"The massive, crenelated walls around [the University of New Virgil in Nova Roma on Aeneas] still bore scars from the Troubles." (7, p. 119)
We read about the Troubles in "The Star Plunderer."
"'Technic civilization started on that road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Kast Knight of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT III, pp. 388-389.
We read about the cartelization of the League in Mirkheim.
"That part is older than humanity."
-The Day Of Their Return, ibid., p. 120.
We have not read about the pre-human interstellar civilization. However, Aycharaych preserves complete records of it:
"'- If you could have the likenesses to meet whenever you would ... of Gautama Buddha, Kung Fu-Tse, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus the Christ, Rumi ... Socrates, Newton, Hokusai, Jefferson, Gauss, Beethoven, Einstein, Ulfgeir, Manuel the Great, Manuel the Wise -'"
-A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, XX, pp. 599-600.
We read about Manuel the Great in "The Star Plunderer."
Poul Anderson's Technic History is a future history of human beings, Ythrians and Merseians and also presents an outline history of Chereionites culminating in the bombardment of Chereion ordered by Dominic Flandry. Axor continues the study of the Ancients in The Game of Empire.
6 comments:
The Cheirionite is a bit crazy, but then the last member of his species would be, no?
Though with the technology available to him, he could re-create his species any time he wanted -- the DNA=equivalents must be on file, and there's his own.
Also, why crenelated walls? That's pre-gunpowder fortification. Modern forts tend to be very low-slung, often buried.
I thought the crenelations were decorative but, yes, there was fighting on Aeneas.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
It might have been part of Aycharaych's craziness that he could not bring him to use cloning to bring back his race.
Well, as Paul said, the old fashioned fortifications might have been useful against bandits and raiders during the Troubles who did not have up to date weapons.
Also, they look cool!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: if the raiders have spaceships, they're likely to have -something- that can knock down a high wall.
It was cannon that caused the change to low-slung forts protected by low broad earthworks -- the "trace Italienne".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Good points, then I'll modify my speculation to suggest they might have been stranded raiders who either lost their ships or were abandoned.
Ad astra! Sean
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