Avalanche

 

A Stone In Heaven, I.

A single massive avalanche of ice and snow kills Yewwl's husband, sons and daughter and destroys their tribal Shrine which Miriam Abrams says is the equivalent of destroying Jerusalem. Thus, one enormous catastrophe happens casually in this opening chapter:

"The snowcliff stirred..." (p. 10)

The narrative soon contextualizes this catastrophe within Poul Anderson's Technic History. Miriam, nicknamed "Banner," is from the warm, dry, snowless, colony planet, Dayan, which explains the comparison that she makes with Jerusalem. She is Max Abram's daughter. Commander Abrams recited the Kaddish for Ensign Flandry when the latter was missing in action on Starkad a lifetime ago.

Banner complains about the Grand Duke of Hermes and says that she will appeal to Admiral Flandry. Despite its newly created Ramnuan environment, this new narrative is embedded in the Technic History.

Ramnuan Plants And Animals

 

A Stone In Heaven, I.

Grass equivalent: nullfire, tall on the veldt, a thick turf elsewhere.

Kinds of trees: brightcrown; saw-frond.

Other plants: fragrant nightwort; rattling spearcane.

Small twilight creatures: darters; scuttlers; light-flashers.

A hovering flyer: something strange from beyond the Guardian Range.

Ramnuans spread vanes and ride onsars. Yewwl carries an infant in her pouch.

Poul Anderson creates distinctive organisms for each new planet. We become familiar with Ythrian hammerbranch etc. However, imaginative new names of trees must be invented for Ramnu: brightcrown etc.

History

Note that Poul Anderson's A Stone In Heaven is a very late volume in a very long future history series and that its opening passage recounts ancient history on an extra-solar planet, newly introduced. Anderson's works are steeped in history, both fictional and real. His historical novels include The Golden Slave about barbarian invaders of Italy who were defeated by the Roman general, Marius. His Psychotechnic History opens with a story called "Marius" in which a future military leader is compared to the Roman general. Earlier in the Technic History, David Falkayn learns lessons from Jericho, Thermopylae, Hiroshima and Vladivostok. See Battles. Technic civilization follows the same cyclical rise and fall as earlier Terrestrial civilizations. Possibly that cycle has been broken in the concluding instalment, "Starfog."

Anderson's Time Patrol preserves a history that leads eventually to science and freedom. Everything is historical.

History On Ramnu

A Stone In Heaven, I, pp. 3-4.

The Ice withdrew beyond the Guardian Mountains.

The Forebear led her family from the Ringdales to the lands south of Lake Roah and east of the Kiiong River. 

Traders from West-Oversea brought ironworking and writing.

Many of the Forebear's descendants joined the Seekers of Wisdom when that College arose.

When Mount Gungnor erupted and spread the Golden Tide, the clans established the Lords of the Volcano.

The clans welcomed and dealt with the strangers from the stars.

The Ice began to return.

The Kulembarach clan still ranges the lands but, like its neighbours, is in an ill plight.

Yewwl leads her family on a long hunt as their ranchlands decline.

From Time Beyond Knowing...

(A Psychotechnic History character worthy of mini-bio treatment is Etienne Fourre but we have already done this. See here.)

An author, starting with a blank sheet of paper or a blank computer screen, can create anew something old:

"Long, long ago..."

"From time beyond knowing, the Kulembarach clan had ranged those lands which reach south of Lake Roah and east of the Kiiong River."

-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT I, p. 3.

This is all new even though it is from time beyond knowing. It includes fictional geography. This newly created planet of Ramnu will soon be inserted into Poul Anderson's Technic History. We will see familiar scenes and characters while also learning about a planet that has not been mentioned until now. As we have said before, each new instalment of a future history series builds on previous instalments while also contributing new information. Anderson continues this process right up until the end of the Technic History which is not yet.

A Stone In Heaven

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, further candidates for mini-bio treatment are:

the usurper, Hans Molitor;

the pretender, Edwin Cairncross, Grand Duke of Hermes;

the pretender, Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson;

Magnusson's father, Erik.

We will perhaps reread A Stone In Heaven which features Cairncross. A Stone... is dedicated to John K. Hord whose theory of history Anderson applies in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and in A Stone...

In the opening chapter of A Stone..., the Ramnuan, Yewwl, has an oath-sister, "Banner," based in Wainwright Station. The name of the station suggests that it is staffed by human beings but we do not at first suspect, although we will soon be informed, that "Banner" is Miriam Abrams. Nor has the text yet confirmed that Ramnu exists in the Technic History universe.

Other reading: I think that there is a structural problem in Robert Harris' Conclave relating to the seal of Confession.

