Incomprehensible Damage

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Savage Didonians attack Flandry's group and their native allies:

"It was hard to understand why the savages were ignoring the humans, who had inflicted all the damage on them. Was the sight so strange as not to be readily comprehensible?" (p. 480)

Of course. Among everything else that is going on around him, an attacking Didonian might notice first that some of his comrades are suffering sudden massive physical injuries and secondly that some of the bipeds that he is attacking are holding one of their forelimbs out in front of them but he cannot possibly infer a causal relationship between an outstretched forelimb over there and a sudden injury over here. He sees flying spears and arrows if those familiar weapons are being deployed but he cannot see flying energy beams, slugs or sonic stun beams. He cannot possibly know that is the aliens that are inflicting all the damage.

To understand what is happening, we have to put aside our pre-existing knowledge.

Science And Culture

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

When Flandry remarks that the Didonians must have:

"'...some interesting sexual variations...'" (p. 472)

- Kathryn McCormac acts embarrassed. Flandry is surprised. She is a scientist and also strong enough not to let the events of her captivity cripple her indefinitely. Here, Flandry shows a surprising lack of understanding of the relationship between science and culture. Scientists can compartmentalize their minds. If asked questions about a range of non-scientific issues like theology or morality, some scientists will reply, "Ask a priest (or rabbi, imam etc)," in the same way as anyone will ask a lawyer about a will, a doctor about an illness or a mechanic about a car. "That's not my department." Morality is everyone's department. 

Files

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TEN.

Aaron Snelund on bureaucratic obstructionism:

"'Reports were filed and forgotten.'" (p. 469)

- among other things.

When I was at College, myself and a few other students were in some kind of Equal Opportunities working group - the details have receded - with tutorial support from a member of the teaching staff. One of my fellow students submitted a report in which, addressing our tutor, he wrote something like, "I do not think that you are concerned about this issue and that you are just paying lip service to it." Apparently, when the tutor next saw the student, he just smiled and thanked him for the report. My guess is that the tutor, on seeing that he had received a report of a couple of paragraphs signed and dated by that student, merely countersigned, dated and filed the report without reading it. Job done. Paperwork completed. I like to think that, decades later, when the College was closed and files were being cleared out, someone read that report and received a surprise. How many unread reports are there in files around the world?

When I started a new job in late 1989, everything was still on paper. There was one computer in the office that no one did anything with yet. We passed hand-written reports to a typist. When I left in 2012, there was no typist, everyone worked on his or her individual PC and I was using a lap top for leisure purposes at home. In those early days, a work colleague told me that he might get on the Internet that evening and was there anything that I would like him to look up? I said, "Poul Anderson." Next day, he reported back that there were three whole sites about Anderson.

Conscience

"Seeing the anguish upon [Persis], Flandry knew in full what it meant to make an implement of a sentient being."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 131.

This, together with the subsequent loss of his youth (also here), is one of the early learning moments for young Flandry.

In The Rebel Worlds, he thinks that he will be a more efficient Imperial officer if he can jettison his conscience. Come off it, Flandry. There are things that you will not do. He himself says that he would join the McCormac Rebellion rather than return Kathryn to Snelund.

However, I can see no reason why the Danellians would not recruit some conscienceless human beings to the Time Patrol. They have to ensure that the Holocaust happens on historical schedule...

Matter And Mind

The Rebel Worlds. CHAPTER NINE.

Flandry's first, mistaken, impression of the Didonians is that they have no hands:

"What value would an intelligence have that could not actively reshape its environment?" (p. 451)

Such an intelligence would not come into existence. Sensitivity became sensation. Manipulation of the environment led to thought about that environment. Physical organisms became conscious, then intelligent. Mind is based in matter, not independent of it.

Can dolphins be intelligent? See Larry Niven's "The Handicapped."

Meanwhile...

The Rebel Worlds.

To be shot down on Dido and to lose his first command looks like a catastrophe for Dominic Flandry. However, on all but our first reading of this novel, we know that these dramatic events will give Flandry the means to defeat and expel the rebels and to eliminate Aaron Snelund, in fact to wrap up the whole plot neatly and efficiently. We also know that an expert author is orchestrating this entire sequence of events with that end in view!

A novel with an interstellar imperial setting presupposes planetary populations comprising billions of individuals whose lives indeed have their ups and downs although they are not directed towards any satisfactory outcome by the author. I would like to read an account of a Terran civil servant who, through his work, knows of events at Jihannath and in Sector Alpha Crucis but meanwhile also has personal preoccupations that occupy most of his attention - a different narrative perspective on the same historical events.

The Technic History does present alternative perspectives but more would always be welcome.

Sensies

The Rebel Worlds.

After crash-landing on Dido:

"When the lock was opened full, the air turned into a steam bath. Odors blew strange, a hundred pungencies, fragrant, sharp, rotten, spicy, nameless. Men gasped..." (CHAPTER EIGHT, p. 443)

Words can express this. Films are only audiovisual - so far. Aaron Snelund had been:

"'...a sensie actor...'" (CHAPTER TWO, p. 385)

Would a sensie audience smell the odours and gasp in the steam bath? 

