Vice Admiral Fenross to Captain Flandry:
"'Ever heard of Vixen? Well, I never had, either, before this. It's a human-settled planet of an F6 star about a hundred light-years from Sol, somewhat north and clockwise of Aldebaran. Odd ball world, but moderately successful as colonies go. You know that region is poor in systems of interest to humans, and very little explored. In effect, Vixen sits in the middle of a desert.'" (p. 19)
When this story was first published in 1959, none of Poul Anderson's readers had heard of Vixen. Anderson created the planet ex nihilo at this point in his text. Now, however, if we read Anderson's History of Technic Civilization in chronological order of fictional events, for example by reading Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I to VII, then, in Volume III, we come across Henry Kittredge from Vixen and, in Volume VI, we find Fenross asking Flandry whether he has ever heard of Vixen. Indeed, Vixen and then New Vixen also appear in Volume VII but, unfortunately, that is the end of the Technic History.
6 comments:
The operative about to dispatched from headquarters to the far marches getting a passdown is always a reasonable way to do an infodump. TV Tropes lists it as "Mission Briefing."
Kaor, Paul!
A neat example of Anderson retconning some of his own work!
Ad astra! Sean
The SOP is to give the operative a brief rundown and a directive on what he's supposed to be do -- preferably in general terms, particularly if they're going to be out of communications.
Of the "find out, and do what seems doable" variety.
Then you send them off with detailed briefing papers (or e-files) so they can soak up as much information as is available.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I recently reread the original version of "Warriors from Nowhere," and that was exactly what Vice Admiral Fenross did with Flandry: a quick briefing, a general directive about Flandry's new assignment, and access to detailed files about the case's background. SOP, as you said!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, it's the most efficient way to do it.
Organizations which try to give exhaustively detailed orders in situations like that tend to be... less than maximally efficient.
Of course, you need to trust your people and not to be in a situation where you're driven to ass-covering.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! And we get too much real world rump covering anyway!
Ad astra! Sean
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