Interstellar Warfare

Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars is a war series with an interstellar setting. Thus, at least two kinds of contributions to this series are possible:

cosmological speculations;
stories based on an understanding of military history.

Poul Anderson's contributions (see here) feature the kind of scientific extrapolation about cosmic conditions that Anderson displays in "Pride" and "Starfog" whereas Jerry Pournelle's & SM Stirling's first Man-Kzin Wars story begins with a former bureaucrat, now a general, who had taught military history before first contact with the kzinti. The ratcats are not used to encountering military resistance but are learning from it and one of their commanders has written two works on strategy.

Thus, we expect Pournelle and Stirling, both specialists in military fiction, to emphasize this aspect of the series. Their approach and Anderson's are complementary and should generate a better rounded series than any single author would have been able to write. 

Films

A visit to the cinema can simultaneously update us on several familiar series. The other day:

a showing of Star Wars VII;

trailers for Star Trek, Captain America and X Men;

a poster advertising Batman v Superman.

While watching Star Wars, I tried to imagine that we were instead watching a film dramatization of Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return. In fact, imagine a serial adaptation of the entire History of Technic Civilization from "The Saturn Game" to "Starfog." There would have to be two actors for Dominic Flandry because he changes his face by biosculp between his second and third novels. Earlier, I posted suggestions for filming two small parts of the Technic History. See here and here.

The Star Trek and Star Wars series prove that hard sf series like Anderson's Technic History or James Blish's Cities In Flight could be filmed without encountering any insuperable technical difficulties. So let's see it.

(See here and here for discussion of proposed films based on works by Blish.)

Free Growth

See here.

After the "proto-series" about Diana Crowfeather, there is one about Roan Tom, a legendary hero or brigand during the post-Imperial "Long Night" period, and another about Daven Laure, a Ranger of the Commonalty.

Hopefully, the galactic spiral-spanning civilization represented by the Commonalty is in "free growth" without any collective "wrong decision" leading to "breakdown." Hopefully, also, the Time Patrol will continue to protect the Danellian timeline from temporal chaos.

The Danellian "rabbi" or "sensei" (see here) says:

"'Perhaps it is not the best course, but we are no gods to impose anything different when we know that it does at last take us beyond what our animal selves could have imagined.'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 435)

There is no "Perhaps..." about it. However, the Danellians are not human beings in "free growth" but super-human beings. I will return to the philosophical implications of the rabbi/sensei's discourse.

Exploring The Center Of The Cloud Universe

Jaccavrie identifies and approaches a star of a particular type;

Laure descends in his sled to the surface of an orbiting airless body while Jaccavrie hovers directly above;

Laure takes analytical readings and mineral samples and observes the larger bodies from a distance;

they repeat this procedure for different stellar types;

because of the radiation levels, he finds no life;

next, he plans to measure element distribution on the surface of a planet with an atmosphere even though the air will impede visual contact and the charged ionosphere will prevent radio contact;

spectra, spots, flares, prominences and coronas indicate surface turbulence on the stars in the Cloud Universe;

however, infalling matter continually changing their already unusual compositions makes their cores also violently variable;

a nova-like outburst from the sun "...might be akin to the Wolf-Rayet phenomenon..." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 781);

either the increased irradiation triggers a cyclone or the conductive dust transfers energy into a vortex or something else happens;

the sudden wind wrecks Laure's sled.

Kirkasant And Commonalty

Kirkasanters give each individual duties to clan and country from birth but then protect individuality by discouraging slavishness and encouraging privacy. Masks are a motif in their art.

The interstellar civilization served by the Commonalty gives each individual very broad freedoms but then protects society by discouraging greed, selfishness and callousness - although Laure mentions quadrillionaires.

The vast expense of locating Kirkasant in the Cloud Universe can be met neither by taxation, because no tax mechanism can exist on such a scale, nor by donations, because the cause cannot be publicized to such a vast, diverse civilization with many more pressing needs of its own.

