Be Time, Poul Anderson sidesteps the question of the historical claims of Christianity. This evening, I ate with James Crossley who gave me a copy of his soon to be published book:

James Crossley & Robert J. Myles, Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict (Alresford, Hampshire, 2023)

I also hope to read a work by James' mentor:

Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching (London, 2010).

Maurice Casey believed that New Testament scholars need to know not only Greek but also Aramaic - to be able to construct possible originals of Gospel sayings. I now embark on some non-fiction reading but always remembering the Time Patrol.

In The Name Of Cosmos: Nomad Ritual

The Peregrine.

At the beginning of the Nomad Captains' Council on Rendezvous:

"'In the name of Cosmos, rendezvous,' [the president] said formally. Joachim didn't pay much attention to the ritual that followed."

-CHAPTER II, pp. 7-8.

But we would like to see the ritual.

As part of the ritual of landing on an E-planet:

"'In the name of Cosmos, sanctuary,' said the boat's captain, Kogama Iwao, formally."

-CHAPTER XV, p. 131.

How many things are said in the name of Cosmos and what else happens in the rituals?

In the cabin of a Nomad captain:

"...against another wall was the customary family altar."

-CHAPTER VIII, p. 58.

What is on the altar and what rituals are performed in front of it? Some of this would have to be invented for visual adaptations.

Religions affect each other. Catholic priests keep consecrated Communion wafers in a tabernacle on the altar. In a Buddhist monastery, I heard someone ask, "What's in that box on the altar?" The answer was "The Scripture of Great Wisdom." A Jewish layman showing some students, including myself, around a synagogue said that, when the Rabbi has read from the Torah scroll, he holds it up above his head for the congregation to see. He commented: "Shades of the elevation of the Host!" I read that maybe Taoists constructed their Trinity in response to the Buddhist Tripitaka. Japanese homes can have both a god altar and a Buddha altar.

So a lot of us are familiar with altars but what is on them? Are there images of "Cosmos"? No subordinate deities are mentioned. James Blish's Okies refer to "gods of all stars" but only abstractly.

When I told a Polish man that there is a mosque on our street, he asked not about abstract beliefs but only about a concrete image: "Do they have crucifix?" When a pupil drew a picture of Solomon's Temple and placed a cross above the door, I pointed out that the cross would not have been there. Instead of realizing, smiling and saying, "Of course not!," he asked, very puzzled, "Why not?" People take for granted what they are used to seeing - and cultural differences can be immense. So what is on the Nomads' altars?

Prequels In The Future History, Psychotechnic History And Technic History

DD Harriman dies on the Moon in "Requiem" (1940) and puts the first man on the Moon in "The Man Who Sold the Moon" (1950).

Stefan Rostomily has died on Mars in "Un-Man" (1953) and was active in Europe in "Marius" (1957).

Trevelyan Michah says that, when he has a assistant on a mission, it is usually an otherling in The Peregrine (1956) and this had happened in "The Pirate" (1968).

Adzel's student days on Earth are referred to in "The Trouble Twisters" (1965) and described in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" (1978).

The Young Flandry novels were written after the Captain Flandry series. An earlier operation of Aychraych was written after the story in which Flandry first met Aycharaych.

The Ancient War

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XIV.

Dialogue between Trevelyan and Nicki, paraphrased -

Nicki: If Trevelyan were killed, then she would hunt down the killer.

Trevelyan: It would be better to correct the conditions that led to killing.

Nicki, bitterly: Trevelyan is too civilized.

Trevelyan's response:

"The ancient war, he thought, the immemorial struggle of intelligence to master itself." (p. 127)

- is the basic theme of the Psychotechnic History, reintroduced here long after its initial presentation in "Un-Man" and "The Sensitive Man," where the protean enemy was identified as man himself. After many millennia of this future history, the issue will be resolved closer to the Galactic centre.

"Witch!"

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XIII.

The Peregrine shudders in a trepidation vortex, the sort of thing that happens to the Enterprise. Peregrine Abbey Roberto attacks Ilaloa with a knife, snarling:

"'Witch! Damned murdering witch, you did this!" (p. 112)

Maybe Abbey is prejudiced and deluded or maybe he senses Ilaloa's true nature. Either way, what he says is correct. She did this. We should reflect on this when rereading the novel.

After the vortex:

"The park was a heap of windowed trees..." (p. 118)

Windowed?

"'Your people rally well,' said Joachim..." (ibid.)

Shouldn't it be Trevelyan saying that?

The (Stable) Stellar Union

The Peregrine.

"...the Solarian's own needs were adequately provided for at home; he had no particular reason to haul goods out to the stars. The interstellar colonists had to provide for themselves." (CHAPTER VI, p. 38)

So Earth would not be plunged into derivation and want if interstellar contacts were to be interrupted. And the same would apply to colonies like Nerthus, capable of growing their own food as well as any crops for export.

