Crisis

Mirkheim, X.

Grand Duchess Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen:

"...had felt guilty about leaving Starfall at a time of crisis - domestic, as well as foreign, with more and more of the Traver class in an uproar -..." (p. 145)

Crisis; more and more uproar: that is proof enough that the political inequalities of the Traver class should be ended immediately. Poul Anderson presents extremely sympathetic close-ups of Hermetian aristocrats, the Tamarins and the Falkayns, and also of intermediate classes with personal and family loyalties to their superiors, but his narrative also makes clear that there are social divisions on Hermes that should not be tolerated. 

Mirkheim is a good novel about personal change, a good political novel about social change and a good science fiction novel about the technological and civilizational implications of the discovery of a supermetals-coated planet.

Ultimate Social And Cosmic Developments

We discuss evolutionary development in "Energy And Inertia," here, and social development in "Uneven And Combined Development," here. How can these be synthesized?

This universe will end in entropy but how did it start and how many universes are there? Within this universe and for part of its history, energy progressively overcomes inertia. When all societies are fully developed, there will no longer be any need for conflicts either between or within them. Instead, there will be the possibility of maximum freedom, dynamism and creativity combined with long term preservation of the natural and social environments: energy and inertia. Poul Anderson quotes some speculations about consciousness surviving the heat death of the universe but such hypotheses go beyond my comprehension. Meanwhile, we have more than enough to cope with here and now. Imagination helps.

Uneven And Combined Development

Mirkheim, VIII.

See "Uneven But Combined Development," here. 

Different countries and different planets develop at different rates but then interact either progressively or retrogressively. Thus:

Europeans put rifles directly into the hands of Native Americans;

large factories and industrial cities sprang up in still feudal Russia;

unscrupulous Polesotechnic League traders armed barbarians;

one League cartel, the Seven in Space, secretly armed the Baburites;

David Falkayn had "'...thought civilization had evolved beyond war...'" (p. 131) and maybe he was right about Terrestrial civilization;

however, the Shenna and the barbarians had not evolved beyond war and the Baburites were prepared to learn it.

The Solar Commonwealth must fight the Baburites and Earth is sacked by barbarians. Out of all this comes the Terran Empire, a society born from war, not from peace.

Hyperdrive Oscillations

Mirkheim, VII.

I am only just taking on board the limitations on communication by hyperdrive oscillations. These oscillations are instantaneously detectable at about a light year but, for most of that distance, they can be modulated only into an on-off code. Voice transmission is possible only within a few thousand kilometres and pictures require even closer proximity. Ship to ship, Grand Duchess Sandra and a Baburite representative communicate by sound alone. 

This seems plausible. Technology has its limits and these sound like the sorts of limits that faster than light communication might have if it were possible in the first place. Less plausible, I think, is the instantaneous interstellar communication in Poul Anderson's later For Love And Glory.

Ursula Le Guin's future history has an instantaneous communicator called the ansible but the master of faster than light (FTL) communication is James Blish:

the ultraphone, FTL but not instantaneous;

the CircumContinuum (CirCon) radio in A Case Of Conscience, instantaneous;

the Dirac transmitter in Cities In Flight, instantaneous;

the Dirac transmitter in "Beep"/The Quincunx Of Time, receiving messages not only from the present but also from the past and future.

Comic Operas

Mirkheim, VII.

Sandra to Eric, en route to Mirkheim:

"'In history, comic operas have had a way of turning into tragedies.'" (p. 112)

That sounds familiar but it is not the same remark:

Two of Marx's most recognizable quotes appear in the essay. The first is on history repeating itself: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce". The second concerns the role of the individual in history: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."

-copied from here.

I cannot comment on historical comic operas, tragedies or farces but I fully endorse that further comment: men make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing. David Falkayn did not choose to be alive at the time when his home planet, Hermes, was occupied by mercenaries employed by Baburites but he made history by his role in the resistance.

Energy And Inertia

"...a universe that produces sophonts as casually as it produces snowflakes."

-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 7.

Reading about species as diverse as Terrans, Ythrians, Merseians, Wodenites, Cynthians, Baburites, Ikrankans, Ivanhoans, Didonians, Cainites, Diomedeans, Starkadians (two), Irumclagians, Talwinians (two) etc might generate some reflection on underlying evolutionary processes. See Speculution.

Everything that exists or happens is an interaction between change and resistance to change, energy and inertia. This universe began as concentrated energy which dispersed and partly solidified. As energy overcomes inertia, levels of interaction are progressively less static and more dynamic. Inanimate matter changes position, i.e., moves, but in mathematically predictable orbits. Animate matter resists change by change. Conscious organisms are mobile. Intelligent organisms actively change their environments, can become artistically creative and can also come to perceive everything anew at every moment, the most energetic level of consciousness, which however still needs inertia to maintain a natural and social environment.

However, the original energy did not intend this or any other outcome. Purposiveness originated only with consciousness. Before consciousness, change was random albeit eventually generating self-replication, mutation and natural selection. Naturally selected organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation. Then organisms not only absorbed nutrients but also wanted and intended to.

Some natural processes became conscious and purposive but could not have been purposive until they had become conscious. Yet many people project purposiveness back to the beginning.

Intelligence Gathering

Mirkheim, V.

All ambassadors gather intelligence if only in the sense that they report what they have seen and heard. A Baburite knows that the Polesotechnic League is no longer united. How does he know this? Falkayn must report the state of Baburite intelligence about the League back to van Rijn - if he can escape from Babur.