Fortunately, however, Laure has thought of a way to make economics work for the Kirkasanters. By discovering and exploring many planetary systems in the Cloud Universe, they establish ownership and therefore a share in the wealth when the vast mineral resources generated by the incessant stellar processes are mined. Miners swarming through the "starfog" will build so many beacons that it will become an easy matter to navigate and find Kirkasant.

Poul Anderson combines astrophysics, economics and human concerns.

Earlier Information

See:
here for more on the Cloud Universe;
here for how to track a spaceship through space;
here and here for more on Daven Laure's spaceship, Jaccavrie;
here for life in asteroidal space.

What I am saying here is that I have said a lot already and some of it is relevant to what I am trying to say now! I have noticed some repetition because I have simply forgotten what was posted earlier. But it is all interesting stuff (I hope).

The Pathetic Fallacy In The Cloud Universe

The Cloud Universe globular cluster's eccentric orbit passes through dense clouds near the galactic center, gathering gas and dust which condense into heavy-metal-rich stars and planets.
-copied from here. 

Daven Laure and Graydal, having left Serieve, look into the Cloud Universe (see here and here) from an unusual planet (see here).

It will be difficult to find Graydal's home planet, Kirkasant, in the Cloud Universe but she says:

"'...you will find a way.' The mirth faded. It had never been strong. 'Won't you?' The reflection of clouded stars glistened on her faceplate like tears." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 756)

Laure cannot see Graydal's face behind the reflection in her face plate but that reflection, of the stars in the Cloud Universe, resembles tears.

On Kirkasant

The Kirkasanter crew are of the Hoborkan clan and speak its tongue. "Reyad" is the need to search, to hunt, to find the new or to be alone in wild places. The crew are fifteen men and five women. Women are included because they are better at some jobs but every woman is accompanied by an older male relative!

Kirkasanters are instinctively, not culturally, motivated to have children and will not limit their population in any circumstances. With an initially small population in a hostile, radioactive environment, the race survived only by reproducing as much as possible, helped by mutations. The Hoborkans initially refuse to give cell samples for chromosome analysis because this would violate the body which is the citadel of the ego. This attitude hinders medicine but encourages dignity and self-reliance.

Graydal tells Laure that, on Kirkasant, they will:

watch the sunset in the Rainbow Desert, followed by the bright night with auroras;
see flying flocks rise from dawn mists over salt marshes;
stand on the battlements of Ey beneath the banners of knights who "'...rid the land of the firearms...'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 748);
watch dances welcoming the new year.

I am not sure what is meant by ridding the land of firearms - Graydal carries a gun - and, of course, I do not remember noticing this phrase before I started to summarize information about Kirkasant. Graydal also wears a uniform, a practice that has become obsolete in the Commonalty civilization.

Serieve II

In the region of space where the planet Serieve has been colonized, stars are an average of four parsecs apart whereas Sol and Proxima Centauri are about 4.24 light years apart. Since one parsec is about 3.26 light years, this is a big difference. In the Serievan region, stars are just over 13 light years apart.

The thin interstellar medium has not been greatly enriched by earlier stellar generations. Local systems, including that of Serieve's sun, are poor in heavy metals. Hence, the extraction of minerals from ocean currents in the arctic waters around Pelogard.

Laure, who feels young and awkward, just as Falkayn had been conscious of still being only a journeyman, is annoyed when Vandage patronizingly lectures him about:

"'The interstellar medium from which stars form...'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 720) -

- but, of course, what is really happening here is that the author is ensuring that his readers understand the cosmological context. It is not possible to tell Laure that.

Imagine living not in the northern hemisphere of Earth but near the northern verge of another spiral arm with only the galactic halo beyond; also working in an office high in a tower of Pelogard with automated extractor plants visible down at the waterfront; and knowing that, beyond the nearby Dragon's Head Nebula where human beings are barely beginning to explore, lies the unknown.

Serieve

When human beings colonize a planet, they spread across its surface and therefore build low. When the planetary population has become considerably larger, then they:

build higher;
preserve wilderness areas;
discourage procreation;
encourage emigration.