Nineteen Characters In The Technic History

The mini-bios have taken on a life of their own. The characters covered, in the approximate order of their appearance in the Technic History, are:

League Period

Nicholas van Rijn

James Ching

Adzel

David Falkayn

Chee Lan

Emil Dalmady

Coya Conyon

Empire Period

Manuel Argos

Christopher Holm

Tabitha Falkayn

Hloch

Dominic Flandry

John Ridenour

Miriam Abrams

Hugh McCormac

Chunderban Desai

Diana Crowfeather

Post-Imperial

Roan Tom

Daven Laure

A comprehensive list. Apparently insignificant characters play their roles. James Ching's narrative role is primarily to introduce Adzel but he makes his own contribution, nevertheless. Manuel Argos' role is to get the Terran Empire founded although it was not known, when Argos's story was written, that that Empire would become such a major feature of a future history series. Emil Dalmady has a daughter who makes later contributions to the History.

A Stone In Heaven makes several major contributions:

the later careers of Flandry and Chives;

Miriam Abrams as an adult;

Flandry's addition to Desai's theory of history;

a late mention of the biracial culture on Avalon;

the later history of the Grand Duchy of Hermes;

an heir of Hans Molitor;

a new inhabited planet, Ramnu.

What's not to like?

Two More Mini-Bios

Tabitha Falkayn

Oronesian

Hrill of Highsky Choth

brought up by Ythrians

business partner of Draun, an Ythrian, in a commercial fishery

liaises with west Corona to organize defense of the Hesperian Sea

hosts the Terran prisoner of war, Philippe Rochefort

later marries Christopher Holm/Arinnian of Stormgate

Miriam Abrams

daughter of Dominic Flandry's mentor, Max Abrams

xenologist on Ramnu

maintains multisensory rapport with one Ramnuan

friend of Sten Runeberg on Hermes

opponent of the current Grand Duke of Hermes

marries Flandry

These two women make a lot of connections. We want to know more about Avalon in the Domain of Ythri and about the climate modification project on Ramnu.

Careers Continued IV

Coya Conyon

daughter of Malcolm Conyon and Beatrix Yeo

Nicholas van Rijn's favourite granddaughter

toured the Solar System with van Rijn as a child

astrophysicist at Luna Astrocenter

travelled to Mirkheim with van Rijn

married David Falkayn

joined the trade pioneer crew

stopped pioneering to raise a family

free-lance computer programmer

co-founder of the Avalon colony

A character who impacts others. Information about Coya is only in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim. Mini-bios summarize major events of Poul Anderson's Technic History and remind us of minute details, e.g: names of Coya's parents; what she did after trade pioneering.

This is the sixteenth Technic History mini-bio. 

Careers Continued III

Hloch

son of Ferannian and Rennhi of Spearhead Lake on Avalon

member of Stormgate Choth

Rennhi's research assistant

naval service during Terran War

merchant ship crew member after the War

compiler of The Earth Book Of Stormgate

co-author with Arinnian of two chapters in the Earth Book

Chritopher Holm

son of Marchwarden Daniel Holm

student of mathematics

Arinnian of Stomgate Choth

hid in the Shielding Islands for a year

chief of the West Coronan home-guard

translator of Planha works into Anglic

author of parts of the Earth Book

marries Tabitha Falkayn

These mini-biographies again display historical interconnections.

Careers Continued II

Hugh McCormac

Firstman of Ilion on Aeneas

Fleet Admiral in Sector Alpha Crucis

Imperial pretender

leader of defeated rebels into exile

Diana Crowfeather

daughter of Dominic Flandry and Maria Crowfeather

orphan on Imhotep

guide to Fr. Axor

later career (nature unknown) funded by Flandry

We want to know more about the Technic History.

Flandry defeated McCormac. Daven Laure contacted descendants of the Aenean exiles. History is a single complex process.

Careers Continued

Adzel

early life on Woden

student on Earth

conversion to Buddhism

street performer, Chinese dragon

opera singer, Fafner

Falkayn's planetologist

lay brother in a monastery

political missions for van Rijn

active retirement on Woden

Chee Lan

early life on Cynthia

Falkayn's xenologist

xenologist in another trade pioneer crew

political missions for van Rijn

active retirement on Cynthia

They lived long and prospered.

DD Harriman is the title character of "The Man Who Sold The Moon" which is the title story of The Man Who Sold The Moon which is Volume I of Robert Heinlein's Future History which in turn was repackaged as The Past Through Tomorrow.

Nicholas van Rijn is the title character both of Trader To The Stars, which was Volume I of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, and also of The Man Who Counts, which was a companion volume to Trader To The Stars but was incorporated into The Earth Book Of Stormgate before the Technic History was repackaged as The Technic Civilization Saga of which Volume I is The Van Rijn Method which includes The Man Who Counts.