"A small but brisk trade went on between the stars of any given sector, carried by merchant ships or by such Nomads as weren't heading out into the depthless yonder.  A few goods from Sol itself, or other highly civilized systems, found their way out to the frontier, too." (pp. 38-39)

A small trade within each sector, some of it dependent on the wandering Nomads; a few goods from Sol etc. Again, it sounds as if the colonies would be able to survive any disruption to trade, unlike Isaac Asimov's entirely urbanized planet, Trantor, which consumes the produce of twenty agricultural planets per day.

Trevelyan Michah expounds further:

"'Well, what have we today? A dozen or more highly civilized races, scattering themselves over this part of the Galaxy, intercourse limited to spaceships that may need weeks to get from one sun to the next - and nothing else. Not even the strong economic ties which did, after all, bind Europe to its colonies.'" (CHAPTER XII, p. 105)

It is a pity that we see so little of those other races. We see one Reardonite. The Tiunran are mentioned. We see four planet-bound species affected by space travellers. That is all. What a contrast to the Technic History where some of the narratives are histories not of human beings but of Ythrians or Merseians. But, in any case, CHAPTER XII confirms that there are no strong economic ties between Earth and its colonies. Planets can exist for weeks without any extra-systemic contact and presumably would continue to cope self-sufficiently if the intervals between contacts were to be extended.

Why then does Trevelyan go on to say:

"'Cross-purposes are breeding which are someday going to clash - they've already done so in several cases, and it's meant annihilation.'" (ibid.)?

What cross-purposes? Why should the clashes be serious enough to mean annihilation? We need to be shown some examples. Economic competition, imperialism, exploitation etc can certainly cause destructive conflicts but we are specifically told that economics is not a major interstellar factor. Planetary populations with mutually incompatible or incomprehensible psychologies, ideologies etc can each go their own way. There is no reason for them to go to all the trouble of crossing an interstellar distance just to pick a fight with someone else.

Regular blog readers will know that a day, like today, when I have visited Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop is a day when there has been less time for blogging but that has been good for my soul. 

The Peregrine Library

The Peregrine, CHAPTER XI.

It is possible to enjoy reading and yet to come across a bunch of books in which you have no interest whatsoever. This would not be the case in the library of the Nomad ship, Peregrine:

"The walls were lined with shelves holding micro-books from civilized planets: references, philosophies, poetry, fiction, belles-lettres, an incredible jackdaw's nest of anything and everything. But there were also large-sized folios, written by the natives of a hundred worlds or by the Nomads themselves. It was the compendious history of the ships which [Trevelyan] took down and opened.

"It began with the memoirs of Thorkild Erling..." (pp. 92-93)

Thus, Trevelyan would read "Gypsy," just as, in Poul Anderson's Technic History, Flandry can read "The Star Plunderer" in John Reeves' memoirs.

Once, we stayed in a hostel at the Cathedral of the Isles, the smallest Cathedral in the British Isles. The library contained only theology, church history and the third volume of CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy. I preferred to reread passages from that novel than to read anything else. I would appreciate visiting the Peregrine library.

Shrill Wind On Erulan

The Peregrine.

"Mountain Man Thorkild stopped a couple of meters from the Peregrines and bent his queued head as if it pained him. 'Greeting and welcome,' he said. The wind shrilled under his words and blew them across the barren flag-stones. 'The Arkulan awaits you.'" (CHAPTER IX, p. 76)

Thorkild is a barbarian chief whose welcome is insincere so of course the wind is shrill, the flag-stones are barren and the shrill wind blows the words away. Pathetic Fallacy, especially involving the wind, is as integral to Poul Anderson's prose as are his punctuation and grammar.

When Sean looks out of the space boat late in the day:

"The wind was low and cold; beneath the castle, roofs and towers were black against the sky." (CHAPTER X, p. 85)

Uninviting! Unsurprisingly, he concludes:

"'It's too late to go out now...'" (ibid.)

Earlier, in CHAPTER VIII, Sean sang a song in which wild winds blow, figuratively speaking of course, between the stars. The wind is omnipresent in Poul Anderson's multiverse. 

Sean's song includes the phrase, "The star ways..." (p. 66) Thus, Anderson's Star Ways, re-entitled The Peregrine, was, like Heinlein's The Green Hills of Earth, a volume of a future history named after a song in it. And Anderson's The Stars Are Also Fire is a future history volume named after a poem in it.

POVs And Erulani

The Peregrine has no single central character. Trevelyan Micah is the Coordination Service field agent but he remains in the orbiting Peregrine during the action on the surface of Erulan where the groundside detective work is done by Peregrine Joachim Henry in the castle and by Peregrine Thorkild Sean in the city. Thus, povs change with chapters.

"Erulani" is both the collective and the singular noun for Erulanian natives:

"The Erulani were quite manlike..." (CHAPTER IX, p. 76)

"...an Erulani brought a scribbled note..." (CHAPTER X, p. 85)

"-i" is a plural ending in Latin which is maybe why it becomes a word ending in other contexts?

In Larry Niven's Known Space future history:

"Kzin" is a planet;

a "kzin" is an inhabitant of Kzin;

"kzinti" is both the plural of "kzin" and the adjective derived from "kzin."

Unexpectedly, "djinni" is not the plural of "djinn" but a synonym. The plural is djinns.

Names

The Peregrine.