At least, these generalizations apply to the civilization served by the Commonalty - although they seem to make sense for most interstellar colonists? (We were told earlier in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization that the Gorzuni spread their dwellings underground, regarding the planet as a Mother.)

The narrator of Anderson's "Starfog" refers to "...our race..." and to "...our own culture..." and mentions something of what "We know..." about "...other branches of humanity..." (Flandry's Legacy, p. 718). Thus, this narrator is not able to give us an overview of the two or three spiral arms that have been humanly colonized. Maybe Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society, who commented on the much earlier Terran Empire, would have been able to do so.

Despite the usual practice of building low, the Serievan city, Pelogard, is on an island where minerals can be extracted from sea water and is therefore built high. From an office high in a tower, Laure looks down across metal, concrete, glass and plastic buildings linked by trafficways and freight cables to the automated extractor plants, warehouses, sky-docks and cargo craft at the waterfront.

Serieve is near the northern edge of the spiral arm and the galactic halo of thin dust and widely scattered ancient globular clusters. Do any explorers venture out into intergalactic space?

Daven Laure

See here and here.

Daven Laure, a Ranger of the Commonalty, has been asked to go to the planet Serieve to investigate the twenty mysterious red-skinned human beings called "Kirkasanters" who have arrived there in an archaic spaceship with hyperdrive and gravity control but also with nuclear fission instead of fusion and even human piloting.

The Serievan linguistic computer had interpreted the Kirkasanters' language and encoded vocabulary, grammar and worldview on cylinders sent by courier to Sector HQ. En route to Serieve, the language was re-encoded in Laure's neurones. He listens to the recorded voice of the Kirkasanter navigator, then asks the consciousness-level computer of his spaceship, Jaccavrie, to screen the Serievan translation for comparison.

Laure walks from his study cabin to the bridge which is still so called although the ship navigates, pilots, lifts, maintains, repairs and fights for herself. When he orders the simulacrum activated, he seems to float in space although he still feels the gravity field and the hardness of the deck, senses the ship's energies and hears the ventilators change their odor-temperature-ionization cycle. He sees stars, the galaxy, Serieve, its moon and the depths of space. He also looks back, as if for comfort, in the direction of Old Earth.

 I think that it is implausible that he would do this. Earth is no part of his civilization or of his everyday life. However, the gesture is an opportunity for the author to inform the reader that Earth is two spiral arms away and that no one on this frontier knows anything about it.

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.

7100

In "The Saturn Game," Minamoto's report is dated 2057. Thus, this opening installment of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization is definitely set in the mid-twenty first century. It is a safe bet that interstellar travel begins in the following century. In Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, 2150 makes sense as a round number date for the second installment, "Wings of Victory."

In the forty third and concluding installment, "Starfog," Daven Laure refers to:

"'...five thousand years of interstellar travel...'"
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 717.

Thus, it makes perfect sense that the Chronology gives the round number date of 7100 for this story. (I thought before that this was just an arbitrary date.)

A linguistic computer says that the speech of the Kirkasanters, who have been isolated for millennia:

"'...appears to have remote affinities with a few that we know, like ancient Anglic.'" (p. 715)

Thus, Anglic, still spoken even during the Long Night, in the fortieth installment, "A Tragedy of Errors," has become a dead language at last. Descended from English, it was for a long time the dominant language of Terra as Eriau was of Merseia and Planha was of Ythri. There was also a "League Latin" used by the Polesotechnic League.

The narrator of "Starfog" says:

"We know that other branches of humanity have their distinctive ways, and hear rumors of yet stranger ones." (p. 718)

and refers to "...our race..." (ibid.). Thus, this narrator is not omniscient but is part of the same civilization as the viewpoint character, Daven Laure. He or she, the narrator of "Starfog," is the last historical commentator of the series, which started with Minamoto, then Hloch.

"Starfog" expresses the richness of human life on the fringe of another spiral arm of the galaxy in a remote future. I will try to convey some of this feeling in the next post or two.