Contemporary Fiction Or Alternative History?

Sometimes we compare other reading. We are currently reading Conclave by Robert Harris. When a contemporary novel presents fictional public figures like Presidents or Prime Ministers or, in this case, Cardinals and a Pope, its narrative takes one sideways step into alternative history. (In the third Godfather film, a newly elected Pope takes the name, "Joannes Paulus Primus," so that is not alternative history!) As we have seen, Poul Anderson's Technic History presents Jerusalem Catholicism in our near future. Harris presents a dead alternative Pope and his successor in our even nearer future. Thus, Conclave is potentially the opening instalment of a future history series although, of course, there is no intention to take it in that direction. But there is some common ground between Anderson and Harris. Read both and see the Conclave film. (I suggest.)

Seven Other Careers In The Technic History

Poul Anderson's Technic History includes some full biographies and a few that we can reconstruct in part.

Nicholas van Rijn

spaceman

Master Merchant, Polesotechnic League

founder and director of Solar Spice & Liquors

leading League independent

later, expedition leader (maybe)

James Ching

student

League apprentice

spaceman

diarist

retired in Catawrayannis

Emil Dalmady

from Altai

Solar Spice & Liquors factor on Suleiman

trainee entrepreneur

entrepreneur

father of Judith who went to Avalon with Falkayn and wrote in Morgana

John Ridenour

xenologist on Starkad, then Freehold

Chunderban Desai

earlier diplomatic posts

delegate to negotiations to end the Jihannath crisis

High Commissioner of the planet, Aeneas, after the McCormac Rebellion

later, guest lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy on Terra

retirement on Ramanujan to study Imperial history

Roan Tom

star rover

bandit or hero

maker of interstellar alliances

Daven Laure

Ranger of the Commonalty

They fade away into the further future.

Four Careers In Two Timelines

The Psychotechnic History

Trevelyan Micah

Coordinator

Nomad

The Technic History

David Falkayn

apprentice

journeyman; factor

Master Merchant; trade pioneer crew leader

secret discoverer of Mirkheim and founder of Supermetals

acting CEO of SSL

Founder of the Avalon colony

Manuel Argos

spaceman

miner

docker

soldier

politician

hunter

machinist

criminal

slave

rebel leader

Terran Emperor

Dominic Flandry

Ensign

Lieutenant

Lieutenant Commander

Commander

Captain

Vice Admiral

Fleet Admiral

informal Imperial advisor

Future Forms Of Christianity

Jerusalem Catholicism

Jean Broberg was brought up as a Jerusalem Catholic in the mid-twenty-first century. That form of Christianity should be starting about now. In the Terran Empire, Philippe Rochefort and Fr. Axor are Jerusalem Catholics and the latter, a Wodenite convert, seeks evidence for a non-human Incarnation.

Unspecified Catholicism

Nicholas van Rijn with his Martian sandroot statue of St. Dismas.

Eric Wace.

The Nuevo Mexicans: Admiral Cajal with his crucifix.

Djana who recites the Ave Maria and imagines a Merseian Christ.

Others

Peter Berg from Aeneas.

Christmas on Ivanhoe.

"Christian variants" on Nyanza: no information given.

OrthoChristianity on Dennitza.

Bible-and-blaster backcluster Christians on Aeneas. (I borrow this description from James Blish's The Triumph Of Time.)

Ythrians And Human Beings

Narrative threads overlap. Ythrians and human beings interact not only in their joint colonization of Avalon but also in:

first contact on Ythri;

the exploration of Avalon;

the transportation of van Rin and Coya to Mirkheim;

the later defence of Avalon;

a single Ythrian on Aeneas during a later crisis involving Merseians.

Ythrians and Merseians are distinct narrative threads but nevertheless converge once in the later Imperial period. Everything presumably does interconnect either directly or indirectly and such interconnections are a particular feature of Poul Anderson's Technic History.

Merseians

Some blog posts lead a life of their own. The previous post ended with Merseians. This extra-solar species is one of perhaps ten plot threads that weave in and out of Poul Anderson's Technic History:

future forms of Christianity;

human-Ythrian interactions;

the colonization of Avalon;

the career of David Falkayn;

the trader team;

Merseians;

the decline of the Polesotechnic League;

the growth, then the long decline, of the Terran Empire;

the career of Dominic Flandry;

the post-Imperial periods.

Merseians

"Day of Burning": the League helps and antagonizes them.

Mirkheim: some of them work for the Baburites.

The People Of The Wind: the Merseian Roidhunate grows at a distance.

The Captain Flandry stories: they are standard space opera villains (their first appearance).