Of course, we go further and imagine a virtual reality in which we can live the role of Flandry or one of the other characters and are we living in a simulation already? Some argue we are. I doubt it. Either we are in a base reality or we are in a simulation so complete that we will never know. But, as ever, let's see the evidence.

League And Empire

The Polesotechnic League period of Poul Anderson's Technic History begins in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, and ends with the first instalment in Volume III and has three novels whereas the Terran Empire period begins in Volume III and ends at the mid-point of Volume VII and has either eight or eleven novels depending on whether we include the three Dominic Flandry novellas (?) that were included in collections but had also been long enough to be published as separate volumes. I acknowledge that some prose fictions are longer than short stories but shorter than novels but am not clear on the uses of the words, "novella" and "novelette."

That's all for now, folk.

Addendum: 

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"/We Claim These Stars! is long enough to count as a short novel. I have a copy somewhere.

"A Message in Secret" is only 57 pages in Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire, far too short.

"A Plague of Masters"/Earthman, Go Home! might be long enough.

Rovian

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER FOUR.

Maybe we cannot find fault with Rovian the Ferran if he simply does not have what we regard as morality but can any rational being have no values or loyalties? Rovian has some. When Flandry says:

"'Refuse if you think I'm a fool." (p. 409)

- Rovian, licking his sabre teeth and switching his tail - it is like a conversation with an animal - responds:

"'I do not refuse my captain... I, a Brother of the Oath." (ibid.)

He then suggests ways to make his captain's tactics "'...more elegant.'" (ibid.)

OK. He is a good guy or at least a guy that we can work with. But, if you tell him to restrain a crowd, then make sure to add that he should not do this by killing them all.

The loyalty of Chee Lan, the Cynthian, extends, very strongly, to her shipmates but not much further. Her employer is a lower priority.

The Two Parts Of The Technic History

When I refer to the first of the two main parts of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, I mean by this the six volumes plus three extra short stories, a potential additional volume, that culminate in The Earth Book Of Stormgate. With a changed reading order, this "first part" corresponds to Volumes I-III of Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis. 

Hloch of Stormgate Choth on Avalon is the main fictional historian of the "first part." Hloch introduces all twelve of the instalments collected in the Earth Book and this is exactly half of the instalments in the "first part." Thus, Hloch's introductions permeate the first two and a half volumes of the Saga. He signs off at the mid-point of Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire.

The second part of the Technic History has no such historian although Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaelogical Society, could have fulfilled this role. He introduces the story that immediately follows the last Earth Book instalment in Volume III but then is heard from no more.

CHAPTER SIX of The Rebel Worlds, in Volume IV, Young Flandry, opens with a passage that could have been attributed to Ayeghen or to someone similar. This passage describes the star Virgil and its fourth planet Aeneas. The reader is addressed directly:

"You must bear in mind..." (p. 420)

"...the University of Virgil in Nova Roma drew students and scholars from greater distances than you might expect." (p. 421)

This passage presents the narrative point of view neither of Dominic Flandry, the central character of the novel, nor of Hugh McCormac who becomes the viewpoint character of this chapter after a double space between paragraphs.

A Palpable Sense Of Troubled Times

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER TWO. 

Let me back up that sense of troubled times (here).

Unusual circumstances are necessary to explain why a mere Lieutenant is reporting to a Vice Admiral, not to a Captain or to his usual superior.

Kheraskov has to judge that he is talking to someone who will not betray him by reporting him to the Imperial court. (That would result in preferment for Flandry and ruin for Kheraskov.)

Kheraskov and some of his colleagues have learned things that Flandry hushed up about his assignment to surveillance. That can only mean his dealings with the criminal, Leon Ammon. Yet Flandry is brilliant enough that a high echelon in Intelligence can turn a blind eye when they need someone like him.

Kheraskov paces, hammering palm with fist, talking rapidly. What he has to say matches this build-up.

A sense of menace to both men: I trust that "palpable" is an accurate description.

Shifting Wind

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER THREE.

"The wind shifted." (p. 392)

We have learned to heed the wind. It usually means something. Sure enough:

"...Flandry gagged. One of his mem must suddenly vomit." (ibid.)

The new Imperial resident on Shalmu has imposed heavy taxes, enslavement and crucifixions. Carrion birds and insects feed on rotting bodies lashed to wooden crosses. Hence, nauseating wind. And the Sector governor is an Imperial favourite. 

This novel raises issues of loyalty and legitimacy. Flandry's Ferran Executive Officer, not understanding human morality, thinks that repression is bad only if it provokes rebellion. But Flandry does understand and will act accordingly.

The wind shifting suggests winds of change. Chunderban Desai will have to deal with part of the aftermath in the following novel.

One Bachelor And Several Admirals

Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 367-520.

"...at the opposite end of Terra's domain, twinned Alpha and bachelor Beta of the Southern Cross." 

-CHAPTER TWO, p. 386.

In what sense is Beta Crucis a bachelor?

The red giant star, Betelgeuse, with its large inhabited planetary system, lies between the Terran Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate. Sector Alpha Crucis is at the opposite end of the Empire. Beyond that Sector, there are only barbarians with spaceships and atomic weapons acquired from civilization.

Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov orders Lieutenant Commander Flandry to report to Rear Admiral Yamaguchi. Later in his career, Flandry will be a Fleet Admiral. What are all these kinds of Admirals? A Wikipedia article explains all, here. Somewhere in there, I found the explanation that a Rear Admiral is indeed to be found at the rear of a fleet.

Kheraskov explains to Flandry that, while the Merseians are pushing at Jihannath, there is repression and potential rebellion in Sector Alpha Crucis. The sense of troubled times is palpable. Flandry's career accelerates.

Pulsar And Son Of Man

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTERs EIGHTEEN-NINETEEN.

Flandry in his Comet-class scoutboat uses a storm, then a pulsar, to evade Merseian pursuit. Like Larry Niven's Beowulf Shaeffer in "Neutron Star" (Known Space future history), he swings around a pulsar.

Flandry:

"'Gray waves. Somebody under primary acceleration.'" (p. 352)

That should be "Grav waves." This is about the third occurrence of this miss-print.

Djana:

"Son of Man, help us." (p. 353)

Another Biblical quote, of course. We can be so used to Biblical phrases that we don't question them but why "Son of Man" instead of "Son of God"? A "son of man" is just a man but "one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven," the complete phrase, is not a man. He is a supernatural humanoid being. 

Djana continues to pray:

"'God have mercy,' she cried with her whole being. 'Oh, send them back where they belong!'" (ibid.)

Her psychic power, carefully nurtured by her enemy, Ydwyr, works. The pursuit recedes.

Cynthians And Ryellians

Two other species are mentioned in the period discussed here, one important elsewhere in the Technic History, the other not.

The civil authority of Sector Alpha Crucis is located in Catawrayannis on Llynathawr which the Terran Empire bought from its Cynthian discoverers. Elsewhere in the History:

there are references to the treetop trade routes of the squirrel-like Cynthians;

a Cynthian is the xenobiologist in Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew, led by David Falkayn;

a Cynthian represents the Supermetals company founded by David Falkayn;

there is a Cynthian in the Terran Navy during its attack on Avalon, the colony founded by David Falkayn;

Falkayn and Djana leave Irumclaw in a Cynthian ship;

there is a Cynthian-run inn and a Cynthian settlement on Daedalus.

Ryellians are expert telepaths in the Terran Empire but Aycharaych is able to conceal his superior mental powers from them.

Ceremony And Tradition

A Circus Of Hells.

"[Merseians] set more store by ceremony and tradition, even that of aliens, than latter-day humans did."

-CHAPTER ONE, p. 198.

Indeed, when Djana wants to give Flandry Christian burial, Ydwyr says:

"'It would not be right to forbid your giving your dead their due.'"

-CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 333.

The Merseian attitude accords with the best human practice. Everyone but a few sectarians takes for granted that we attend weddings and funerals of friends and colleagues, irrespective of tradition. 

Someone in the South of Ireland tried to organize a boycott of a wedding when their cousin, brought up like them in Catholicism, married in the Church of Ireland. They succeeded in organizing a boycott of themselves. When the Pope said it was ok for Catholics to attend non-Catholic weddings, he was authorizing what anyone with any sense, including my mother, was already doing.

I attended a handfast (Pagan wedding) where the appropriate deity was invoked for each of the two people. Since one was Christian, her deity was "the Lord Jesus." It would have been wrong to leave him out.

(A bit waffly but I'm having to switch off.)

Species In The First Four Novels Of The Flandry Period

Starkad has two intelligent species, land- and sea-dwellers. After Starkad, Flandry visits Merseia and later travels in a trader crewed by Irumclagians.

Later still, Flandry is based on Irumclaw.

Wayland has no organic inhabitants but does have robots controlled by one human-made conscious computer.

Talwin has two intelligent species, hibernators and estivators.

Dido and Aeneas are in the Virgilian System in Sector Alpha Crucis. En route to that Sector, Flandry, commanding an Imperial ship, visits the inhabited planet, Shalmu. His Executive Officer is a Ferran.

Dido has three species that link to form a single composite intelligence.

Aeneas has no natives, was colonized by the Ancients and currently by human beings and is visited by a Chereionite and an Ythrian. Also, the mascots of the Aenean tinerans are the telepathic parasites that had destroyed the Ancient/Chereionite interstellar civilization.

The moral of the story: Poul Anderson keeps them coming.

The Aycharaych Narrative Thread

A Circus Of Hells

(i) Ydwyr describes Aycharaych to Djana, imparting some information that is not to be found anywhere else, e.g., that Aycharaych has a castle on Chereion at a place called Raal.

(ii) Ydwyr mentions Aycharaych to Dominic Flandry who misses the opportunity to learn more. 

The Day Of Their Return

Aycharaych is active on Aeneas where he meets Chunderban Desai but not Flandry.

"Honorable Enemies"

Flandry and Aycharaych meet and clash for the first time on Alfzar in the Betelgeusean System.

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

(i) Flandry and Aycharaych converse in the Crystal Moon in Jupiter orbit.