Commonalty Rangers

The post-human stage of evolution - in diverse sf works by Poul Anderson - is the Danellians, self-conscious computers or artificial neural systems, i.e., artificial brains. The phrase "self-conscious computers" raises philosophical questions discussed earlier. Computation will not become conscious merely by becoming faster or more efficient whereas an artificial brain, i.e., an artifact exactly duplicating the functions of an organic brain, will, by definition, be conscious.

In the Polesotechnic League and Terran Empire periods of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, consciousness-level computers can be constructed but it is considered more economical to keep organic intelligences in charge of unconscious computers. However, millennia later, in the Commonalty period, circumstances have changed. Rangers regularly facing cosmic unknowns need to travel in intelligent spaceships.

The computer in Daven Laure's ship, Jaccavrie, simultaneously displays a requested text on a screen, manages planetary approach, converses with Laure and awaits further instructions. It would be able to run the ship in his absence. Despite being served by such versatile ships:

"...every year, a certain number [of Rangers] did not come home from their missions."
- Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), pp. 711-794 AT p. 711.

Presumably, a Ranger would be safe if he were to remain inside his vessel but his work obliges him to leave it. Laure investigates element distribution on the surface of a planet in the central region of the Cloud Universe even though the planet's ionosphere prevents radio contact between his sled and the orbiting Jaccavrie. When wind smashes the sled into a mountain, Laure must shelter in a cave hoping that the zero visibility storm ends before his powerpack does.

Suddenly we understand why some Rangers do not return.

The Center Of The Cloud Universe

Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), pp. 709-794. 

The "Cloud Universe" in Poul Anderson's "Starfog" is simultaneously both a globular cluster and a gaseous nebula. I have tried to convey the richness of Anderson's imagination by summarizing his accounts of this spatial environment but there is always more. The accounts permeate the narrative rather than being confined to an introductory passage.

At the center:

nebular gas and dust are so dense that they present "...a nearly featureless glow..." (p. 772);

the glow is pearl-colored, with rainbows;

the stars are so close that thousands are visible despite the "starfog";

the plasma is actively energetic;

denser clouds conceal hazards - drifts of dust, rogue planets and dead stars;

the hazards, "...more than fog...," are compared to "...shoals, reefs, and riptides" (ibid.);

the two exploratory spacecraft are compared to "...frigates on unknown seas of ancient Earth..." (ibid.), but this sea is not flat and has no horizon;

gas and dust are so gravitationally concentrated that there is an unbelievable rate of star-production;

every time the cluster gathers material from the clouds of the galactic center, there are several supernovae per century for at least a million years;

radiation has sterilized every planet within a fifty light year radius;

atoms have been through a dozen supernova explosions, far more than elsewhere;

giant planets do not have shells of frozen water and smaller ones do not have silicate crusts;

iron, gold, mercury, tungsten, bismuth, uranium and transuranics abound;

some planets will have to be explored only by heavily armored robots;

the planets will be intensively mined for heavy elements rare elsewhere but abundant here;

the discoverers, drawing royalties on millions of the richest mines in the galaxy, will "'...command more resources than many civilizations...'" (p. 791)

Wealth beyond the dreams of Nicholas van Rijn: Satan and Mirkheim were each only one planet. An entire new phase of interstellar history, now spread across several spiral arms, is about to begin as the series ends.

Interlude

I have been diverted into other activities and into other reading, to be discussed on another blog. For most of next week, I will be away from a computer. I have not yet got around to ordering a copy of Multiverse - although I expect to hear about it?

Why does Daven Laurie ask his computer "'...about coherent radiation from natural sources...'"?
- Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 761.

"Coherent" is a scientific term that does not mean artificial or information-bearing but I do not find it easy to understand either what it does mean or why it matters. I have yet to finish rereading "Starfog", the story about Laure. This story is packed with hard sf background material about the Cloud Universe and I will continue to analyze this information before deciding what to read or reread next.