The Young Flandry Trilogy (written later; set earlier): a more rounded species.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows: ychani/zmayi loyal to the Emperor, not to the Roidhun.

The Game Of Empire: maybe the demoralization that begins the decline of the Roidhunate.

We know that the Roidhunate has declined because it does not rule human space after the Fall of the Terran Empire. That leads to a list of unanswered questions.

Concluding Conversations

Mirkheim, XXI.

Three concluding conversations at the Tamarin estate, Windy Rim, on Hermes:

Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen and David Falkayn;

Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen and Nicholas van Rijn;

Adzel and Chee Lan.

Four continuing characters; Sandra, who has appeared once before; Eric, introduced only in this novel.

This is what I wanted when I read Dan Dare comic strips in the 1950's and 60's: prose novels with adult characters who routinely travelled between planets but who also discussed adult matters that were at that time beyond my comprehension. Or, rather, I did not consciously want this yet but now realize that it is what I was moving towards. Where else could we go? We could not stay with mere action-adventure fiction although Poul Anderson skillfully incorporates fight scenes, which I then loved, into more serious novels. Dan Dare's antagonists, the Treens, from Venus, were green and bald although not tailed. We had no way of knowing that we would later read novels about Merseians. For that species, Mirkheim is transitional between "Day of Burning" and Ensign Flandry. 

The End Of An Era

Mirkheim, XX.

While attacking Abdallah Enterprises of the Seven in Space on the planet, Hopewell, David Falkayn thinks:

"This was a grand era in its way. I too will miss it." (p. 266)

Falkayn knows that he is at the end of an era as do his readers especially if they are reading Mirkheim not as the opening instalment in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, but, in the earlier publication order, as the culmination of the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy. Volume I of that Tetralogy, Trader To The Stars, opens:

"'The world's great age begins anew...'"

-Poul Anderson, "Hiding Place" IN Anderson, The Technic Civilization, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 555-609 AT p. 555.

That great age is explicitly ending when Falkayn reflects that "This was a grand era..." The introductory passage that opens with "The world's great age begins anew..." closes by claiming that Polesotechnic Leaguers neither know nor care where they are going:

"For us it is enough that we are on our way." (ibid., p. 556)

They were on their way towards the breakdown of the League and its replacement by the Terran Empire just as the Imperials, in their turn, will be on their way towards the Long Night and to vaster civilizations beyond that. 

Although Mirkheim completes a Tetralogy, it also refers to crucial events that are not recounted in that Tetralogy but that are fully accounted for in the later collection, The Earth Book Of Stormgate:

how a Solar Spice & Liquors factor outwitted the Baburites;

how the League made enemies of the Merseians;

how van Rijn came to Mirkheim.

The Technic History is comprehensive but has alternative reading orders.

Battles

Mirkheim, XVI.

Because he has seen wars among many intelligent species, David Falkayn, while on Earth, visits certain significant sites:

Jericho

Thermopylae

Hiroshima

Vladivostok

Perhaps Jericho is relevant because of the Biblical account of the Battle of Jericho which, according to the Wikipedia article, is not generally accepted by scholars.

Thermopylae is known for its Battle.

Hiroshima is known...

Vladivostok was heavily involved in the Russian Civil War.

A future history series and Earth Real share a common past history.

Nicholas And Nathaniel

Nicholas Falkayn, named after his grandfather, is born on Earth near the end of Mirkheim and instructs his own son, Nathaniel, on Avalon near the beginning of "Wingless." This is as close as Poul Anderson's Technic History gets to becoming a family chronicle. We see David Falkayn's mother, Athena, his brother, John, and their family estate for the first and last times in Mirkheim. We see Avalon before its colonization in "The Problem of Pain." We see Ythri in "Wings of Victory." Although Falkayn's ancestry is from Hermes and before that Earth, many Avalonians are Ythrians and their traditions stem from that planet. Admiral Holm, although human, invokes "deathpride" when confronting a Terran. Holm's son, Christopher, marries Tabitha Falkayn, descendant of David. And the second main section of the Technic History is about other people and other planets with the single exception that one Avalonian Ythrian, Erannath of Stormgate Choth, is active, on behalf of both Ythrian Domain and Terran Empire, in The Day Of Their Return. (On the planet, Aeneas, there is apocalypticism but with a plural reference: Their return, not His.)

Thinking about one part of the Technic History leads to thinking about its connections to all the other parts which is what has just happened yet again.

Final Adventure

Mirkheim, XIV.

Adzel to Chee Lan:

"'Let us savor this final adventure of ours for what it is.'" (p. 204)

We have seen only five of this team's many adventures:

Ikrananka

Merseia

Tametha

Mirkheim

Babur

Hermes will be their last and we know that as we read the novel. Poul Anderson writes good endings and his concluding chapter is full of them. That chapter ends with a red sunrise: sunset colour in a new beginning.