(ii) Flandry captures Aycharaych in the Sky Cave but the Merseians insist on a prisoner exchange.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows

(i) Flandry and Desai discuss Aycharaych in the Coral Palace.

(ii) Flandry and Aycharaych converse in the Terran-Merseian base on Talwin.

(iii) Flandry neutralizes Aycharaych as an agent of Merseia, and probably also kills him, by ordering the Dennitzan bombardment of Chereion. (Aycharaych is the last Chereionite so Flandry and the Dennitzans do not commit genocide.)

The Game Of Empire

Tachwyr wonders whether Aycharaych will come back. You never know with the Chereionite...

Flandry and Aycharaych meet five times but in only three instalments. There is a three-stage introduction of Aycharaych. A long time later, his return is thought to be possible. The Technic History never really ends.

Narrative Threads

We can follow narrative threads through Poul Anderson's Technic History, e.g.:

Ythrians

Merseians in general or Tachwyr in particular

Aycharaych

particular fictional planets

In The Day Of Their Return, Aycharaych, working for the Merseians, imprisons and interrogates an Ythrian on the planet, Aeneas.

The planet, Starkad, is introduced in Ensign Flandry, and Starkadians have been evacuated to Imhotep in The Game Of Empire.

The planet, Talwin, is introduced in A Circus Of Hells and is mentioned as the site of a Terran-Merseian base in The Day Of Their Return and that base is the venue for meetings of Flandry with both Tachwyr and Aycharaych in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

Rrinn

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Escaping from the Merseians, Flandry reviews his knowledge of Talwin:

"Snowfall was moving south from the poles. The Ruadrath would be leaving the ocean..." (p. 316)

Surely snow is moving south from the North Pole and north from the South Pole? But the main point is that Flandry is in the northern hemisphere. Now we are about to learn about the Ruadrath. CHAPTER SIXTEEN begins:

"When first they woke, the People had no names. He who was Rrinn ashore was an animal at the bottom of the sea." (p. 317)

Rrinn will be our viewpoint character for just under six pages until he comes face to face with a being that is:

"Not a Merseian! Too erect. No tail. Face yellowish-brown where it was not covered with hair -" (p. 322)

A double space between paragraphs signals the return to Flandry as viewpoint character. pp. 317-322 have informed us about the Ruadrath.

Ydwyr's Den

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Ydwyr's den is quite a place. See:

In Ydwyr's Private Quarters

In Ydwyr's Private Quarters

In Ydwyr's Private Quarters II

Ydwyr And Djana

Ulfan-gryf, Avalrik And Ydwyr

I agree with Ydwyr's study of esoteric practices but not with the uses that he puts them to. He does not teach Djana but manipulates her. His supremacism prevents him from seeing that there is anything wrong with this. He has learned a lot from Aycharaych.

A Circus Of Hells and The Day Of Their Return are prequels to "Honorable Enemies."

Ydwyr describes Aycharaych to Djana and mentions him to Flandry.

Aycharaych is in action on Aeneas before he meets Flandry.

Finally, they meet.

The Way And The Wind

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Ydwyr does some work on Djana, which he later calls a reconditioning.

He refers to the Old Way. She refers to the Old Way to the One. These are clearly the same Way. He says that they must not tread this Way to the end because they must cope with the teal world and cannot do this by abandoning reason. In my opinion, the One is the single reality. It incorporates what we usually call the real world and the way to it is by transcendence, not abandonment, of reason. But I have addressed this issue before.

When Djana is at peace, the wind lulls, tossing her hair and caressing her skin whereas, when she returns to the base where Ydwyr will tell her of a threat to Flandry, the elements change accordingly: dusk falls, chill increases, wind loudens...

Addendum: The passage summarized immediately above ends: "...stars blinked forth." (p. 306) The stars play their role. Recently, they "jeered" on Wayland. However, I wanted to emphasize the symbolism of the transition from lulling to loudening wind.

Djana And Merseia

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Djana wonders whether she has begun:

"...to enter a higher truth, which muted the winds outside..." (p. 295)

So far, the winds outside have represented a threat. Maybe, for once, Djana can counteract that threat?

She becomes immersed in attractive aspects of Merseian culture but that includes ideology. Merseians realize that it is absurd to dream of conquering the whole galaxy? (p. 296) This is typical ideological prevarication. Everyone realizes that it is absurd to think of governing the entire galaxy from a single point but the Merseians do not need to do that. As Max Abrams realized, what matters to them is not the nation-state but the race. They envisage a network of Merseian-ruled realms encompassing the galaxy. They do intend to conquer the galaxy. "Rule" means not tyranny over others, but freedom for themselves? (ibid.) I am sure that there have been Terrestrial conquerors who believed that. We can probably think of examples.

Merseians' Limitations

It is hard to find a sympathetic Merseian in the Roidhunate. Cnif is an ok guy but, like apparently everyone else in the Wilwidh culture, he unconsciously patronizes other rational species. Ydwyr recognizes that such species can make a contribution but wants them on board only as junior partners. Flandry realizes that the Roidhunate misses out by underestimating its subject races. Will it miss out to the extent of provoking rebellions that it assumes will never happen? What we do see is the Roidhunate suffering several major defeats by the Terran Empire. These defeats will demoralize the Roidhunate leadership long term. Events that we do not see happen between volumes but we can infer some of what must have happened.