Infrared radiation from the ships orbiting Babur tells Muddlehead that their internal temperatures are suitable for oxygen-breathers, not for hydrogen-breathers. In fact, these are human and Merseian mercenaries but how did the Baburites recruit them? Again, van Rijn must be told. 

Important intelligence is lying right out in the open but the problem is how to get back home with it. However, the trader team is up to this task.

Might Again

Mirkheim, III.

"Neither Adzel nor Chee Lan would take kindly to the idea of manning oars in a Grecian galley. Not but what they hadn't done equally curious things from time to time, and might again." (p. 80)

This is an understated expression of the passage of time. We know that the trader team has done many things, both routine and curious, in the past even though we have seen them only three times - in fact, only twice if we are reading the Technic History in its original book publication order. They "might again." This is possible although it is less likely with the passage of time and in fact it is no surprise to learn that this novel is to be the last trader team instalment in terms of fictional chronology. In the following chapter, the reassembled team will conduct its mission to Babur as vigorously as it had conducted itself on Ikananka and Merseia and all three team members will be in action again on occupied Hermes later in Mirkheim. But there is a last time for everything.

Back In The Hotel Universe

In Mirkheim, III, Nicholas van Rijn of Solar Spice & Liquors, Hanny Lennart of Global Cybernetics and the Home Companies and Bayard Story of Galactic Developments and the Seven in Space meet in the Hotel Universe in Lunograd. We have already seen:

Adzel and Chee Lan in the Hotel Universe in Satan's World;

van Rijn and Lennart speaking by phone in the Prologue;

Story on Babur in the Prologue - although there he was called Benoni Strang;

van Rijn many times.

Poul Anderson has learned how to write a Heinleinian future history series: continuing characters in familiar settings but always also new developments.

Chronologically, this is the last appearance of the Polesotechnic League characters although we will later see them in earlier instalments if we read the Technic History in its original book publication order.

Information Flow

Information flow is so important. Sometimes we know something and criticise someone else for not acting on that knowledge but did the person whom we are criticising have access to the relevant information at the time when they had to act? Sometimes it is necessary to trace not only the order in which events happened but also the order in which they were known to have happened and also when they were known by whom. I have heard people complain because they did not know something before they were told it. Recently, I heard that Lancaster University had initiated legal action against a student peace camp and that the students had called off the camp. Automatically I inferred that the students had caved in to the legal action. Indeed not. They had decided to close down the camp, at least for the summer, on the day before they received notice of legal action.

In Mirkheim, II, Grand Duchess Sandra is surprised when Nadi tells her that David Falkayn had been involved with the Supermetals company and she is surprised again when Nadi also mentions Nicholas van Rijn in this connection. If we have read "Lodestar," then we already know the full story. If we have not read "Lodestar" but have read Mirkheim consecutively to this point, then we should have been able to piece most of it together - but Sandra has not had our advantages.

The Prologue told us that Falkayn had discovered and named Mirkheim. Chapter I told us that van Rijn had forgiven Falkayn's betrayal of him regarding Mirkheim and also that Supermetals had concealed the trader team's discovery of the planet. For Sandra's benefit, Nadi summarizes the plot of "Lodestar." Indeed, later in the Technic History, that story will be published in The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Then at last anyone who is interested will have access to the full facts - at least anyone on Avalon.

In The Game Of Empire, Tachwyr wishes that Aycharaych were still alive to share a moment of victory. Consecutive readers of the Technic History know something that Tachwyr does not, namely that, even if Aycharacyh had somehow survived Flandry's bombardment of Chereion, then he, the last Chereionite, would no longer have any reason either to serve Merseia or to rejoice in its victories.

Breakfast And Work

Mirkheim, II.

What I was trying to convey in the previous post was a sense of daily life in the future: morning routines and rituals even if these were in the home of the Grand Duchess, not of a Hermetian commoner/"Traver." 

Sandra's bedroom opens onto a balcony from which she looks across Starfall to Daybreak Bay and the Auroral Ocean. Her breakfast room, when she strides there, is:

"...fragrant with cooking in the kitchen." (p. 51)

- although, unfortunately, we are not told what she and her son, Eric, consume apart from coffee. He stands as she enters in accordance with Hermetian custom. A waiter brings "...laden trays." (p. 52) The entire west wall is a window showing city buildings, farms and the Cloudhelm snowpeak above the horizon. 

We learn some Hermetian speech patterns:

"'You jest, not?'" (p. 53)

Although human beings throughout Technic civilization speak Anglic, each planet has its distinctive turns of phrase which we learn to recognise.

A Wodenite, Captain Nadi of Supermetals, requests and receives audience with Grand Duchess Sandra. Like Coya Conyon Falkayn, who had appeared in Chapter I, Nadi was introduced in "Lodestar," which becomes the prequel to Mirkheim.

Morning

Good morning.

Morning: sunrise; wakening; meditation; exercises (?); early news; breakfast.

In Mirkheim, II, the sun, Maia, rises from Daybreak Bay and shines on Starfall, capital city of the planet, Hermes. Grand Duchess Sandra wakes. She exercises during television news about the Mirkheim crisis. The Prime Minister of the Solar Commonwealth comments. Local news is about a Hermetian Liberation Front rally which concerns Sandra. She has breakfast with her son, Eric. More than this happens. However, on Earth right now, I am finishing breakfast and preparing for other activities so we will have to return to Hermes, hopefully later today!

Fair winds forever, as they say on Avalon.

Young Days Come Back

Mirkheim.