A Cast Of Thousands

Mirkheim is not just a van Rijn novel or even just a van Rijn and trader team novel. Look at what happens.

In Chapter XIII, Grand Duchess Sandra Tamarin:

converses by phone with Irwin Milner, occupation commander;

remembers a public confrontation between Christa Broderick, leader of the Hermetian Liberation Front, and Peter Asmundsen, Follower of the Runeberg domain;

converses in person with Benoni Strang, the new High Commissioner for Hermes.

In Chapter XIV, Eric Tamarin:

converses by phone with Hanny Lennart, Commonwealth Special Assistant Minister of Extrasolar Relations;

converses in person with Nicholas van Rijn who has been listening to Lennart and must now listen again, behind his "...prawn-like stare..." (p. 198), while Eric outlines his plans for what should happen next.

When Travers and Followers listen to Broderick, there are:

"...police at the corners of the park. Evidently a disturbance was considered possible." (p. 187)

In my experience, public gatherings can pass off without disturbances. Recently in Lancaster, the police knew (a) that some of us were going to do something in the town centre but also (b) that they did not need to intervene. That is good policing: in the background, out of sight, except when needed. Summoned to a circus picketed by animal rights activists, a policeman recognized the activists and said, "It's you, is it? You know the rules. Don't obstruct. Don't trespass..." and went off and left them to it.

Self-Pity

Mirkheim, XIII.

Christa Broderick, leader of the Hermetian Liberation Front, speaks publicly. This is a real speech addressing real issues in a real society - except that the society does not exist, of course! Is there anything comparable in any other future history series? Someone makes a speech in a Foundation novel but not with anything like this wealth of detail and complexity.

Poul Anderson shows us not only but mainly aristocratic points of view in a society where Travers, "workers," are campaigning for political equality. We tend to empathize with viewpoint characters but I cannot empathize with Grand Duchess Sandra when she says:

"'I've lost more time out of my own life than I like to reckon up, listening to the self-pity of the Liberation Front.'" (p. 193)

Authentic dialogue from an aristocratic head of state no doubt but not dialogue that I would agree with! Poul Anderson describes a society and readers respond as they do on Earth Real.

Revolutions

Mirkheim, XIII.

The occupation commander informs Grand Duchess Sandra that the new High Commissioner will be a Hermetian named Benoni Strang. Sandra reflects:

"Strang? Not one of the Thousand Families. Possibly a Follower, but I doubt it; I'm sure I'd remember. Then he must be -" (p. 183)

She can leave that sentence unfinished. An English person knows what she means. This Strang must be a member of the lowest social class whose name would not be known to her. Do I know you? Have we be been introduced?

When, later, Strang does address Sandra, he tells her that there is going to be a revolution. Words are used in different ways. "Revolution" can mean just an abrupt change of the rulers at the top of society, a coup. As I understand it, a "social revolution" means a change of relationships between classes in an economic, not just a social, sense of "class." Thus, the American Civil War was a social revolution because slaves became free workers, a change in their economic status: "wage slaves," if you like, but still different from owned slaves, human property. The English "Glorious Revolution" replaced absolute monarchy with constitutional monarchy and (I think) was a stage in the shift from land to trade as the main source of wealth which is an economic change even if some people, with admirable British pragmatism, managed to be involved in both.

Strang might impose some changes from the barrel of a gun but social revolutions really need to come from conflicts within the relevant society and such conflicts had certainly come onto the stage of history before the Baburites arrived. The Travers were in uproar. Change gathers momentum. After the upheavals of the occupation, people will not return to the way things were before.

On a multi-planetary scale, three narratives had shown conflicts within Technic civilization as a whole:

"A Little Knowledge"

"Lodestar"

Mirkheim, Prologue, Y minus 7.

We knew that David Falkayn's home planet, Hermes, had an aristocratic society but only Mirkheim gives us all the details.

Occupation

Mirkheim, XIII.

The commander of the planet-based Baburite occupation forces Orwellianizes language when speaking to Grand Duchess Sandra. Hermetian ships attacked Baburite invaders because there were "'...many subversives...'" (p. 182) in the Hermetian navy! That is one way of using language. We can say anything. It does not have to be true: Genghis Khan was a pacifist.

Despite the occupation, Sandra:

"...had been astonished to find she could still enjoy a meal..." (ibid.)

The cliche is that life goes on - until it stops. Some characters in Rockets In Ursa Major by Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle make the point that, whether or not aliens conquer Earth, some people will still have to work in offices or factories. They might not see their new overlords as very different from their previous ones. In one of Aesop's Fables, a donkey who is already carrying as much as he can sees no point in running to avoid capture by an enemy army because they will not be able to make him carry any more than he is already carrying.