Brief post. Busy today.

Past Posts About Merseia

With our present emphasis on Merseians, we ought to reread "Day of Burning" but my copy is packed at present.

However, see:

luminous streets (Scroll down)

Chee Lan In Flight

Castle Afon

Star Believers

Gethfennu

Ardaig

That is quite a lot of past posts about Merseia, with some repetition.

Ganesh

A Circus Of Hells.

The Domrath are bipeds with elephantine heads - a trunk and tusks. The trunk is neat because it is both a sensory organ, a chemosensor, and a snorkel evolved for breathing during floods. Flandry imagines that, if the Domrath can break out of their seasonal cycle on Talwin, then they might become masters of their part of the galaxy while resembling the Hindu god, Ganesh. (Scroll down.)

A less interesting thought is that the Domrath might worship a god in their own image and join forces with human Ganesh-worshippers! A more interesting question is: how might other intelligent species conceptualize ultimate reality?

According to non-dualist Vedanta, each of us can realize our oneness with Brahman, the transcendent, which is characterized as "being, awareness, bliss." I think that it is just "being." Psychological qualities exist in us but not in the transcendent aspect of the reality - except insofar as it is conscious of itself through us, of course. It follows, I think, that the transcendent as such is impersonal although it is personified as various deities, the most comprehensive being Vishnu. 

Our deities are anthropomorphic. Would other intelligent beings also -morphize or would they conceptualize in some other way? We will not know until we meet them.

Talwinian Seasons

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Summer: 6 months.

Autumn: 6 weeks.

Winter: 15 months.

Spring: 6 weeks.

Rapid changes between extremes.

Two intelligent species.

Domrath hibernate in caves.

Ruadrath estivate at sea.

They never meet.

Apology for telegrammic communication.

I will try to return here later this evening.

Cnif And Ydwyr

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Cnif hu Vanden is a civilian xenophysiologist on Talwin. His name does not come from the dominant Merseian Wilwidh culture. The personal name is followed not by a nickname and a Vach but by a surname as if Cnif were a Terran!

His people, descendants of Lafdiguans, live on a colony planet where they retain differences not only in dress, customs and language but even in their laws. Merseians are not as culturally unified as Terrans. Cnif has been to Merseia only for advanced education and many of its ways are strange to him.

As their airbus proceeds on a visit to the Talwinian Domrath species, Cnif discourses to Flandry, pointing out Barrier Bay and the Golden River and describing the cataclysmic seasonal changes. Clearly, individuals like Cnif are not the cause of the inter-imperial conflict.

Ydwyr is a scientist, a scholar, an aristocrat - a nephew of the Roidhun -, a tolerant being and supremacist to the core. According to him, the problems are the policies of every other government, not of his! Those who are the problem do not realize that they are.

Merseians

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTERs TWELVE-THIRTEEN.

A team of Merseian physicists returning from an expedition to an unusual pulsar near the border of the Terran Empire noticed the unique orbital configuration in the Siekh System and investigated that also. As a result, Ydwyr came to study the Talwinians and had to accept that the base on Talwin would also have an Intelligence aspect. He hopes that Flandry, an alien with an Intelligence agent's knowledge of xenology, will help his research.

Flandry and Djana mess with Merseian civilians who treat them cordially and with interest, naturally enough. I remember my mother looking at a photograph of Russians laughing in a street in Moscow. She commented, "They can't all be devils." Well, of course not. Differentiate between a people and their regime.

Cnif hu Vanden, who becomes friendliest with Flandry, is a colonial to whom Merseia is strange. We realize that there is more to the Merseians than the Roidhunate's conflict with Terra.

Three Intelligent Species

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER TWELVE. 

The history of human-Ythrian interactions is complete in The People Of The Wind, The Earth Book Of Stormgate and The Day Of Their Return and is a major part of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization which is principally a history of human beings but also incorporates a history of Merseians mainly but not entirely in relation to their dealings with human beings.

Yywyr summarizes two major stages of human-Merseian interaction:

"'...Terrans, our one-time saviors and teachers, now our mighty rivals.'" (p. 283)

Terrans were saviors and teachers in "Day of Burning" and had become rivals in Ensign Flandry. Two intermediate stages: Merseians were disaffected in Mirkheim but their Roidhunate was growing in The People Of The Wind. We will learn more about the Merseians themselves in A Circus Of Hells and again in The Game Of Empire. See here.

I want to stay with Merseians for a while.

In Merseian Service

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Ydwyr: "'...you should find life tolerable in my service." (p. 283)

Flandry: "If you find my service worthwhile..." (ibid.)

Each sounds the other out. Ydwyr knows that Flandry hopes to escape. Flandry adroitly gives Ydwyr sound advice that does not betray any of his own loyalties and indeed manages to further his own aims at the same time. Two sharp operators but in a very unstable relationship..

It would be interesting to read an account of someone like Flandry who is obliged to spend a longer period of time in the service of a datholch like Ydwyr whose Racial frontier is knowledge rather than territory. 