"'And so we fare forth again, we three and our ship, like our young days come back,' Adzel sighed, 'except that this time our mission is not into the hopeful yonder.'" (I, p. 46)

Adzel is a Wodenite addressing a Cynthian, Chee Lan, although the remaining member of the team that he refers to is a human being, David Falkayn. However, the author and readers of the novel are human. How much of human life is expressed in Adzel's words? We do things when we are young. We remember what we did then and can sometimes repeat it later although it is not the same. When Bill, a good cricketer, played again comparatively recently, someone said that it was "like having the old Bill back again," but that could hardly last. That cricket team no longer plays although its members are still with us.

Adzel and Chee Lan say more in the concluding pages.

Adzel: "'...those were good years. Were they not?'" (XXI, p. 289)

They agree to meet occasionally and to:

"'...swap lies about bygone times...'" (ibid.)

Chee Lan: "'We can't go home to what we left when we were young; it may still be, but we aren't, nor is the rest of the cosmos.'" (p. 290)

"'We enjoyed the trader game as long as that lasted.'" (p. 291)

They agree that they will continue to meet and confer on practical matters just as van Rijn will do what he can to hold the League together for a little while longer and we are content with that.

Two Culminations

Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League Tetralogy culminates in Mirkheim which ties together nearly every plot point.

The pre-Flandry section of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization culminates in The Earth Book Of Stormgate which encapsulates the entire Polesotechnic League period and more. Chronologically, the latest event in the pre-Flandry section is Hloch's compilation of the Earth Book even though the last story in that collection is succeeded by three Technic History instalments that are set between Mirkheim and the compilation of the Earth Book.

Current blog thought is that this section could be republished as two boxed sets:

I. The Polesotechnic League

Trader To The Stars (three instalments with a new introduction)

The Trouble Twisters (three instalments with new introductions)

Satan's World (novel)

Mirkheim (novel)

II. Avalon And Empire

The Saturn Game and other stories (three instalments)

The People Of The Wind (novel)

The Earth Book Of Stormgate (twelve instalments, including one novel, with new introductions and an afterword)

"The Saturn Game" is earlier than anything else but, in terms of collections, can only be fitted in where suggested, I think. It does not belong either in Trader To The Stars or in the Earth Book but has to go in somewhere. Of course, it comes first in Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga which presents the entire Technic History in chronological order of fictional events but there is something special in the original book publication order. Hloch introduces some stories by explaining why they had not been told until now.

Basic Problems With Time Travel III

While I am sitting here, a time traveller sets off into the past intending to prevent my parents from meeting. In this timeline, we know that he did not succeed because I exist now. But suppose he did succeed. Do I cease to exist now? No. His success generates a timeline in which I never existed, not a timeline in which I somehow existed into adulthood, then ceased to exist!

We have been through all this before but, as with analysis of Poul Anderson's Technic History, the issues always seem fresh and new. I am just passing the time over breakfast before going out for a bus ride and a walk. CS Lewis imagined a bus route between Heaven and Hell. Imagine a time travel bus route.

Basic Problems With Time Travel II

It is difficult to clarify the issues in the middle of a complicated argument but maybe we can work toward some degree of clarity afterwards.

Imagine that there is either a Wellsian Time Machine or a Time Patrol timecycle in the opposite corner of the room where I am sitting now. Five minutes from now, I will cross the room, sit on the vehicle and set off on a journey thirty years into the past. I will now stop writing in the future tense. Thirty years minus five minutes ago, I arrived/appeared. If my vehicle is a Time Machine, then I appeared in this room which did exist thirty years ago. If my vehicle is a timecycle, then I appeared either in this room or elsewhere. In either case, having arrived, I performed some simple action which had an effect then. Maybe I spoke and was heard by someone in earshot. Stop the example there. That is quite enough for us to deal with at one go!

Whatever my action and whatever its consequence, that consequence has already happened thirty years minus five minutes ago. The past tense statement in the immediately preceding sentence is true now while I am sitting here five minutes before walking across the room to mount the temporal vehicle and set off into the past. The consequence of my past action is not waiting to come into effect five minutes from now when I depart into the past. But sometimes people do think that events happen in that order. They think that, five minutes from now and not before, it will then become true that I spoke and was heard thirty years minus five minutes ago. 

Conceptual confusion reigns.

Basic Problems With Time Travel

One problem with time travel fiction is that readers or viewers think that the order in which events are presented to them is necessarily also the order in which they are experienced by the characters. 

Example:

In Poul Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," the Wanderer, secretly a time traveller, periodically visits a particular Gothic family. On one occasion, approaching their thorp, he enquires about Tharasmund and his kin. He has to be reminded that he himself had attended Tharasmund's funeral. Stunned, he withdraws but quietly asks a cowherd about the details of Tharasmund's death.

A friend read that and said that he did not understand why the Wanderer had forgotten Tharasmund's death! I pointed out that he merely visited at intervals. My friend insisted that he had been seen at the funeral...

Me: "But he then went back and attended the funeral."

Friend: "Ohh!"

It is a time travel story. Poul Anderson wrote that incident expecting his readers to understand that the Wanderer time travelled. With misunderstandings at such a basic level, it is no wonder that discussions of time travel become confused.

Authentic Dramatizations

Back from London.

I prefer to see, and occasionally do in fact see, authentic dramatizations of works of prose fiction. If I had any input into a screen adaptation either of HG Wells' The Time Machine or of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, then I would not want to change anything that the characters do or that is described as happening to or around them but I would want to edit some of their theoretical discussions. The Time Traveller says that all material objects merely extend along the temporal dimension, then claims that one such object, the Time Machine, accelerates in that direction, which means that it is moving, not just extending.

A Time Patrol instructor says that the law of non-contradiction is:

"'...not Aleph-sub-Aleph-valued...'" (Time Patrol, p. 10)

What does that mean?