Despite all this, I do not favour acquiescence before Baburite invaders.

"When (fill in the blank) is occupied, resistance is justified!" Suddenly this post becomes up to date and relevant. It did not start out that way.

Mahogany And Brass

Mirkheim, XII.

The saloon in van Rijn's yacht is:

"...mahogany and mirrorlike brass." (p. 175)

Four people converse, all related, directly or indirectly. Van Rijn is the father of Eric Tamarin and the grandfather of Coya Conyon who is the wife of David Falkayn. Thus, Eric is Coya's half-uncle. (We have such relationships in our extended family in Lancaster. Our granddaughter has several half-nephews and -nieces.) Eric and David are Hermetians.

Coya asks who is "'...the final arbiter...'" (p. 177), the state based on coercion or shifting individuals wielding economic power? Arbiter of what? The latter group are not elected and, in any case, have no interest in exercising governmental authority. Economic power can be used to coerce and surely the role of the state is to protect the property of the wielders of economic power? Coya presents the two groups as simply separate and as merely happening to coexist. But Poul Anderson's texts raise these issues for his readers to consider.

Already A Myth

In Mirkheim, the last Technic History instalment to feature Nicholas van Rijn, his son, Eric Tamarin, reflects that stories are told throughout space about van Rijn as if he were already a myth. See:

Van Rijn And Roan Tom

An Organization And A Myth?

Consecutive readers of the Technic History should regard van Rijn in this same light. Previous instalments featuring van Rijn are building blocks of a legend that will become a myth:

"Margin of Profit"

The Man Who Counts

"Esau"

"Hiding Place"

"Territory"

"The Master Key"

Satan's World

"Lodestar"

They are not necessarily historically accurate but might already be building the myth:

"Margin of Profit" is a chapter in AA Craig's Tales Of The Great Frontier;

The Man Who Counts is a historical novel of uncertain provenance;

"Esau" was a story published in the Avalonian periodical, Morgana;

Hloch and Arinnian composed "Lodestar" from several sources for The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

we are less certain of the origins of the remaining four narratives.

Chaos

Mirkheim, XI.

Falkayn thinks that Garver thinks that League independents "...represent Chaos." (p. 168)

See:

Chaos And Order

War And Chaos

The latter post includes a link to a blog search result for Law And Chaos.

The Time Patrol learn that their ultimate antagonist is temporal chaos.

See also:

More Chaos

Well, that is enough about Chaos already. It is so far-reaching that it can be regarded as good, bad or neutral and there are at least two versions of it. It is either destructive disorder (bad) or freedom (good) denounced by bureaucrats.

We Have Explored

Mirkheim, XI.

See Some Familiar Themes.

One of those familiar themes is narrative points of view. Poul Anderson could have opened this chapter with, e.g.:

"As swift as any vessel in known space, Muddlin' Through reached Earth..."

- but, instead, he wrote:

"As swift as any vessel in that near-infinitesimal droplet of the galaxy which we have slightly explored, Muddlin' Through reached Earth..." (p. 158)

That slightly explored galaxy is yet another recurrent theme. However, on this occasion, we will focus just on the issue of the point of view. I would prefer a first person narrator, in this passage represented by the pronoun, "we," either to remain entirely off-stage or to come more fully on-stage. Hloch introduces himself at the beginning of The Earth Book Of Stormgate. He is an Ythrian of Stormgate Choth living on Avalon shortly after the Terran-Ythrian War. If there is a similar narrator of Mirkheim or of any other Polesotechnic League instalment, then I would like to know who that narrator is as well as where s/he is located. The texts leave us with unanswered questions.

Other parts of the Technic History - the Flandry period, the post-Imperial period and, before them, those parts of the League period that are not directly covered by the Earth Book - would have benefitted from a narrative framework like that of the Earth Book. The single Long Night instalment, "A Tragedy of Errors," begins with an unnamed narrator discussing and speculating about Roan Tom before the narrative proper commences. We sense future historians somewhere in the background of the narratives and would like to see more of them.

Places On Hermes

Mirkheim.

In true future historical style, Chapter IX outlines great events for Commonwealth and League whereas X reverts to details about a particular colonized planet, Hermes:

the Arcadian Hills

Starfall

Travers in an uproar

a brilliant-winged nidiflex

the Windy Rim estate

the sun, Maia

Cloudhelm peak

the Palomino River

the Runeberg estate

Daybreak Bay

St. Carl's Church

Phoenix Boulevard

Riverside Common

Constitution Square

Pilgrim Hill

The Tamarins and Falkayns live on Hermes, Holms and Falkayns on Avalon, McCormacs and Frederiksens on Aeneas and Miyatovichs and Vymezals on Dennitza. The planets that are homes to individuals and families become very real places to Poul Anderson's readers.

