Chance And Life

In addition to the issues already discussed, Poul Anderson's "Cold Victory" is about the role of chance in history. Because of an accident and a coincidence, the Humanists are defeated. "For want of a nail..." On the other hand, the problems addressed by the Humanists have not been resolved. Therefore, history as a whole remains at the same stage of development.

The phrase:

"'...minor ripples in the mainstream of history...'" (Cold Victory, p. 193)

- reminds us of Anderson's Time Patrol series. The Patrol works hard to ensure that historical accidents occur on schedule.

Whatever the eventual outcome:

"'...you people bought for Earth a few more decades of freedom. They can't take that away from you.'" (p. 194)

Other Anderson heroes work to extend periods of peace in which human beings can live.

"Men died and civilizations died, but before they died they lived." (ibid.)

- as Time Patrolman Manse Everard reflects in Hiram's Tyre.

Space Warfare

How far can space warfare resemble sea warfare?

"'...the Unionist fleet...as mixed a bunch of Martians, Venusians, and freedom-minded Earthmen as history ever saw.'" (Cold Victory, p. 170)

"...Dushanovitch-Alvarez, half idealist and half buccaneer, was assembling the Unionist fleet..." (p. 175)

"Most of its personnel had signed on for booty; the System knew how much treasure was locked in the vaults of Earth's dictators." (p. 177)

"'My father was there. We bought a dozen reclamation units with his share of the loot...'" (p. 191)

An intergovernmental, interplanetary war fought by a mixed bunch led by a buccaneer for booty and loot! This is a "past future," combining its author's interests in Vikings and space travel.

Nuclear War

For discussion of Poul Anderson's non-fiction book on Thermonuclear War, see here.

Anderson's "Cold Victory" considerably advances his Psychotechnic History. This story:

informs us that the Humanists have overthrown the Psychotechnicians but have in turn been overthrown by an alliance between the Terrestrial "cabal" and the extraterrestrial colonies;

uses the framing device of a conversation between a Martian Professor, a "Venusian" clan member, a Planetary Engineer from Luna and a Solar Guard Captain from Earth;

tells the story of what is in effect a civil war within the Solar Union through the tragedy of two brothers fighting on opposite sides;

addresses the morality of nuclear war.

The admiral of the Union fleet announces that the threatened bombardment of Earth will be treated as genocide. Lieutenant Robert Crane, knowing that his brother is on the Humanist side, protests against the possible execution of men obeying "...the government they had pledged to uphold..." (Cold Victory, p. 176)

Personally, I would regard nuclear bombardment as genocide, therefore a war crime. Soldiers are obliged to disobey illegal orders. In fact, there is, in the Union, widespread revulsion against the use of nuclear weapons:

"'I'll mutiny before I give my name to such a thing.'
"'And I...And most of us, I think.'" (p. 177)

In Isaac Asimov's future history, there is speculation as to how Earth, the original planet, could have become so radioactive as to be almost uninhabitable. Question: Could it be artificial? Might someone have deliberately caused a series of nuclear explosions as an act of war? Response: Impossible! In all of Galactic history, the only Admiral even to suggest that was immediately lynched by his own men! (Asimov occasionally makes some telling points through his fiction. Another: How did the dinosaurs become extinct? A time traveler explains: It was the small ones. The small ones with the guns killed the big ones, then each other.)

Solar Union: Revolution And Counterrevolution

The Humanist Revolution succeeds;
the Humanist leader, Carnarvon, becomes Terrestrial dictator;
but Earth cannot afford to reduce technology;
Humanist measures cause famine and disruption;
their rule becomes arbitrary and brutal;
the Mars and Venus governments pressurize the Humanists;
the Humanists respond by withdrawing Earth and Luna from the Solar Union;
Mars and Venus aid the counterrevolutionary cabal;
a space fleet supports the uprising;
the cabal reclaims Earth except for fortresses held by Carnarvon;
the pro-Humanist Terrestrial space fleet threatens to bombard if the counterrevolutionaries do not surrender;
the Unionist fleet rendezvous off Luna...

...and that is all from me this evening.

Battle Rock House

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History presents yet another hospitable inn. These are a regular feature of his works.

The Battle Rock House is:

a quiet tavern;
on the edge of Syrtis Town;
friendly and unpretentious;
furnished with comfortable loungers scattered under massive sandwood rafters;
a place for chess and conversation;
the setting of an argument about Historical Necessity and the Man of Destiny between a Martian colonial, a Planetary Engineer, a kilted Venusian woman and a Captain of the Solar Guard.

But that is as far as I take the argument this evening...

Judgment Day And Valkyries

Religious ideas remain in language long after they have passed from belief. In Poul Anderson's "Holmgang," a spaceman, buried at Helmet Hill on the asteroid Achilles, is said to be waiting unchanged till Judgment Day. When two spacemen agree to "holmgang" combat on a small asteroid, one of them imagines "'Valkyries in spacesuits...'" (Cold Victory, p. 153)

Spiritualists say that each human being is an immortal soul that will survive his/her body. Some Biblical sects say that immortality can only be in a resurrected body. Orthodox Christianity combines these ideas so that there is both an immaterial hereafter immediately after physical death and a future resurrection of the body at Judgment Day. Valhalla was a cycle of fighting, dying, rising and feasting that would end at the Ragnarok.