Manse Everard, addressing Keith Denison, who therefore does exist here and now in the current timeline, claims that it might turn out to be the case that Keith Denison does not in fact exist here and now in the current timeline... Let's play that down, leave it out or find some other way to describe the situation.

On The Bridge

Mirkheim, IV.

En route to Babur, David Falkayn has one more memory on the bridge of the Muddlin' Through. First, he sees:

darkness

stars

the Milky Way

the Magellanic Clouds

the Andromeda galaxy

Then he reflects:

that space is not empty - it roils with matter, seethes with energy, bears stars and planets;

that the universe is not eternal - it has a strange destiny;

that life is "...sorrow and glory..." (p. 78)

With all this in mind:

"More than once Coya had gotten her wish that they make love here." (ibid.)

Well, right. We do not need to read any more about that. But we do gather that there was a whole period in Muddlin' Through that we would like to read a lot more about. But that would have been true of several periods no matter how long the Technic History was.

What The Trader Team Does When We Do Not See Them

In "Day of Burning," David Falkayn tells Morruchan Long-Ax, Hand of the Vach Dathyr, that he has seen planets where there had been all-out nuclear strikes and no civil defence: "planets," plural. Thus, he has been on at least two such planets between instalments. 

In Mirkheim, he remembers Coya beside him beholding crooked towers on a planet not yet named by human beings and, on another occasion, bringing him sandwiches and coffee while he studied readouts on a new planet that they were orbiting. These two memories are from the period when Coya had joined the team.

Are there any others? I don't think so.

Tomorrow will be a day trip to London by train, not coach, thus quicker than usual but nevertheless a day mostly away from the computer.

For some of us at least, Poul Anderson's Technic History remains endlessly fascinating.

A Long Time

Mirkheim, I.

Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew of David Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan operated for over twenty years. Coya Conyon was with them for five years. For an additional five or just for the last five of the twenty? We see the original team without Coya, and before van Rijn temporarily reassembled it, only in:

"The Trouble Twisters"

"Day of Burning"

Satan's World

"Lodestar"

According to Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, the first three of these instalments are set in the 2430s whereas "Lodestar" is in 2446. I know that the precise dates cannot be known but am just trying to get a sense of lengths of time.

My main point here is that we see very little of those twenty or twenty-five years. We want to see a lot more, including a collection of stories set during the five years when Coya is with the team.

Kinds Of Fictional Worlds

Sometimes a consistent fictional world presented in many instalments is created by a single author, e.g., Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien or the Technic History by Poul Anderson whereas some other fictional worlds are multi-authored, e.g., Star Trek. Quantity overcomes quality. Of these three series, I am a fan only of the Technic History. Talented authors can both create their own series and contribute to scenarios created by others, e.g., Anderson to the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space future history series; Niven to Star Trek. At the end of The Sandman: Worlds' End, Charlene Mooney decides to stay in the Inn of the Worlds' End to work in the kitchen and we are pleased to find that she is still there in Mike Carey's The Furies. (At least, I was.)

Anderson fans can check out Gaiman for fantasies featuring Norse gods, particularly Odin, as in some novels by Anderson. A body of myths is another kind of fictional world with no single author.

Injustices

(Problems with copying images.)

Mirkheim, Prologue, Y minus 7.

By his dispossession of the native Valyans, Sheldon Wyler of Stellar Metals has made an enemy of Lord Eric, son of Sandra, Grand Duchess of Hermes. Wyler replies to Eric:

"'...as for your threat - I admit I'm no expert on your people. But I do seem to remember they've got their own discontented class. Will they really want to take on the troubles of a bunch of goddam outsiders, long after these operations are over and done with? I doubt it. I think your mother has more sense.'" (p. 27)

As far as this goes, Wyler is correct. Hermetian inequities cause so much conflict that social change becomes inevitable. Sandra thinks that Hermes, while remaining nominally a duchy, will become in practice a republic.

A response to the injustices on Valya is really the responsibility of the Council of the Polesotechnic League. By founding Supermetals, David Falkayn has helped many of the poorer planets and species in Technic civilization but this does not prevent the continued perpetration of injustices elsewhere. The Technic History is very like real history. Later, in the Imperial period, Dominic Flandry will participate in the conquest of a planet.

Gabriel

Mirkheim, Prologue, Y minus 9.

"Then the phone chimed.

"'Wat drommel?' van Rijn growled. 'I told Mortensen no calls from anyone less rank than the angel Gabriel.'" (p. 12)

But van Rijn had also told Mortensen that he would speak to Hanny Lennart whenever she responded to his earlier attempted contact so that Mortensen now has no alternative but to enquire whether van Rijn will accept this call from Freelady Lennart. 

"...no calls from anyone less rank than the angel Gabriel..." is a picturesque way of saying, "No calls." Even those who believe in the literal existence of the archangel Gabriel do not expect him to use a telephone although, on reflection, we suppose that he could have done.

Gabriel is big in several traditions. See here.

Poul Anderson appropriately bestows the name, "Gabriel," on a character later in the Technic History. See here.

References In MIRKHEIM

Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1-291, Prologue, pp. 1-30.

This long and elaborate Prologue is divided into nine sections numbered from Y minus 500,000 to Y minus 1.

Y minus 500,000 describes the supernova with its super-Jovian planet that had been introduced in "Lodestar."

Y minus 28 introduces the sub-Jovian planet, Babur, whose inhabitants, the Baburites, had featured in "Esau."

Babur is visited by Benoni Strang from Hermes which is David Falkayn's home planet. Falkayn was introduced in "The Three-Cornered Wheel" and became a series character.