Commonwealth And League

Mirkheim, IX.

In an infodump on pp. 138-143, Poul Anderson summarizes Solar Commonwealth governmental measures and Polesotechnic League responses to them. It reads like a factual report of a real event:

a central banking commission;

limits on interest rates;

income tax;

an anti-trust rule;

compulsory arbitration of some disputes;

state loans to companies in difficulties;

subsidies to critical industries;

production quotas;

etc.

All this interferes with League activities but opposing it would be even more damaging. 

"...by remaining on the scene the League companies would stay influential and could work for modifications." (p. 141)

We have heard that in real life.

"...the great bankers were not just handling money, they were creating it..." (p. 142)

I thought that that was what bankers did anyway: lend money that is not theirs, lend more than is in their possession and charge interest on it.

Tariffs are mentioned! Someone reading this post years later might not know why I highlight that point.

I will not summarize Anderson's summary in greater detail because all this is to be found earlier on this blog.

Hiawatha And Minnehaha

Mirkheim, IX.

Hiawatha and Minnehaha are O'Neil colonies at the Lagrangian points sixty degrees before and behind the Moon. They were the first human habitats off Earth although no stories are set inside them. In fact, they are mentioned only in an infodump in Mirkheim which is Polesotechnic League Tetralogy, Volume IV, where they come across as very much an afterthought. Poul Anderson does go into considerable detail about colonization of the Moon itself, although not of O'Neil colonies, in his later and very different Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy/future history series. We can compare Anderson's Technic History not only with future history series by half a dozen other sf writers but also with half a dozen other future history series by Anderson himself.

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, technological advances, solar and nuclear energy, moving roads and rockets to the Moon, are presented in Volume I where they are the basis for what is to follow. James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume I, They Shall Have Stars, describes the two discoveries that make the later interstellar travel possible. Hiawatha and Minnehaha initiated Technic civilization but do not receive comparable upfront treatment. Orbiting industries and cultural fusions generated a new civilization and Hiawatha was the venue for a Polesotechnic League Council that failed to prevent eventual cartelization and decline of the League.

Another Future Histories Parallel

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, the Howard Families leave the Solar System and experience problems with inhabitants of two extra-solar planets but do not engage in any interstellar military conflicts although Heinlein most assuredly does praise such conflicts in Starship Troopers.

However, in four other future history series:

James Blish's Colonials fight the Vegan Tyranny;

Poul Anderson's Solar Commonwealth fights the Baburites;

Larry Niven's UN fights the kzinti;

the Star Trek Federation fights the Klingons etc.

Star Trek is the best known but not the best. Trekkies need to read Heinlein, Blish, Anderson and Niven. They should find what they like and more in prose sf.

The Races That Join The Supermetals Company

Mirkheim, VII.

Wodenites (Adzel's species).

Ikranankans ("The Trouble Twisters").

Gorzuni (Satan's World; "The Star Plunderer"; The Game Of Empire).

Ivanhoans ("The Three-Cornered Wheel"; "The Season of Forgiveness").

Vanessans ("A Sun Invisible").

Cynthians (Chee Lan's species).

Vixenites ("Hunters of the Sky Cave"; The Game Of Empire).

Other human colonies.

Thus, Mirkheim pulls together several other installments especially since it also features Baburites and Sandra Tamarin.

Before Supermetals:

only a few individual Wodenites had gained Polesotechnic League scholarships enabling them to travel off-planet;

only one Cynthian trade route had become spacefaring;

Vixen had lacked necessary weather stations. 

Peace And War

"The Kzinti ship was a huge red sphere with ugly projections scattered at seeming random over the hull."

-Larry Niven, "The Warriors" IN Niven, Tales Of Known Space (New York, 1975), pp. 135-151 AT p.151.

Kzinti and a spherical spaceship are relevant to Spheroids And Cubes. There is a further relevance of Niven's "The Warriors" to Poul Anderson's Mirkheim. In both, a period of peace in human space is ended by contact with aggressive aliens. War must be relearned. Fortunately for Niven's characters, a spaceship drive makes a perfect weapon. In Anderson's Solar Commonwealth, the Admiralty:

"...'ve never had to fight a war. Skills, doctrine, the military style of thinking evaporated generations ago.

"Such things must needs be relearned in the time that is upon us." 

-Mirkheim, VII, p. 118.

Spheroids And Cubes

Mirkheim, VII.

