Real And Fictional Complexity

Read the morning newspaper, then reread the opening page of Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. Of necessity, the news about the concrete real world is many times more complicated than any fictional narrative. However, we must imagine that comparable complexities lie behind Anderson's texts and Miesel's chronology. I hypothesize that, during the Chaos, Rome is nuked and the Catholic Church moves its headquarters to Jerusalem, thus explaining a reference to the Jerusalem Catholic Church as early as "The Saturn Game." Of course, an alternative explanation would be that the RC and JC Churches are alternative denominations existing in the future. Any interpretation that is consistent with the texts is legitimate although we can argue about their relative probabilities/plausibilities.

We do not know what becomes of Israel in the Technic History. It cannot continue to exist as a separate state in the Commonwealth or Empire periods. We do know that there are Jewish colonials on a planet called Dayan in the Empire period...

The Merseians, introduced as standard pulp sf green villains in the Captain Flandry series, become a sympathetic population on Dennitza in the culminating Captain Flandry novel. Agents of Merseia against whom Flandry must contend include:

Tachwyr the Dark, a Merseian;

giant, aquatic A'u;

the Chereionite telepath, Aycharaych;

Olaf Magnusson, a human being from the planet, Kraken;

Dominic Hazeltine, not only human but Flandry's own son!

By contrast, Flandry's fiancee, Kossara Vymezal, had grown up in a household with retainers who were Merseian by species but loyal to the Emperor, not to the Roidhun.

Not as complicated as real history, obvs, but Anderson knew how to complexify.