Both Strang and a Baburite refer not only to the Polesotechnic League but also to the Baburites' encounter with Nicholas van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company on the planet, Suleiman. This encounter had been the subject-matter of "Esau." Van Rijn first appeared in "Margin of Profit" and became a series character.

Y minus 24 reintroduces Sandra Tamarin, future Grand Duchess of Hermes, who had been with van Rijn on Diomedes in The Man Who Counts. We learn that they have had a son, Eric. This section is our first sight of the planet Hermes.

In Y minus 18, David Falkayn discovers the supermetals-coated planetary core orbiting the former supernova and names it Mirkheim.

In Y minus 12, Strang revisits Babur where he converses in Anglic, League Latin or Siseman, as appropriate.

Y minus 9 reintroduces van Rijn's penthouse on the roof of the Winged Cross in Chicago Integrate which we previously saw in "Esau" and "The Master Key."

Van Rijn converses with his protege, David Falkayn, and with his granddaughter, Coya, who was introduced in "Lodestar," has since married Falkayn and has now joined the trader team which we have seen in action in "Trader Team," "Day of Burning" and Satan's World.

Van Rijn receives a telephone call about the Garver bill. Edward Garver had hassled him in Satan's World and has risen higher since then.

This section also conveys new information about the Solar Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic League.

Y minus 7 introduces Eric Tamarin and reiterates that some League merchants oppress "natives," as already shown in "A Little Knowledge" and "Lodestar."

Y minus 5 imparts more about Strang, this time on a Baburite moon, and his plans for Hermes.

In Y minus 1, a third human being, after Falkayn and van Rijn, finds his way to Mirkheim and this time the public will be informed that this planet is the source of the supermetals sold by the Supermetals company in "Lodestar."

In Chapter VI, Sheldon Wyler refers to the Polesotechnic League's dealings with the Gethfennu criminal organization on Merseia. This was in "Day of Burning."

In this chapter, Falkayn recalls:

"...the splendor of an Ythrian on the wing..." (p. 109)

The Ythrians were introduced in "Wings of Victory" and "The Problem of Pain."

In Chapter VII, Sandra Tamarin in conversation with Eric refers to the fighting on Diomedes - in The Man Who Counts - and reflects on the threat of the Shenna - which had been addressed in Satan's World.

Of the works thus referenced directly or indirectly in Mirkheim, the following are collected in The Earth Book Of Stormgate:

"Wings of Victory"

"The Problem of Pain"

"Margin of Profit"

The Man Who Counts

"Esau"

"Day of Burning"

"A Little Knowledge"

"Lodestar"

Future History Apex

A Heinleinian future history series is pyramidal in structure with later instalments building on the foundations laid down by earlier instalments and maybe an apex encapsulating everything that has gone before. In Heinlein's Future History, this apex is Volume IV, Methuselah's Children, which refers back to everything important. The concluding Volume V, Orphans Of The Sky, is a brief epilogue or appendix.

Poul Anderson's Mirkheim is the apex of the Polesotechnic League period of his Technic History and The Earth Book Of Stormgate is another apex. More on this later. I am being interrupted by domestic responsibilities.

Two Wealth-Generating Planets

David Falkayn:

made a discovery that led to the discovery of the rogue planet, Satan, falling toward Beta Crucis;

made an enquiry that led to the realization that large scale transmutation of elements will become possible on Satan as it swings around Beta Crucis;

discovered Mirkheim where large scale mining of supermetals is possible.

Because there is faster than light interstellar travel, these planets cause conflicts between planetary civilizations.

Falkayn's employer, van Rijn, profits from Satan but not from Mirkheim. This is where Falkayn draws a line and addresses the inequalities in Technic civilization. His contributions are greater than those of van Rijn and Dominic Flandry combined.

A General Directive

Satan's World, XX.

When Muddlehead, the ship's computer, bombards a Dathynan castle, David Falkayn protests against any harm to non-combatants. Muddlehead replies:

"'In conformity with your general directive, I am taking the precaution of demolishing installations whose radio resonances suggest that they are heavy guns and missile racks.'" (p. 240)

I need hardly point out the current relevance of this passage. We are not on an extra-solar planet but we are on Earth where we have issues about non-combatants, guns and missiles. Muddlehead, consciousness-level, is able to understand and apply directives and to discuss their application. The computer is not programmed with Asimov's Three Laws which, in any case, refer specifically to human beings, not to any other kind of intelligent beings. 

Falkayn tells Thea Beldaniel that the Shenna have planned to wage war and have now experienced it but will not be exterminated but will be de-technologized and reduced to desert herders if they continue to resist. Lessons are learned the hard way. 

Non-Stop Action

Satan's World.

Life is lived at a fast pace. Chee Lan rescues David Falkayn on the Moon and both must immediately travel to the rogue planet, Satan, currently swinging around Beta Crucis. When, near Satan, an interrogated prisoner discloses the coordinates of the enemy planet, Dathyna, Chee Lan and Falkayn must immediately go there as spies while the Dathynans still believe that the location of their home planet remains a secret. Van Rijn deduces that his trade pioneer crew members have located Dathyna and have gone there to spy. In fact, he counts on this when he allows himself and Adzel to be taken prisoner by the Dathynans/Shenna. Even if Adzel and he cannot escape, they might be able to relay military intelligence to the other two. Long shots pay off. Two rescue two. Fortuna audentes iuvat.

Gamble

Satan's World, XX.