In any case, we read about non-conflictive relationships between human beings and beings of Merseian dsecent in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. As in real history, who is the enemy is a matter of historical context.

An Inflected Pronoun

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Flandry to Ydwyr:

"'You, uh, you are most kind, sir,' he said. The honorific appeared implicitly in the pronoun." (p. 283)

That linguistic detail is interesting. So it is something like "You-sir..." in a single inflected word, which might be a single syllable. Poul Anderson's Technic History refers to the dominant Merseian language, Eriau, and to the Ythrian language, Planha. The same author's Time Patrol series refers to the time travellers' language, Temporal. CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy mentions a Solar language spoken on Malancandra/Mars, on Perelandra/Venus and in Deep Heaven/space. But we want to know more about all these languages and to hear them spoken in films. Only Tolkien got fictional languages right.

Silence

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER TWELVE.

When Qanryf Morioch Sun-in-eye tells the datholch Ydwyr the Seeker that the captured human male is Junior Lieutenant Dominic Flandry:

"'Silence fell...'" (p. 278)

Silence suggests significance. Something significant said must be considered. Checking whether we had discussed this passage before, I searched the blog and found many silences falling. See here. (Scroll down.)

But, of course, silence of speech is underlined by background sounds:

"...except for the wind whose rising skirl began to pierce the heavily insulated walls." (ibid.)

As this chapter proceeds, the wind loudens, then yammers. It is rarely silent.

Furnace Wind

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Talwin in summer is hot. When Flandry disembarks, heat envelops, enters and becomes him and everything else. And this heat, at least 80 C, is announced by:

"A furnace wind..." (p. 275)

- which:

 "...roared dully across the ferrocrete, which wavered in his seared gaze." (ibid.)

Of course. The wind always comments so, on overheated Talwin, Aeolus (I now imagine him as between the universes) summons a "furnace wind" for the occasion. 

Talwin swings within 0.87 AU's of Siekh but then recedes to 2.62. Summer and winter are warring extremes. This is another of Poul Anderson's planetary systems where a past cosmic event, like maybe another star passing through, has disrupted orbits and distorted planetary environments.

Merseian scientists study Talwinians who have adapted to these annually opposite conditions but I wonder whether intelligent beings who can range between the stars are likely become so interested in the life patterns on a single backward planet?

Biographies

Poul Anderson's Technic History presents two fictional biographies:

David Falkayn from apprentice to Master Merchant, acting CEO of SSL and Founder of Avalon;

Dominic Flandry from ensign to Fleet Admiral and informal Imperial advisor.

When Flandry is a Lieutenant, he hopes that a hypothetical deity will not end his life yet:

"Not now! Later, when I'm old, when I don't really care, all right; but not now!"

-A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 273.

The nature of such a series is that it can and does show us Flandry when he is older, sixty-one in A Stone In Heaven and sixty-four in The Game Of Empire - although antisenescence has increased lifespans. In A Stone In Heaven, Flandry feels the weight of age and thinks of the many that he has known who have died. But that latter thought comes to him even as a Lieutenant:

"He remembered comrades in arms who didn't make it as far through time as he'd done. That was no consolation, but it rallied him.

"They hadn't whined."

-ibid., p. 274. 

They would include Jan van Zuyl who had died on Starkad. Already, Flandry accumulates a personal history.

Advanced Bases

A Circus Of Hells.

The planet Talwin is not within but close the border of the Terran Empire. The Merseian base on Talwin serves the purposes of surveillance and of contact with spy rings like the one on the border planet, Irumclaw. Appreciating this, Lieutenant Flandry, who has been taken to Talwin as a prisoner, wonders whether Terran Intelligence has a similar base near the Merseian Roidhunate. He thinks that this is unlikely because the Merseians are too vigilant, because the Terran government is too inert and because its wealthiest citizens oppose increased expenditure.

This changes when Flandry himself has become a Captain in Intelligence. Then, he infiltrates the Roidhunate and locates a terrestroid but uninhabited planet where the Terran Navy subsequently establishes an advanced base. 

"...Flandry wondered if the same thing has happened on his side of the fence."

-Poul Anderson, "The Game of Glory" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 303-339 AT p. 304.

Long before then, he has neutralized Talwin which, in any case, had not been inside the Empire.

We see Flandry making a difference which must contribute to the long-term demoralization of the Roidhunate even though the Empire eventually falls also. Flandry strengthens some Imperial planets so that they will be better equipped to survive the post-Imperial Long Night.

"The White King's War" Revisited

I have a copy of "The White King's War" and have read it although not recently. However, it is in a NESFA collection which is packed for moving so I cannot refer to it now. However, it is easy to see that, in A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER ONE, about Flandry's meeting with Tachwyr, and CHAPTER THREE, about Djana's meeting with Rax, have been incorporated into the narrative of "The White King's War." Thus, CHAPTERs TWO and FOUR-TEN correspond to the original story with some necessary alterations. Further discussion can be found by scrolling through previous blog references to "The White King's War," here.

Seven Captain Flandry stories were collected as Flandry Of Terra and Agent Of The Terran Empire. This single Lieutenant Flandry story was instead incorporated into a novel.