References to these ideas remain in language even though many of us no longer entertain such notions.

"...Earth!"

"Man, but it was a long time since he'd been on Earth!"
-Poul Anderson, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), p. 119.

Anderson's character does not mention "The Green Hills of Earth" but could have done especially since this phrase was not original with Heinlein. The song is mentioned in a much later "high frontier" story by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. That story is in our future so its characters could have been quoting Heinlein.

The interplanetary period of Anderson's Psychotechnic History is like the "Green Hills of Earth" period of Heinlein's Future History transposed to a nearby timeline. Both fictitious histories have:

hard sf treatment of interplanetary flight;
Luna City;
a future Revolution on Earth;
an oppressive colonial regime overthrown on Venus;
colonized asteroids;
the peace guarded by monopolized nuclear weapons (the Patrol/the Guard);
an interstellar generation ship;
psychodynamics;
longevity;
off-stage Martians;
a later period of faster than light interstellar travel.

Heinlein, implausibly, has several other intelligent species within the Solar System but keeps them also off-stage so that the main impression generated is that of a realistic account of near future space travel by human beings. He sets several of his stories in Luna City, giving the future a daily life, as someone said, whereas Anderson concentrates more on the political conflicts leading to the Humanist Revolution and its aftermath.

Holmgang

"Holmgang" is like the "Green Hills of Earth" period of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:

asteroid prospectors and miners are the last private enterprisers;

there are bases on the Trojan asteroids in Jupiter orbit;

ships leave the trailing group for the outer planets and the leading group for the inner System;

Achilles and Patroclus "...have a permanent boom town atmosphere..." (Cold Victory, p. 115);

Guardsmen visit the Last Chance bar on Achilles in threes;

some bars centrifuge for artificial gravity;

Johnny Malone from Luna City says that the whole System is getting too civilized except Venus;

spaceships have upgraded to the ion drive;

the Sirius, crewed by Malone and Bo Jonsson, carries cargo and passengers.

We recognize this as an old-fashioned story about the future. Unfamiliar word: "tommicker." (p. 118)

Opening Sentences

These are the opening two paragraphs, also the opening two sentences, of Poul Anderson's "Holmgang":

"The most dangerous is not the outlawed murderer, who only slays men, but the rebellious philosopher; for he destroys worlds.
"Darkness and the chill glitter of stars, Bo Jonsson crouched on a whirling speck of stone and waited for the man who was coming to kill him."
-Poul Anderson, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), p. 112.

Is the first sentence necessary? Or appropriate? Should the story not make its point so that the reader realizes it at the end without having to be told it, especially not at the beginning? Is the omniscient narrator moralizing instead of unobtrusively imparting fictional "facts"? Darkness and stars are what Jonsson sees but does he also reflect on slayers of men and destroyers of worlds? In fact, how many rebellious philosophers have destroyed worlds?

Ideas can become destructive if (a) they gain a mass following and (b) they generate conflict. But, on the basis of recent posts, I question whether conflictive ideas would gain a mass following in the utopian economy of the Solar Union. Instead, the conflicts described in "Quixote and the Windmill" would die out as new generations grew up accustomed to the changed social conditions - which, to them, would be not "changed" but normal, just as we accept democracy and the market whereas our ancestors accepted hierarchy and serfdom.

The Solar Union: Unemployment

The issues change as we proceed through Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:

in Vol I, who is the protean enemy of human unity?;

in Vol II, what can possibly go wrong in an apparently perfect economy?;

in Vol III, is it possible to coordinate a civilization confronting cosmic complexity?

In "Quixote and the Windmill," the opening story of Vol II, machines do all the:

manual work;
routine computation;
independent research.

Therefore, the only human beings guaranteed employment are:

highly skilled and trained engineers and technicians;
scientific geniuses;
painters;
writers;
musicians;
spacemen;
tavern keepers.

Citizen's allowance covers basic necessities, including drink. A former industrial worker, disliking concerts and paintings, must settle for drink, women and stereo-film. His drinking companion, a genius but not a first rank genius, did find work as a servo-technician but was unable to tolerate its dreary routine.

Population is kept small and static and is adapting to its changed social environment. I think that, after at most three generations, the transitional problems would be resolved and there would be neither need nor incentive for the Humanist Revolution, fifty years later according to the Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series.

The Solar Union Economy

See here.

The first story in Poul Anderson's Cold Victory (New York, 1982), "Quixote and the Windmill," confirms the picture of a utopian economy, helped by the literary device of the pathetic fallacy:

the first robot, i.e., "...independent, volitional, nonspecialized machine..." (p. 16);
green hills;
sunlight flashing off polished metal;
a bright summer sky;
sunlit fields;
groves dancing in the wind;
widely distributed, self-servicing houses;
a large, almost automatic food factory;
quiet, self-piloting carplanes;
sun-tanned people in loose bright clothes;
a colorist with a new chromatic harmony;
a composer with an omniplayer;
engineers in a transparent laboratory;
short work periods;
most people at recreation most of the time;
a picnic, a dance, a concert and children at play;
oldsters in hammocks enjoying beer and books;
live talent preferred to TV;
a gardened, colonnaded tavern with autodispensors and two drunk men;
we are about to learn what can go wrong...