"Waterblossom set forth..."
-CHAPTER TEN, p. 296.
"A dozen light-years off, the twin blue giant suns that were Alpha Crucis dominated heaven."
-CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 305.
"Miriam Abrams Flandry started home..."
-CHAPTER TWELVE, p. 316.
"Being a mostly Cynthian town, Lulach looked smaller than it was."
-CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 326.
Waterblossom arrives in Lulach but the intermediate chapters take readers right outside the Patrician System. A Merseian task force passes through Imperial Sector Alpha Crucis. Bryadan Arrowswift is from:
"...an arctic shore of the Wilwidh Ocean..." (p. 306)
Uroch the Lucky has "...partial Lafdiguan ancestry." (ibid.)
Uroch leads the escadrille that attacks Gorrazan.
Miriam Flandry departs from Ramnu and travels by luxury liner from Hermes to Terra where she is met by her husband, Dominic, who takes her to their apartment in Archopolis. Thus, we are shown much before we return to the Highroad River on Daedalus.
We are disappointed to learn that the Ramnuan climate reclamation project, begun after the events of A Stone in Heaven, is suspended because of Magnusson's insurrection:
"...months must pass until work resumed. Ramnuans would perish by the additional thousands, or worse." (p. 317)
Yes, indeed: something else that Magnusson is responsible for.
30 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And Merseia's responsibility! The Ramnuan reclamation project would not have been suspended without it's propping up of Magnusson.
And I've already seen fears of similar disruptions in the real world because of Hamas' terrorist attacks. Which would not have occurred if a trouble maker like Iran had not been bankrolling and arming the Hamas scum.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Hamas (i) killed a lot of people and (ii) provoked an entirely predictable Israeli assault on Gaza. Hamas was either blind to the consequences of its actions or collectively suicidal. Gazans clearly have to cast off Hamas and any similar organizations but at present they are fleeing for their lives.
Paul.
Sean,
I don't know what Hamas is trying to do but it is not good, whatever it is. I now know of lots of Palestinians who are not pro-Hamas and not pro-terrorist.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
To me it's obvious! Iran is using its Hamas and Hezbullah clients to provoke chaos, to destroy Israel and extend its dominance over the Near East.
And those Palestinians you know have zero power over there.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The people of the region have power when they use it.
Paul.
Did Anderson use "escadrille" to describe an element of the Merseian force? Weird use of French, if so ...
Kaor, Paul!
No, that is vague and unconvincing.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I partly agree. There is potential power. Workers CAN strike, occupy workplaces and bring down governments, including dictatorships, but it is unpredictable when they will do this.
Paul.
Dave,
He did.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It's also unpredictable if such things will happen, so I remain skeptical.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Mass social upheavals are not only possible but also inevitable over time but there is no guarantee of what kinds of groups will have input into them or what their outcomes will be. Outcomes can indeed be catastrophic.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And, far more often than not they have been catastrophic.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul - Thanks. Obviously, it's fiction, but Anderson was writing in English; just tossing in a French noun seems - unfriendly to the reader.
He could have said squadron or division or flight or task group any of a number of nouns and it would have worked better, especially given the generation(s) he was writing for. If he'd written of an alien "geschwader" or "grupo" it would have looked just as odd.
Kaor, Dave!
I only partly agree. Context alone should make it clear to many readers what Anderson meant by using that Fransai word, "escadrille." Also, I think Anderson wanted to add a bit of color to the story by using an exotic word.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is precisely because history continues to be upheavals and catastrophes that we are going to have to change or go under.
Paul.
Sean -
French isn't especially exotic, even to the North American market.
And unless the Merseians had a French-speaking military mission, it doesn't make any sense in terms of the story! ;)
Kaor, Paul and Dave!
Paul: I don't know if the human race will "go under," but I'm sure of one thing: mankind is not going to change. We are going to continue to be quarrelsome, violent, prone to strife and folly.
The wisest and most successful statesmen don't try to futilely change human beings, going against their "grain." Rather, they accept humans as they are, and work for beneficial changes by moving with that "grain."
Dave: You overlook one thing, we are talking about the Technic timeline, more than 1000 years from now, during the Imperial era, where Anglic has long since supplanted all other languages on Terra. French probably only survived as Fransai on a few colonized planets.
And I can see some Fransai words passing into Anglic or even Eriau as technical military terms.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And I do not propose to change human beings. But human beings change their own conditions and thus longer term themselves. That is how we came into existence as a species. I have taken on board arguments that fundamental change of human beings will take longer than I would like but meanwhile we can make big changes both technologically and culturally.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Merely technological changes are far more likely than the kind of "cultural" changes you would like. I believe in the former but not the latter. I believe humans are going to continue to remain competitive for mates, status, wealth, power, etc. With all the good and bad things coming with those things. These are "problems" that can only be managed, not solved.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And I have suggested that technology can make wealth abundant and that public figures can be electable and accountable and therefore become unable to exercise power over others. "Mates" are individuals who exercise their own choices. We can have a culture were anyone who seeks status is looked down on and thus loses status!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, that is not going to happen. You persist in overlooking how a competitive political system of the kind you want will attract the ambitious and power hungry. Success in politics as well as in the private sector also makes it easier to get mates. These are facts of life.
And the idea of a society where people who seek status is looked down on is, gently put, so extremely implausible that it's not believable.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The political system that I want is cooperative, not competitive. You imagine society as we know it projected into an indefinite future.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Because I consider what you hope for a Utopian impossibility. I believe in being realistic about human beings as they actually are, "not" as we would like them to be.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And how human beings are is that they change their environment and themselves in the process.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And this is just plain wrong. All that human beings have been doing after they evolved to sentience and Fell was to develop technology, to materially change their environment and live more comfortably. We have not changed from being quarrelsome, violent, strife torn, and prone to folly and self-inflicted catastrophe. And I see no reason to ever expect that to change.
Ad astra! Sean
I do.
Kaor, Paul!
What is the evidence you have for such hopes? I've seen none!
Simply muddling along not too terribly badly is the most we can expect.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
None? There is plenty of evidence that human beings are perfectly capable of living harmoniously when they are able to create the conditions for this to happen. Our government has an interest in trying to set us against each other but we can overthrow governments. There is a lot of potential for human goodness and there is also a socioeconomic system that maintains itself by encouraging sectional conflicts and trying to tell us that these are innate and inevitable.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Wrong. Whatever peace we have is due to the existence of the state, because of the power it has to crack down on those who would disturb that peace. Here I mean both ordinary criminals and fanatics/crazies who resort to violence.
You are also wrong about "socio-economics." The most efficient form of economics, free enterprise, is simply about the most efficient use of resources, goods, and services of all kinds, guided by the laws of demand and price/cost.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Wrong. There will be no motivation either for crime or for fanatics/crazies when technologically produced wealth is abundant and when education and production are organized not for the accumulation of profit but for the free development of each individual member of society but why do you want to pursue this disagreement indefinitely? You cannot believe that it will be settled merely by adding another comment repeating what has already been said several times before.
When opinions differ, we can each state that the other is "wrong," of course, but it still remains a matter of differing opinions.
Paul.
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