"Sandra could imagine the foreign ship, a spheroid like hers, never meant to land on a planet, studded with gun emplacements, missile launchers, energy projectors, armored in forcefields and steel, magazines bearing the death of half a continent." (pp. 115-116)

We have become used to such spacecraft in fiction, for example Valenderay in The People Of The Wind. However, I learned something new (to me) today. Borg spaceships include giant "Cubes" that are all of a piece, not divided into weapons, Engineering, life support etc, and that automatically repair themselves very quickly when damaged.

A cuboid, especially one several kilometers wide, seems an unusual object to move around in space but sf writers have to think outside the box. Larry Niven exported an alien species, the kzinti, from his Known Space future history series into a Star Trek animated episode and Poul Anderson contributed three stories to the Man-Kzin Wars period of Known Space but neither Niven nor Anderson tackled the Borg. I suspect, in any case, that they were not around in Anderson's time.

Flying Away From Babur

Mirkheim, VI.

There are two reasons not to go into hyperdrive too deep inside a planetary system:

there is a greater probability that a quantum jump will bring part of the spaceship into the same volume of space as a meteor, thus damaging the ship;

curved space interferes with finely tuned oscillators.

Later in the Technic History, Dominic Flandry's private ship, Hooligan, is finely tuned enough to go hyper within the Solar System, then to travel from Jovian orbit to Earth in minutes, but surely such a transit would increase the first risk?

Because time crawls before Muddlin' Through can go hyper and escape pursuit, Falkayn remembers. His memories include:

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

As with the earlier reference to a Merseian, this is the first mention of an Ythrian in the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy although, if we read Poul Anderson's Technic History in this order, then we will very soon encounter the two Ythrian volumes, The People Of The Wind and The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Andrea and I watched an episode of Star Trek: Picard and, of course, I thought about how good the Technic History would look on screen.

A Wrestler

Mirkheim, VI.

Not much time this morning. Breakfast post.

The trader team have been made prisoners and are about to be interrogated:

"Falkayn gripped his spirit as if it were a wrestler trying to throw him." (p. 97)

That reminds me of something. Jacob was renamed "Israel" when he struggled with God. This is also described as wrestling with the angel. But a Jesuit informed me that, Biblically, an angel just means the presence of God. The Hebrew Bible is a dialogue between a deity and a people. Dialogue can involve conflict. More generally, we struggle with spirit, God, something within and outside us.

Inside That Environmental Unit

Mirkheim, V.

"Two beings waited... One was a Merseian..." (p. 95)

Any sf fan who read Mirkheim when it was first published would probably have been familiar with Merseians by then. Nevertheless, if anyone reads Mirkheim as the culmination of the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy before reading The People Of The Wind to be followed by The Earth Book Of Stormgate, then this is their first sight of a Merseian. The trader team's earlier visit to Merseia is described in "Day of Burning" which, like "Lodestar," about van Rijn's visit to Mirkheim, is presented in the Earth Book on a "now it can be told" basis. Of course, both "Day of Burning" and "Lodestar" precede Mirkheim in The Technic Civilization Saga where all the Technic History instalments are published for the first time in their chronological order. Nevertheless, it is sometimes important in the real world to remember the order in which information was made public. People cannot have responded to an important event if they had not been made aware of it yet. Avalonian readers of the Earth Book learn for the first time what Falkayn did on Merseia and how van Rijn came to Mirkheim.

This is like reading real history and authentic historical novels.

On Babur

Mirkheim, V.

Babur is a sub-Jovian hydrogen-atmosphere planet. The trader team, prisoners of the Baburites, are housed in what Falkayn recognizes as a man-made environmental unit:

made from durable alloys and plastics;

thickly walled;

triply insulated;

reinforced windows;

heated interior;

recycled oxygen atmosphere;

hydrogen penetrating the walls used to make water;

helium penetrating walls used instead of nitrogen;

artificial Terrestrial gravity.

Interesting details and I had not noted this account on previous readings.

Escape proof? Not for our guys.

Visiting Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop tomoz. Maybe some evening posts.

Falkayn Going To Babur

Mirkheim, IV.

David Falkayn calls an unorthodox game of poker. I do not understand the references to wild cards etc. 

"'Om mane padme hum,' whispered Adzel shakenly." (p. 76)

In an American TV comedy, a young man who had made a difficult catch in football was asked what had passed through his head as he watched the ball descend and he replied, "The Lord's Prayer?" Obviously, he had not been reciting the Lord's Prayer but we use such phrases to express strong feelings and what feel like life or death situations. "Om mane padme hum" and "Our Father..." are equivalents.

When my late friend, Fran Cobden, referred to "David Falkayn and his merry crew," he must have been thinking of passages like this chapter.

Falkayn quotes Tennyson's Ulysses:

"'I am a part of all that I have met...'" (p. 79)

In this poem, I prefer the later lines:

for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.