Nicholas van Rijn:

"...spent a few minutes with St. Dismas. If rage overrode prudence among the Shenna, despite the woman's pleas and arguments, he would not be long alive." (p. 206)

Van Rijn knows that the Shenna have a lot of rage but must also have some prudence. He must make an informed gamble. He could take Thea's advice and flee while he can although he does not think that his chances of evading the enemy destroyers would be good. He knows that she should be able to influence her particular Shenn. Weighing up the probabilities, he decides - and prays. Van Rijn's life has been lived on this basis and now things come to a head - although, fortunately, we will see him twice more, in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim.

Identifying A Problem

Satan's World, XX.

Nicholas van Rijn wonders what is wrong with the Shenna:

"What ailed those shooterbulls, anyhow? A high technological culture such as was needed to build robots and spaceships ought to imply certain qualities - a minimum of diplomacy and caution and enlightened self-interest - because otherwise you would have wrecked yourself before you had progressed that far...." (pp. 203-204)

I believe that the same argument applies to the kzinti in the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space future history series. 

Those are different but interconnected virtues: diplomacy; caution; enlightened self-interest. We know that no society could exist if every law was broken, if every legal order by an employer/manager etc was disobeyed, if every statement was a lie, if every coin or bank note offered was counterfeit, if every acolyte stabbed every high priest in the back etc! In fact, a lie is a counterfeit truth. The telling of a lie assumes that most statements made are true - or at least honest.

The answer with the Shenna, and I think with the kzinti, has to be that they are barbarians who have usurped a high technology and therefore might soon destroy themselves. 

From Our Period To Van Rijn's

Satan's World, XIX.

I use hearing aids which I hide behind shoulder length hair. Nicholas van Rijn's ringlets sometimes hide a button-sized:

"...transistorized sound amplifier, patterned after hearing aids from the period before regenerative techniques were developed." (p. 188)

- useful for eavesdropping. 

That pre-regenerative techniques period is our period! It is good to find a link, however small, back from van Rijn's period to ours. However, I do not expect our future to be anything like his present. Astronomers are now finding evidence of what might be Dyson spheres around nearby stars. If this is verified, then it will differ from the interstellar situation described in Anderson's Technic History but I will be happy then to know that humanity is not solely responsible for passing the lights of consciousness, intelligence and civilization into the future. 

Imagine if we are called to account at some time in the not too distant future:

How unified are you?

How civilized are you?

How compassionate are you?

Even worse: Imagine if we are typical or better than most? What is really out there?

Different Upbringings

Satan's World, XIX.

Thea Beldaniel defends her alien upbringing:

"'Oh, I know the Earthside jargon. I know it gave us deviant personalities. But what is the norm, honestly, Nicholas? We're different from other humans, true. But human nature is plastic. I don't believe you can call us warped, any more than you yourself are because you were brought up in a particular tradition. We are healthy and happy.'" (p. 189)

Slow down Thea. Human nature is plastic and there is no single norm. Diplomacy is recognition that there are many different norms. But different upbringings can warp us in all sorts of ways. I make the definite claim that I was warped but my daughter has not been. Each of us needs to examine our upbringing, not to defend it on the ground that it was just another, albeit different, upbringing.

Centuries later, van Rijn's descendant, Tabitha Falkyan, brought up by Ythrians, will be a free individual, not a slave like Thea.

Relativity Of Simultaneity

Whether one tree is to the left of, to the right of, in front of or behind another is entirely a matter of the direction from which they are observed. Similarly, and within certain light-speed limits, whether one event is earlier than, simultaneous with or later than another is a matter of the velocity and direction of motion of the observer. This relativity of simultaneity holds in the Technic History universe even when multiple quantum jumps of a spaceship break the relativistic light-speed barrier. Thus, Adzel cannot tell van Rijn what Falkayn and Chee Lan are likely to be doing now. "Now" is relative. During a long section of Satan's World, van Rijn and Adzel are active in one region of interstellar space while Falkayn and Chee Lan are active in another although there is no one-to-one simultaneity between any of their activities. Similarly, in the Chronology, several stories "overlap." The instalments are not all related linearly. We are invited to imagine a volume of space in which different events occur in different places and with relativity of simultaneity.

Robots And Organisms

Satan's World, XVII.

Robots have speed and precision but not decision-making capability whereas an intelligent organism has:

comparable "...sensor-computer-effector systems..." (p. 165);

glands, fluids and chemistry down to the molecular level;

organismic integration and complexity;

instincts expressing a billion years of natural selection;

holistic perception and thought, transcending symbolisms;

internal and flexible motivation.

Even self-programming robots still have narrower limits than their designers.

Poul Anderson describes the processes by which organisms become conscious although I do not think that anyone can explain the emergence of consciousness.

In The Library Of Dreams

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novels series, the Library of Dreams contains every book that has never been written or that exists only in dreams, e.g.:

Alice's Adventures Behind The Moon by Lewis Carroll;

The Emperor Over The Sea by CS Lewis;

Lord Greystoke On Barsoom by Edgar Rice Burroughs;

The Bestselling Romantic Spy Thriller I Used To Think About On The Bus That Would Sell A Billion Copies And Mean I'd Never Have To Work Again by an unnamed dreamer.

My daughter, Aileen, said that she had seen an eighth Narnia book somewhere in the house...

Poul Anderson must have many works in the Library of Dreams. I can think of at least three.

"As for what became of those who were still alive at the end of the book, and the sword, and Faerie itself - which obviously no longer exists on Earth - that is another tale, which may someday be told."

-Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1977), FOREWORD, p. 12.

The withdrawal of the Fairies from Earth is mentioned in The Sandman. Poul Anderson wrote many more relevant works but did not return to this specific theme although it is alluded to in The Merman's Children.

Secondly, another non-existent title: Emperor Flandry. The plot would be that there is another succession crisis and the Policy Board invites Dominic Flandry to ascend the Throne.

