Choths In "Lodestar"

Seeking information about choths, we come to "Lodestar" which is simultaneously a trader team story, a Nicholas van Rijn story and, to a lesser extent but nevertheless genuinely, an Ythrian story. Van Rijn and his granddaughter, Coya, travel in an Ythrian spaceship. The Ythrian captain, Hirharouk, observes and comments on the confrontation between van Rijn and his team, led by David Falkayn. A fourth status of "Lodestar" is that it was written to be a concluding Polesotechnic League story. There are problems and conflicts within the League and Hirharouk sees God's shadow across it. (In Anglic, that means that the League is about to be struck down.) This explains why so many plot elements are brought together and summed up in a single story.

Fortunately, despite  its author's original intention, "Lodestar" acquired a longer sequel, Mirkheim, which is like "Lodestar" writ large. In Mirkheim, we see more of van Rijn, his team, his granddaughter, Grand Duchess Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen of Hermes, Baburites and Merseians. We also see Hermes, David Falkayn's home planet, for the first time and other members of Falkayn's family as well as the surface of Mirkheim for the first and last times.

But what does "Lodestar" say about choths? Van Rijn tells Coya that, when Hirharouk had picked his crew for this highly secret mission, he had:

"'...tried but was not able to recruit everybody from his own choth.'" (p. 346)

Hloch and Arinnian, our narrators, explain:

"The Planha word designated a basic social unit, more than a tribe, less than a nation, with cultural and religious dimensions corresponding to nothing human." (pp. 346-347)

The editors and authors of the Earth Book would not have had to explain "choth" to their Avalonian audience. Human Avalonians live alongside Ythrian choths and many have joined them.

Van Rijn continues:

"'Some, even, is from different societies and belong to no choths at allses. Ythrians got as much variation as the Commonwealth - no, more, because they not had time yet for technology to make them into homogeneouses.'" (p. 347)

Similarly, there are Merseians with surnames and no Vachs. But we have not yet been told exactly what a choth is.