In CHAPTER ELEVEN, we welcome the transition from the robotic mine on the lifeless moon, Wayland, to the Merseian base on the abundantly alive planet, Talwin. Flandry will, briefly, work with Merseians in a situation where they are not immediately in conflict: the xenological study of one of the two intelligent Talwinian species.

Wind And Stars

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER SEVEN.

Flandry to Djana:

"'The circumstances could be more promising. The big computer should've replied instantly to a distress call.' He paused. The wind blew, the stars jeered." (p. 244)

Inevitably. Usually the wind somehow comments. This time, it underlines Flandry's pause while the stars comment. "Same difference," as some say. We are always conscious that we are reading a carefully constructed text, not just a unidimensional recitation of fictional events.

Of course, Flandry's pause precedes his next step, not just a giving up which is all that Djana would have been capable of. They must investigate but that takes them into the next chapter and me into "To Be Continued Tomorrow" mode. If I start to reread CHAPTER TEN now, then I will find something in it to post about so I must close the book now. There are other books to read, after all.

Good night or whatever part of the day it is where you are.

Darkness At Noon

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER SEVEN. 

"Since Wayland always turned the same face to Regin, there was continuous daylight for the span of their journey, except at high noon when the planet would eclipse Mimir." (pp. 237-238)

"At noon, darkness came over the whole land..." (Mark 15:33)

"They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night." (Job 5:14)

According to Wikipedia, Arthur Koestler's title (see image) refers to Job, not, as I had thought, to Mark.

Is Anderson's eclipse at high noon on Wayland an obscure Biblical allusion? I don't know. 

I was wrong to think that these chapters set on Wayland would be uninteresting.

Mountaintop

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER SEVEN.

When Flandry and Djana reach the top of a mountain from where they should be able to radio for help, they see:

a steep drop to a flat horizon (such steepness possible only in low gravity);

radio masts, visible through binoculars, on the horizon;

on every other side, jumbled rock, ice and shadows;

scattered stars;

scattered clouds;

the sun, Mimir;

the planet, Regin.

"The wind whimpered around." (p. 243)

Wayland is desolate but it is a world:

"'...about three per cent the mass of Terra but half the surface pull. It's that dense.'"

-CHAPTER TWO, p. 210.

- dense with easily extracted rare metals, uranium, thorium, neptunium, plutonium, osmium, platinum...

Flandry's response recalls van Rijn:

"...my God! My greed!" (ibid.)

Not Mirkheim but something.

Life In Three Universes

A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER SIX.

In the Solar System, there are moons with heat inside, ice outside, therefore possibly liquid water containing life between them but, until that is confirmed, Earth remains the only known abode of life. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, there are many abodes of life. Biologists can generalize from many examples instead of from just one. In Anderson's concluding future history, Genesis, any kind of organic life is extremely rare and there is no mention of any extra-terrestrial intelligences whereas post-organic intelligences of Terrestrial origin spread through and between galaxies at sub-light speeds. Thus, we are able to  contemplate our universe and two very different Andersonian fictional universes.

Flandry in the Technic History thinks that life does not evolve on a planet where:

cold is deep and permanent;

air is tenuous;

metal is dominant;

radiation is high;

the planetary system has not yet finished condensing -

- so why is he attacked by "bugs" on Wayland? We continue to read.

Crater Wall And Cosmic Static

A Circus Of Hells.

As Flandry climbs a crater wall, he hears:

cosmic static;

"...the moan of wind..." (p. 233);

crunching snow;

rattling stones;

his breath;

his heartbeat.

The crater floor is:

rock;

ice;

drifting snow;

ultraviolet radiation from which his faceplate protects him.

Above are:

ragged clouds;

alien constellations;

turbulent Regin, the gas giant of which Wayland is a moon.

Why list all these items? Well, Poul Anderson could just have written that Flandry climbed a crater wall and not thought to include all these details. In fact, there are more but I have to stop somewhere.

Chess, Merseians, Fair, Rain And Kree

A Circus Of Hells.

Do we really want to reread CHAPTERs SIX-NINE about Flandry and Djana gradually realizing that the conscious computer on Wayland is playing chess with robots shaped like life-sized knights, bishops etc? Or would we instead prefer to skip ahead to CHAPTER TEN where the two human beings leave Wayland and are captured by Merseians? I will dip into CHAPTER SIX although I do not expect to find much new in it to post about.

Today we attended the Lancaster Green Party Christmas Fair which I have mentioned before and which fills the Friends' Meeting House. I recognized some books on the book stall, having donated them. Other events have happened around town including a lot of rain but now we are back home for the evening.

Other reading emphasizes the extent to which superheroes are grounded in sf. In a history of Marvel Comics: it had been established that a species called the Kree controlled an interstellar empire before it was decided that the Kree would dispatch to Earth a spy called Mar-Vell, Captain Marvel.

Spacefarers II

Implacability is also inner: "inner space." When we look inside ourselves, we see that we are still the same person that we were yesterday and the day before that. This cannot be changed by an act of will or by a magic rite. A monk interviewed on television made the point that he had not become "Super-monk" immediately on taking his vows.