The captain of the first Nomad ship, the Traveler, was Thorkild Erling. Thus, three hundred years later, the president of the Captain's Council is Traveler Thorkild Helmuth. Nomads marry out of their ships with the wife joining her husband's crew yet there is a Peregrine Thorkild Sean and a Mountain Man Thorkild Edward. How come? When a ship becomes overcrowded, all the Nomads help some young crew members to build a new ship. Thus, some Thorkilds must have been among those who transferred to the Peregrine and to the Mountain Man when those ships were built.

Mountain Man and Hadji have sold their souls, ceasing to be Nomads and instead becoming nobles and slave-owners on Erulan where, having taken over a barbaric system, they are gradually becoming barbarized. Other Nomads know, and even trade with Erulan, but protect the secret from the Coordination Service. By the time the Cordies learn, their will not be much that can be done. Erulan had been a slave-owning society before the Nomads arrived and the Mountain Man and Hadji generation guilty of the original crime will be dead. Sometimes, righting a wrong long after the event only causes further wrongs.

History And Experience Of SF

We can summarize the history of sf by listing who wrote what when. However, each of us experiences sf from an arbitrary point in that history. Thus, in 1956, I was not yet reading about Nicholas van Rijn in "Margin of Profit" or about the Nomads in Star Ways. What I was reading that far back was British comic strips in which Jet Ace Logan explored the Solar System and Dan Dare returned from his first extra-solar expedition. (A colleague said, "I hate to say this, sir, but the whole of Space Fleet thinks Dare's gone too far this time!" but a bus driver said, "I'm betting on Danny Boy!") In 1951, when Captain Flandry began his career, I was not reading anything yet.

In the 1950s, I read a Classics Illustrated comic strip adaptation of HG Wells' The Time Machine and, in the early 1960s, read The Time Machine itself and Poul Anderson's Guardians of Time, a beginning and a culmination of time travel fiction, in my opinion.

In the 1950s, I knew that Superman came from Krypton and that Micky Moran became Marveleman but not that Billy Batson had become Captain Marvel. I was just too young to remember that missing link between Supes and MM. (Which Poul Anderson novel references Superman and why?)

For a long time, our sf writers were alive and we met them at Cons but Wells was from a different era when a publisher's heading above a list of titles beginning with The Time Machine was not "Science Fiction" but "Mr. Wells has also written the following fantastic and imaginative romances:" Now, the generations have moved on and we are in the twenty-first century, the future.

Directions And Distances

The Peregrine.

From Sol III, Earth, to Carsten's Star III, Nerthus, on the Sagittari frontier of the Stellar Union is two months by the fastest hyperdrive. 

From Rendezvous, beyond the frontier, to Nerthus is about three weeks in the Peregrine. 

From Nerthus to Erulan, also beyond the frontier, is another three weeks at full cruising speed for the Peregrine.

Maybe we are starting to get some sense of directions and distances. Rendezvous is beyond the frontier because it is the secret Nomad meeting place. Erulan is beyond the frontier because its native population has been enslaved by the crews of two Nomad ships who merely do to the natives what those natives had already been doing to each other.

This is very different from the idea in "The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb" that human beings had explored the whole Galaxy before colonizing Nerthus.

The Task Of The Service

The Peregrine, CHAPTER IV.

Newly discovered races must be protected from exploitation but would any of them have the capacity to launch an interstellar war that would seriously threaten the Stellar Union? This seems improbable. We would like to be shown some examples of what Trevelyan feared might happen. And we would also like to be shown what does in fact cause the Third Dark Ages.

In The Peregrine, the task of the Coordination Service is to protect the Union from the destructive consequences of its own complexity. In "The Pirate," written later but set earlier, its task has become to guard the Pact between the dead, the living and the unborn, that they be kept one in the oneness of time. More reflective and philosophical - but this also is presented as a matter of survival.

Union And Service

"Interstellar war and interstellar government are both improbable: space is too big, an entire planet too self-sufficient. But a loose alliance of the civilized worlds (the Union) and a joint patrol to protect individuals and backward societies from the grosser forms of exploitation (the Coordination Service) are likely to be organized."

-Poul Anderson, Virgin Planet (London, 1966), AUTHOR'S NOTE, p. 151.

But surely the Stellar Union acts like a government by making laws and the Cordies act like a police force by enforcing those laws?

If planets are self-sufficient, then why should they suffer a Dark Age when interstellar travel ceases? And, if such travel has become practicable and widespread, then why should it cease? Coordinator Trevelyan Micah reminds the multiplex artist, Braganza Diane, of what had happened on Earth when sovereign states worked at unintegrated cross-purposes. But why should unintegrated cross-purposes threaten the Stellar Union? New intelligent species with unfathomable motivations are being discovered continually and Trevelyan fears:

"'...the effects on these of a sudden introduction to an interstellar civilization!'"

-The Peregrine, CHAPTER IV, p. 28.

But, if these effects include conflicts like those between Terrestrial nations, then interstellar war is not improbable but inevitable.

The Alori race, encountered in The Peregrine, is indeed a threat because it plans to subvert human nature.