Thirdly, The Return Of Aycharaych. This might also tell us what became of the Merseians.

Also, of course, entire series about Diana Crowfeather, Roan Tom, the Long Night, the Allied Planets and Rangers of the Commonalty.

Control Of The Universe?

"STAR WANDERER

"CAST OFF FROM ITS FELLOW BITS OF CONDENSING MATTER AT THE BIRTH OF THE GALAXY, THE PLANET HAD NEVER KNOWN ANOTHER STAR; FOR ALL OF TIME IT SWUNG FREE IN THE VASTNESS OF INTERSTELLAR SPACE. NOW MERE CHANCE WAS BRINGING IT CLOSE TO THE STAR BETA CRUCIS...A CHANCE SO IMPROBABLE THAT THE ODDS AGAINST THE MEETING WERE ALMOST INCALCULABLE. AND AS IT DRIFTED INTO THE SPHERE OF MEN, THE SECRETS OF THE WANDERER WERE VALUABLE ENOUGH TO UNLEASH FORCES THAT AIMED FOR NOTHING LESS THAN THE TOTAL CONTROL OF THE UNIVERSE!"

-Blurb on Poul Anderson, Satan's World (New York, 1972), back cover.

All accurate except for the concluding six words! Surely the novel is dramatic enough without adding a falsehood about control of the universe? Poul Anderson frequently emphasizes that Technic civilization is confined to a single volume of space at the far edge of one spiral arm of one galaxy. Other galaxies are seen but that is all. Controlling the whole universe, if that idea is even conceivable, would be an entirely different story. If such a narrative could be made coherent, then Anderson would have been able to tell it but he did not.

Gahood's Fleet

Satan's World, XIII.

David Falkayn and Chee Lan in Muddlin' Through confront a fleet of twenty-three spaceships: nineteen streamlined destroyers, two cruisers and a large, heavily armed, spherical battleship. This is a formidable adversary. However, the fleet, approaching with reckless speed, remains in a tight formation. Also, Falkayn realizes that every vessel but the battleship is too small and must be two full of instruments to carry a crew. Deduction: everything but the battleship is robotic. The being called Gahood who commands the fleet might be a war lord with a personal following who has come to Satan without having to consult with anyone else. 

Chee Lan comments:

"'....I feel a touch more hope. The enemy isn't quite as formidable as he seemed.'" (XV, p. 143)

Faced with such a fleet, they are neverteless able to deduce that it is not as formidable as feared. Deductions from technology have sociological implications. Falkayn will defeat the fleet and learn a lot about his enemy. 

 

Between Two Novels

In the original reading order of the Technic History, we went directly from Mirkheim to The People Of The Wind, a big historical jump. In fact, four stories are set between these two novels. Two, "Wingless" and "Rescue on Avalon," are in The Earth Book Of Stormgate which follows The People Of The Wind. One, "The Star Plunderer," was inappropriately collected in a volume entitled The Long Night. The remaining story, "Sargasso of Lost Starships," had never been collected.

Therefore, The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, collects in their correct order:

Mirkheim

"Wingless"

"Rescue on Avalon"

"The Star Plunderer"

"Sargasso of Lost Starships"

The People Of The Wind

This is the pivotal Saga volume, beginning with the decline of the Polesotechnic League and ending with the early Terran Empire. The League begins in Volume I, the Empire ends in Volume VII and there is history both before the League and after the Empire. 

David Falkayn's Granddaughter

All of this information is in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire.

In Mirkheim, David  and Coya Falkayn already have a young daughter, Juanita. Then their son, Nicholas, named after his great-grandfather, Nicholas van Rijn, is born near the end of the novel.

In "Wingless," Nicholas Falkayn has a son, Nathaniel/"Nat," on Avalon.

In The People Of The Wind, their descendant, Tabitha Falkayn, tells Philippe Rochefort, that David Falkayn's granddaughter had named Avalon when he had decided to colonize that planet.

We deduce that that granddaughter, unnamed in the text, was Juanita's daughter. We want to know more. Mirkheim does show us David's mother and brothers on Hermes. There is some information there that we can dig out.

"Lodestar," in Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, imparts some information about the generation between van Rijn and his granddaughter, Coya. Mirkheim also features van Rijn's son on Hermes.

Future history is also future biography and genealogy.

Clouds And Icebergs

Satan's World, XII.

Clouds are white if they are steam, black if they are volcanic smoke and grey and lightning-riven if they are meteorological. Melting glaciers cascading from mountain ranges flood stony plains lashed by earthquakes, wind and rain. Cold air transforms vapours into continent-covering mists which are dispersed by tornadoes and gales. Island-sized icebergs crash and destroy each other under monstrous waves. The thin upper atmosphere is turbulent enough to rock a descending spaceship as the noise penetrates her hull. 

David Falkayn names the planet "Satan" because of its interactions between fire and ice. One of his granddaughters will name another planet "Avalon." The Falkayns leave their mark. And I am trying to summarize and communicate some of Poul Anderson's descriptions of the natural drama of cosmic events.

A Dynamic Series

Satan's World begins with David Falkayn, then becomes a trader team novel because Chee Lan and Adzel are backing up Falkayn but then Nicholas van Rijn comes on-stage, running his company from Earth. After Adzel and Chee Lan, directed by van Rijn, have rescued Falkayn, we follow parallel narratives about two sub-teams: van Rijn and Adzel; Falkayn and Chee Lan. But the tripartite team are back together again, heading out into space, at the conclusion of the novel. But everything has really changed for them because they are now rich enough not to have to do this. It is like the later Star Trek films. And the situation will be very different again in the next novel, Mirkheim, which concludes the Polesotechnic League series. In other words, Poul Anderson does not get set into a rut and everything changes all the time.