As a species and as individuals, we were active organisms long before we became reflective subjects. By the time that we begin to reflect on life, our lives already contain both the effects of past actions and a deeply rooted disposition to continue acting in the same way even though this has been problematic. This is the problem of "karma" (action) which need not involve rebirth. Actions matter because they have consequences, the same kinds of consequences for the same kinds of actions. Implacability again.

Poul Anderson's first future history series addresses the issue that the "protean enemy" of mankind is mankind. Practicing zazen means facing this fact twice a day. It does not involve realizing supreme enlightenment, unfortunately. We have to sit with whatever comes up but we don't have to like it. But self-knowledge is better than self-deception.

Whittering Wind On Wayland

A Circus Of Hells.

Shipwrecked on Wayland, Djana wants to send a message courier torpedo back to Irumclaw although this will get Flandry into no end of trouble with his superiors. They watch for the torpedo to depart. The view is desolate, black sky, boiling fog and steaming mist as carbon dioxide and ammonia snow vaporizes, exposing water ice and, of course:

"A whitter of wind came in through the hull." (p. 231)

A flying Waylander robot destroys the torpedo.

Good night.

Spacefarers

A Circus Of Hells.

"Now she faced the spacefarers' truth, that the one thing we know for certain about this universe is that it is implacable."

-CHAPTER FOUR, p. 224.

Cosmic implacability is perpetually evident to spacefarers because they have to be continually protected either from vacuum in space or from an unbreathable atmosphere and other hostile conditions on a planetary surface. Earth is the one place in the universe where we do not die immediately. But the implacability is here, nevertheless. Gravity gets us if we fall from a height. And I need hardly list other dangers and threats. Spacefarers see Earth as a borderless unity and the only (so far) abode of life so maybe life on Earth needs to be based on "the spacefarers' truth."

Jake

A Circus Of Hells. 

See:

Spaceships' Names

Terran Naval Craft

Flandry's scout boat is called Giacobini-Zinner because the boat is Comet class and Giacobini-Zinner is a comet.

Flandry nicknames his boat "Jake" for obvious reasons. I never wondered about that boat's name before but the recent encounter with the Comet class boats, Encke and Ikeya-Seki, gave me reason to check. Every background detail in the Technic History is fully consistent.

"Poul Anderson immerses you in the future... Anderson puts you into a whole new world."

-Larry Niven quoted on the back of Young Flandry.

The Narrator And Flandry

A Circus Of Hells.

The narrator, Flandry's biographer or whoever he is, that had opened CHAPTER ONE returns at least twice. CHAPTER TWO begins:

"Such was the prologue. He had practically forgotten it when the adventure began. That was on a certain night about eight months later." (p. 203)

Flandry saunters from the naval base into Old Town. Gradually the text transitions from objective descriptions of his movements and actions to the sharing of his experience:

"He was glad when..." (p. 206)

After a while, we are being told his thoughts:

"A million! Ye gods and demons!" (p. 208)

The biographer is back at the beginning of CHAPTER FOUR:

"The next stage of the adventure came a month afterward. That was when the mortal danger began." (p. 221)

This narrator describes the star, Mimir, its giant planet, Regin, and Regin's moon, Wayland. Lacking an adequate computer, Flandry must manually control his scout boat's approach to Wayland:

"It didn't bother him." (p. 222)

We are back inside his head again. He is taut and aware of vibrations, odour and weight and hears blood beating in his ears.

Later, in this novel, Djana and a Talwinian will be viewpoint characters.

The Lost Planet

A Circus Of Hells.

Rax asks Djana:

"'Where is the lost planet? What is its nature?'"

-CHAPTER THREE, p. 216.

An evocative phrase like "the lost planet" might have different connotations for different readers. In fact, googling brings up multiple references. In the 1950s, I saw some episodes of a TV series and read perhaps the first two juvenile novels connected with this series. See here. I am finding the Wikipedia accounts slightly inconsistent. I like the idea of Space Agent From The Lost Planet as the last of six Lost Planet books and the first of three Space Agent books. Similar crossover titles are Tarzan At The Earth's Core and She And Allan.

This has taken us a long way from Poul Anderson's characters, Rax and Djana, but that is the nature of literary connotations. Possibly Anderson intended the phrase, "lost planet," to have just a literal meaning with no other implications but that is not necessarily how it works in the minds of his readers.

Needless to say, Anderson's "lost planet," Wayland, is entirely his own creation and in no way derivative from anyone else's ideas.

Rax's Face

 

A Circus Of Hells.

"Rax placed itself before [Djana]. She had no way of reading expressions on that face."

-CHAPTER THREE, p. 215.

Nor have we since the face has not been described to us! All we have been told is that Rax's "...lumpy gray body..." walks on "...four thin legs..." (p. 213), that it has two tentacles and that the head at the middle of this body is about level with Djana's waist. Rax sounds like a Reardonite in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History although the latter has four tentacles and petals for a head. The only Reardonite that we see is called Smokesmith and he is completely different in character from Rax - opposite, in fact.

My points here are:

imagine the confrontation between Djana and Rax on screen;

film-makers would have carte blanche to give Rax any kind of face that they could imagine.

We would want a film to be both faithful and imaginative.