Terrans And Merseians

Poul Anderson, A Circus of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 193-365.

CHAPTER ONE is a good introduction to the Merseians including their physical description which need not be repeated here. 

Dominic Flandry of Terra and Tachwyr the Dark of the Vach Rueth and, of course, of Merseia:

"...shared the adventurousness of youth." (p. 197)

- even though we had been told in the previous novel that Persis d'Io:

"...had identified the change in [Flandry], the thing which had gone, and would never quite come back. Youth."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Young Flandry, pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 152.

Anderson conveys Flandry's adventurousness in these two novels and his daughter's in The Game of Empire.

Regarding Terrans and Merseians as species:

"It wasn't the differences between [Merseians] and men that caused trouble, Flandry knew. It was the similarities - in planets of origin and thus in planets desired; in the energy of warm-blooded animals, the instincts of ancestors who hunted, the legacies of pride and war -"

-A Circus of Hells, pp. 199-200.

Light years from home, the cruiser Brythioch makes a goodwill visit to the Terran Naval base on Irumclaw:

"They needed a few hours of small-scale living, be their hosts never so hostile.

"Which we aren't anyway, Flandry thought. We should be, but we aren't, most of us. He grinned. Including me." (p. 198)

So what are some of the differences?

"The junior officers of Irumclaw Base must hold the customary reception for their opposite numbers from the ship. (Their seniors gave another in a separate building. The Merseians, variously bemused or amused by the rigid Terran concept of rank, conformed. They set more store by ceremony and tradition, even that of aliens, than latter-day humans did.)" (p. 198)

So, if they conquered Terra, then they might continue to respect Terran traditions? Unfortunately, conquest by the Rodhunate would mean racial subordination, not local autonomy.

The Merseian attitude to rank is explained in Ensign Flandry:

"Flandry was getting used to the interplay of formality and ease between officers and enlisted men in the Merseian service. Instead of the mutual aloofness on Terran ships, there was an intimacy which the seniors led but did not rigidly control, a sort of perpetual dance."

-CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 105.

Several of the Merseians speak Anglic but, among the human beings on Irumclaw, only Flandry knows Eriau so he is needed as an interpreter.

Chairs have been removed from the mess "...in deference to the guests...," (p. 199) who squat on their tails, so the men must stand. However, the forty visitors do stand while:

"...enduring repeated introductions with the stoicism appropriate to a warrior race." (ibid.)

They politely disarm to the extent of not carrying pistols on their belts and the Terrans politely refrain from mentioning the knuckleduster-handled war knives.

Each side hopes to gain intelligence. The Merseians gain at least by learning that Flandry has transferred to Intelligence. Given that his mentor was Max Abrams, this datum is potentially significant.