Monday, 12 May 2025

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.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Not all Merseians were antagonized by the League, the Star Believers were eager for friendly relations with other races. But supporters of their views did not emerge victorious from the struggles for power over who would unify Merseia.

Hope this uploads.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

I think it's mentioned that the Merseians get demoralized when their "predestined" supremacy doesn't come off. They're analogous to Sassanid Persia in its rivalry with the Roman and then Byzantine Empires, I think.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

I think that that is mentioned in Sandra Miesel's Afterword to A STONE IN HEAVEN rather than in a Technic History text.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, to Both!

We do see a discouraged Tachwyr the Dark, Protector of the Grand Council, as he conferred with the councilors about the failure of the Magnusson plot near the end of THE GAME OF EMPIRE.

To upload or not, that is the question.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

In the absence of anything further, we have to take this as the beginning of the demoralization of the Roidhunate. So many of their schemes have been defeated.

Paul.

S.M. Stirling said...

So many... because of Flandry! And then his children!