Interstellar Hazards

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Kenri Shaun lists the hazards of interstellar travel:

"'...dark dwarf nebulae, black holes, or rogue planets.'" (p. 196)

Rogue planets play major roles in Anderson's "A Sun Invisible," Satan's World and Ensign Flandry; black holes in his "Kyrie" and For Love And Glory, but what is a dark dwarf nebula? Googling discloses dark dwarfs and dark nebulae but not dark dwarf nebulae. Is such a nebula one composed entirely of dark dwarf stars? That would indeed be a navigational hazard.

After some awesome detours (see recent posts), I am again rereading Starfarers and finding several linguistic and technical points to discuss, maybe in the next post.

Hopewell

In haste en route to Christmas Eve party. Will extend this post later. Poul Anderson fans, please correct me when I get something wrong. I have spotted one definite error...

Later:

See here.

The error is that Hopewell was mentioned in "A Sun Invisible" and in Mirkheim. It must be difficult to appreciate all of the interconnections in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization on a single reading. I notice many of the internal cross-references because I continually reread and blog about the series.

For example, Vixenite colonists, like Donarrians and Ymirites, feature in the Imperial period of the History and therefore are appropriately referenced in Mirkheim which was written later although set earlier.

The Seven In Space (see here)
Galactic Developments
XT Systems
Interstar Transport
Sanchez Engineering
Stellar Metals
Timebinders Insurance
Abdallah Enterprises

Abdallah Enterprises guards its centrum on Hopewell with a single orbiting corvette which is unexpectedly attacked by the Hermetian destroyer, North Atlantis. Because the approaching destroyer beams a warning, the corvette replies with missiles and an energy beam. The Hermetian dodges, disintegrates the pursuing torpedoes, then counterattacks with an energy weapon and pursues the fleeing corvette while destroying or diverting missiles and absorbing cannon shots until the survivors surrender.

Meanwhile, Muddlin' Through enters atmosphere with Falkayn broadcasting that the Free Hermetian Navy is about to destroy the installations of a company that has conspired with the Baburites. With Falkayn steering and van Rijn manning the weapons control turret, Muddlin' Through destroys a swarm of defense aircraft, lets staff evacuate the centrum, then destroys it with a fifty kiloton torpedo. Centrum becomes crater.

Again the theme of the novel: looking down at the centrum's "...splendid towers..." before destroying them, Falkayn thinks:

"This was a grand era in its way. I too will miss it."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 266.

From The League To The Commonalty

(i) In "A Sun Invisible," David Falkayn is the factor on the planet Garstang's for the Solar Spice & Liquor Company and the Polesotechnic League. In "Starfog," Daven Laure is a Ranger of the Commonalty.

(ii) "A Sun Invisible" begins as Falkayn travels solo in a speedster through hyperspace to the planet Vanessa. "Starfog" begins as Laure, with the consciousness-level computer of his spaceship, Jaccavrie, travels through hyperspace to the planet Serieve.

(iii) Falkayn is forty light years from Beta Centauri, which is 350 light years from Earth, in the twenty fifth century whereas Laure is at the galactic fringe two spiral arms away in the seventy second century.

(iv) For information on his destination, Falkayn reads Terrestrial Pilot's Guide To The Beta Centauri Region on microreel. For information about what to expect at his destination, Laure asks Jaccavrie to display on screen a text molecularly recorded on a plugged-in memory cylinder.

(v) On Vanessa, Falkayn has a sometimes difficult conversation with the meter-tall factor Beljagor. On Serieve, Laure has a sometimes difficult conversation with the small physicist Vandange.

(vi) Beljagor would have preferred to be sent "'...an experienced man... '" rather than "'An unlicked cub!'" (The Van Rijn Method, p. 275). Vandange had hoped that "'...the Rangers would have sent a real team, instead of - '" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 721).

(vii) Beljagor denies that the blue giant, Beta Centauri, can have a planetary system. It does but those planets did not condense around that star. Vandange denies that the "Cloud Universe" as described by the Kirkasanters can exist. It does, although not as a separate universe.

Meeting An Alien

To reinforce my earlier point about the oddness of doing regular business with non-human intelligences, David Falkayn enters the office of Beljagor, the Polesotechnic League factor on the planet Vanessa, and, for the first time in his life, sees a being from Jaleel. Beljagor is "...somewhat anthropoid" (The Van Rijn Method, p. 274) but:

he is just above a meter in height;
his (visible) feet each have three thick toes;
his hands have three mutually opposed fingers;
his only garment is a kilt;
he has gray scales and a yellow abdomen;
his nose resembles a tapir's snout;
his ears resemble bat wings;
"carroty" (carrot-colored or carrot-like?) cilia grow from his head;
a chemosensor tendril of flesh grows from above each of his small, ultraviolet-detecting eyes.

Despite all this unfamiliar alienness, Falkayn thinks that Beljagor is not so bad when the factor offers him a beer and he responds, "'Thank you, sir.'" (ibid.) They then discuss immediate practical business as straightforwardly as if they were members of a single species. The only distinction that concerns Falkayn is the Beljagor is a Master whereas he himself is a mere journeyman.

Also in the office is a shape that Falkayn does recognize and finds "...not an unpleasing sight..." (p. 268), a Vanessan, Beljagor's liaison officer, a slim, brown-furred, tail-squatting tyrannosaur with a large shimmering dorsal fin (!) who, Falkayn can see, is neither male nor transmitter but female. Personally, I would take one look in that office and run like heck.

Items About Falkayn

Today was the return journey from Staffordshire to Lancaster so there has been little time or energy for blogging. Tomorrow, there will be a funeral in the morning and afternoon and a small sf group gathering in the evening.

In "The Three-Cornered Wheel," Falkayn alone realizes that a shape other than a circle can be used to move objects, although I still do not fully understand the explanation, but surely some of his colleagues would have realized the same or at least would have understood his interrupted explanation?

In "A Sun Invisible," he ingeniously deduces the location and explanation of a planetary system and also devises a new way to send a message in secret: jumping his ship in and out of hyperspace in League code. In "The Trouble Twisters," he realizes how to contact Muddlehead, his ship's computer, even though he and his colleagues have lost their radio transmitters. In this last case, we have a standard example of an Anderson hero faced with a problem suddenly realizing the solution:

"If we could have called the ship -'
"And then his mind rocked. He stumbled back and sat down on the bed.'"
-Poul Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (New York, 2010), p. 191.

Recognizing the signs, we know what this means: he has suddenly realized how to call the ship. In "A Sun Invisible," the realization was gentler:

"He woke some hours later, and there was his solution. For a while he lay staring at the overhead, awed by his genius."
-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (New York, 2010), p. 307.

Usually our hero is fully awake when his genius operates!

A novel is a long prose fiction. My rule of thumb for novel length is 100+ pages. Thus, I would count "The Trouble Twisters," stretching from p. 77 to p. 208 of David Falkayn: Star Trader as a novel. However, it is undeniably shorter than Satan's World (pp. 329-598), which was originally published as a novel.

League training must include guidance in how to function effectively when facing a being whose body can have any size or shape. (For previous discussion of this issue, see here.) In "A Sun Invisible," Falkayn meets a slim, furry tyrannosaur with a large, iridescent dorsal fin and a tapir-snouted, bat-wing-eared humanoid with cilia on his head and tendrils above his eyes. Falkayn walks into an office and converses with these individuals as easily as if they had been human beings. Most of us would just run.

I am rereading the van Rijn story, "Hiding Place," which is based on the idea of diverse body shapes, and will post about it shortly, although it will take some time to list the organisms involved.