Future Historical Context

Let us contextualize "A Little Knowledge" within Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. I suggest that Volume II of the Complete History should be entitled Decline Of The Polesotechnic League and should comprise, in this order:

"Hiding Place"
"Territory"
"The Trouble Twisters"
"Day of Burning"
"The Master Key"
"Esau"
Satan's World
"A Little Knowledge"
"Lodestar"

I place "Esau" later than it appears in The Earth Book Of Stormgate simply because Hloch's introduction to "Esau" says that at this time the philosophy and practice of the Polesotechnic League were already becoming archaic or even obsolete. (The story is included in the Earth Book because it shows something of that philosophy and practice even though it is in no way directly related either to the colonization of Avalon or to the founding of the Stormgate Choth.)

"Hiding Place" begins excellently with "The world's great age begins anew...," quoted by "Le Matelot." I have argued here that this introductory passage would be better placed early in Volume I before the very first story to feature the League. However, to relocate an introduction in this way would be to edit Anderson's texts. As it stands, the passage made a good introduction to Trader To The Stars and would make an equally good introduction to Decline Of The Polesotechnic League, as long as "Hiding Place" no longer comes directly after "Esau" as introduced by Hloch! (This makes the League archaic or obsolete before the world begins anew.)

The proposed Decline... volume would comprise:

two stories of van Rijn in space;
two trader team stories;
two stories of van Rijn at the Winged Cross;
three works about change.

In "Lodestar," an Ythrian sees the shadow of God the Hunter on van Rijn's way of life: a fitting end to a volume beginning: "The world's great age begins anew..." We know that, during the post-League Troubles, savages in spaceships will raid Earth for slaves. "A Little Knowledge" informs us that the irresponsible selling of spaceships to savages has already begun. What is thankfully averted is the selling to them of plans for "primitive" interstellar ships that, with expensively bought expert help, they would be able to produce and reproduce for themselves.

"Primitive" Interstellar Travel

A ship of the Grand Survey discovered Trillia. From them or later visitors, the Trillians acquired knowledge of physics, including the theory of gravity control and hyperdrive. However, they cannot afford to buy even diagrams for starships from Polesotechnic League companies. It is League policy not to help anyone into space who can't get there by themselves because the established companies don't want new competitors emerging overnight.

The Trillians know, for example, of transistors. However, to design and built an industrial complex capable of producing not only transistors but also the many other necessary gadgets, would require decades of regimentation and poverty so, instead, they proceed more gradually:

developing huge but workable fission-power units;
generating and regulating the necessary forces with vacuum tubes, glass rectifiers and wire;
storing data on tape to be retrieved with a cathode-ray scanner;
computing with miniaturized gas-filled units reacting in microseconds.

This is "primitive" when contrasted with:

a thermonuclear power-plant;
initiative-grade navigation and engineering computers;
full-cycle life support;
solid-state circuits;
molecular-level and nuclear-level transitions;
force-fields;
storing data in single molecules to be retrieved with a quantum-field pulse;
computing with photon interplays reacting in a nanosecond;
the entire system almost organically integrated, more energy than matter.

There may be some resemblance to the hastily constructed ship that a crew of Kirkasanters later use to travel out of the Cloud Universe and through the Dragon's Head Nebula.

A Little Knowledge

Polesotechnic League agents shoot anyone who sells space technology to war-like cultures. Despite this, we know for sure that such cultures do get spaceships and nuclear weapons later in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.

In "A Little Knowledge," Nicholas van Rijn is an off-stage public figure. One character quotes something he said in a telescreen interview. We also encounter Anderson's extensive vocabulary again: "...coloratura..." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 607).

The punishment for the three Terrans who hijacked a Trillian spaceship does not sound so bad: spending years in the pleasant environment of Trillia, sharing their technical knowledge. But they will not see it that way.

Witweet tells them that, by inferring that Trillians were cowardly, they made the logical fallacy of the does-not-follow. in Latin, this is non sequitur.

Trillians

The Trillian, Witweet:

is an erect, meter-high, gray-furred, tailed biped;
has padded feet and large ears on a spherical head;
wears an embroidered kimono with a pink bow.

His species:

are omnivores;
have never hunted or waged war;
use no personal violence beyond infrequent scuffles;
employ unarmed police officers called Courtesy Monitors;
have started into space;
are largely an unknown factor for the League -

- the point being that some inaccurate conclusions may well be drawn from the information imparted so far.

It is good to see that some races at least have never waged war. If there really were that many other intelligent species out there, then there would have to be some whose evolution and history were sufficiently different from ours that they had never found mass slaughter an acceptable way to settle their differences.

Trillia

In Lenidel, the principal nation on the planet Trillia, most cities are spread through a large forest and park. The city of Annanna has two million busy inhabitants, with perhaps three aircraft visible at once. Pedestrians and cyclists proceed along The Pathway Of The Beautiful Blossoms And The Bridge That Arches Like A Note Of Music.

Number 1337 on The Pathway Of The Beautiful Blossoms And The Bridge That Arches Like A Note Of Music has, over an otherwise doorless entrance, spicy-smelling, sunlight-trapping flowering vines. The interior has a wooden floor, stools and an intricately faceted rock crystal. The occupant, Witweet, reads poetry and addresses a visitor with endearments, offering Lapsang Souchong and sweet cakes. There is occasional trade with the Polesotechnic League and the Trillians, like the Merseians, have bought tea. Trillians can sell arts and crafts but, lacking the means to buy modern technology, are developing it themselves. I do not think that Trillia will need to join the Supermetals Company.

Around number 1337 are colorful flowers, red tree trunks, bright fluttering wings and the distant sound of The Waterfall That Rings Like Glass Bells. An armed Terran whose vocalizer transforms his speech into song knows that to omit honorifics and circumlocutions without apology is to issue a deadly insult.

Avalon appears in three short stories and one novel whereas Trillia is mentioned and described in just this single short story, "A Little Knowledge." Nevertheless, it is yet another colorful alien environment imagined in detail by Poul Anderson.