Local And Future History

 

OK. Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization has an intricate structure which is not only fascinating but also somehow dynamic at least when the reader's attention shifts back and forth between the two equally valid reading orders for the first main section of the history. Either we begin and end this section with the earlier published collections, Trader To The Stars and The Earth Book Of Stormgate, or instead we read through the first twenty four instalments in their fictional chronological order as presented in Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III (of VII).

When I posted earlier today, I had just returned from the Heysham Viking Festival which has a ship and people in costume practising crafts in tents. Many wear Thor's hammer as a medallion. St. Peter's Church in Heysham is over a thousand years old and there is also a ruined St. Patrick's Chapel overlooking Morecambe Bay. We live and breathe history and project future history.

Van Rijn And Falkayn

Nicholas van Rijn has some adventures, David Falkayn has some adventures, then Falkayn leads van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew/trader team. This summary more or less covers the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy:

Trader To The Stars (van Rijn collection)

The Trouble Twisters (Falkayn collection)

Satan's World (van Rijn and Falkayn novel)

Mirkheim (van Rijn and Falkayn novel)

- with two qualifications:

first, in Mirkheim, the team has been disbanded for several years but van Rijn reassembles it for a special mission;

secondly, by the end of Mirkheim, the Polesotechnic League has entered its terminal decline and Falkayn has had to become acting CEO of SSL while van Rijn travels around in the team's former spaceship, Muddlin' Through, trying to hold the League together for a short while longer. 

Next, readers get the best of two worlds:

first, the Technic History continues into new eras;

secondly, however, an omnibus collection, fictitiously compiled during one of the later periods, presents eight further Polesotechnic League instalments, the same number as are in the Tetralogy, and these extra instalments feature:

van Rijn;

the team of Falkayn, Adzel and Chee Lan;

van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya Conyon, whom we have already seen as Falkayn's wife in Mirkheim;

Ythrians - the next major plot development after the League;

Merseians, another major plot development, which had appeared in Mirkheim;

the planet Mirkheim before the events of Mirkheim.

We have seen the end of the Polesotechnic League but we get it back! Fiction can work like that although not reality:

"Bid time return..."

Satan In-Fall

Satan's World, XI.

The surface of the rogue planet, Satan, is covered with frozen oceans and by ten to twenty metres of frozen atmosphere. Its temperature is close to absolute zero. Nevertheless, the magnetic field indicates that part of the planetary core is still molten. As in Norse mythology, the dialectical opposites of heat and cold interact. Mantle, crust and frozen surface insulate core heat. 

As Satan falls toward Beta Crucis, its cryosphere dissolves. Glaciers melt into torrents which boil into winds. Melting ice moves masses. Mountains rise. Shifting intra-global pressures release energy that melts rocks. Thousands of volcanoes erupt. There are geysers, hail, rain and boulders whirled aloft by gales/tempests/hurricanes.

Some of the drama in Poul Anderson's works is in natural events alone. The novel is mainly about the industrial potential of a re-energized uninhabited planet. Without a nearby technological civilization, the transformation of Satan would have passed unnoticed with no extraplanetary consequences.

Norse-Technic Interfaces

Van Rijn arranges weregild for the families of Gorzuni mercenaries.

He quotes, "Bare is brotherless back.'" (Satan's World, X, p. 99)

Burning with fury, David Falkayn:

"...might have been reliving ancient incarnations as he swung a Viking ax..." (XI, p. 101)

The changes on Satan as it approaches Beta Crucis are compared to Ragnarok.

Dominic Flandry sees time as the snake gnawing the root of Yggdrasil.

Ginnungagap is referenced both in "The Saturn Game" and in "Starfog."

Those are seven examples. Anderson readers can turn back to Hrolf Kraki's Saga etc.

Huma On Luna

Satan's World, X.

If we pull back from The Technic Civilization Saga and consider The Trouble Twisters and Satan's World as discrete volumes, it is obvious that these two books form a continuous sequence. The trader team has come into existence in the third and last story in The Trouble Twisters and continues to operate in the opening chapters of Satan's World. We have skipped past the team's adventure on Merseia in "Day of Burning" but will catch up with that in The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Meanwhile, we appreciate some humour in Satan's World.

"Garver suppressed most of his automatic rage at glimpsing that man." (p. 94)

- "that man" being Nicholas van Rijn. Automatic rage! Garver ought to learn to appreciate van Rijn as a colourful character. Certainly, Garver has grounds to disapprove of the machinations of this and other Master Merchants. As a law enforcement officer:

"...he saw his agents retreat, baffled and disheartened, from a trail that led to the League..." (p. 92)

Unlike some Anderson readers, I do not cheer the League. But the humour continues. When Kim of Serendipity refers to van Rijn as a "gentleman":

"Each word seemed to taste individually bad; he spat them out fast." (p. 94)

When Kim says that van Rijn will broker the sale of Serendipity, Garver groans:

"'At a fat commission...'" (p. 95)

- and Kim cannot refrain from groaning:

"'Very fat.'" (ibid.)

Serendipity patrol boats were shot down not by Chee Lan but by malfunctioning guns in the castle tower. Indeed, Chee Lan valiantly demolished the tower in an attempt to save the Serendipity people but too late!

Finally, conceding that Serendipity has settled with van Rijn, Kim speaks:

"...like one up whom a bayonet has been rammed." (p. 97)

Serendipity has learned what we already knew: don't mess with van Rijn.