Sagittarius

"Theoretically, one man can run a spaceship..."
-Poul Anderson, "Holmgang" IN Anderson, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), pp. 112-163 AT p. 123.

As in his Technic History, Anderson writes as if he is familiar with future spacecraft.

"...unemployed spacemen available for immediate hiring are found once in a Venusian snowfall." (ibid.)

A good future simile, although it should be "...a Venerian snowfall."

"...there was the hill he had left, stark against Sagittarius." (p. 162)

This is Sagittarius as seen not from Earth but from an asteroid during the Solar Union period of the Psychotechnic History.

"'The Union, both as a cultural and a semipolitical unit, is expanding inward toward Galactic center, Sagitarri...
"And where are we? On the Sagittari-ward frontier of the Union...'"
-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine (New York, 1978), Chapter II, p. 15.

"'You will go the Sagittarian frontier of the Stellar Union...'" (Chapter IV, p. 23)

This is Sagittarius as perceived by interstellar travelers during the Stellar Union period of the History.

"'You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 253-281 AT p. 262.

"'...there'll be Hulduvian colonies between Sol and Sagittarius...'" (p. 268)

This is Sagittarius as perceived by interstellar travelers in a much later period of the History when human civilization has moved from the Solar System to the Galactic center. Thus, successive references to Sagittarius show us how far humanity travels in this future history.

Ruins Of Empire

"He hovered by a broken caryatid (see image), marveling at its exquisite leaping litheness; that girl had borne tons of stone like a flower in her hair."
-Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982), pp. 253-281 AT p. 273.

What girl? I realized that I did not know what a "caryatid" was so I googled it.

Jorun hovers above the ruined Sol City, the former capital of the First Empire which fell fifty thousand years before. Surely nothing of the city should still exist after all that time? Sol City has been:

bombarded;
sacked repeatedly;
weathered;
shaken by earthquakes;
pried by vegetation;
dug through;
quarried -

- yet still has walls, windows, arches, pillars, a caryatid and one tower.

The bombardment was from space so would have been heavy. One archaic word, "Empire," is accompanied by two others: "barbarian" and "slave."

"...sacked again and again by the barbarian hordes who swarmed maggot-like through the bones of the slain Empire..." (ibid.)

"...here the slaves had lived..." (p. 274)

Interstellar barbarians? They also appear in "Flight to Forever" and the Technic History. The latter series explains this apparent oddity. Unscrupulous traders sell nuclear weapons and spaceships to a king on an extrasolar planet in its Iron Age. Barbarianism on an interstellar scale indeed becomes possible. The maggot comparison is apt.

Slaves? Anderson rationalizes this idea in the Technic History but as a legally constrained criminal sentence, not as in the Roman Empire. The First Empire seems to have practiced slavery on the Roman model:

"...here the slaves had lived and worked and sometimes wept..." (ibid.)

Yet another archaic term is "peasant." Is it plausible that, so far in the future, when there is a Galactic civilization and people on Earth have an extended life span, they will have returned to milking cows and baking bread? 

The Future Historical Role Of The First Empire

In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, the First Empire must have emerged from the Third Dark Ages that had resulted from the collapse of the Stellar Union just as, in Anderson's Technic History, the Terran Empire emerged from the Time of Troubles that had resulted from the collapse of the Solar Commonwealth.

The Second Dark Ages had merely separated the interplanetary Solar Union from the interstellar Stellar Union. However, the collapse of an interstellar civilization was a catastrophe on a larger scale. Consequently, order was eventually restored neither by psychotechnicians nor by Coordinators but by older style imperialists, not by science but by force. However, at the same time, the Nomads preserved knowledge that would in the longer term benefit the much later post-Imperial Galactic Civilization.

Thanks to the Nomadic legacy, that civilization was served both by psychotechnicians and by coordinating Integrators. Their skills were indispensable when, for example, Earth had to be evacuated.

Am I deducing what must have happened or merely making a new story based on material presented by Poul Anderson and Sandra Miesel? In this context, there is no difference. If my inferences make sense, then they can stand as the explanation unless and until an sf writer thinks of something better.

Jorun

Jorun:

is a psychotechnician;

is also a human being whose remote ancestors came from Earth;

but was born on the planet, Fulkhis, in the Galactic center, part of an ancient interstellar civilization;

is nearly 1,000 years old;

can, by his own power, cross 30,000 light years in 10 days while holding around himself an envelope of air and heat!

3,000 light years per day?

Superman flies through space because he is immune to cold and vacuum whereas the Green Lanterns can, like Jorun, hold air and heat around themselves. The latter proposition is marginally less implausible.

I am noticing and remembering these details about Jorun only because I am rereading carefully enough to summarize and post at the same time. 30,000 light years in 10 days! Whatever next?

The Galactic Synthesis Of Human Psychodynamics With Interstellar Coordination

In Poul Anderson's "The Chapter Ends," the reference to psychotechnicians is a link back to the Psychotechnic Institute of the United Nations and Solar Union periods whereas the reference to an Integrator is a link back to the Coordination Service of the Stellar Union period so maybe the Galactics synthesize the best aspects of those earlier periods?

At the same time, the reference to a First Empire that has not been mentioned before but that fell fifty thousand years previously shows that the bulk of humanity has had enough time to:

migrate towards the Galactic Center;
extend their lifetimes by hundreds of years;
gain control of their nervous systems;
mutate their brains in order to control cosmic forces;
interact with the gas-giant-dwelling Hulduvians.

Although Sandra Miesel's Foreword to Anderson's Starship says that our species remains imperfectible, major changes have been made and earlier problems have been overcome.

Fifty Thousand Years

According to the Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series prepared by Sandra Miesel, the Third Dark Ages begin in 3200 and "The Chapter Ends" is set post-4000. Miesel's interstitial note introducing "The Chapter Ends" reads:

"By the uncertain dawn of the fifth millennium, Earth's farflung children had all but forgotten her." (Starship, p. 252)

However, "The Chapter Ends" itself says:

"'The Sirius Sector has been an isolated, primi - ah - quiet region since the First Empire fell, fifty thousand years ago.'" (p. 263)

The time scale and also the references both to a fallen First Empire and to Sirian Sector planets inhabited by peasants place this work more in the milieu of Anderson's "Flight to Forever." Again, the reference to Sol City as the capital of the First Empire (p. 272) prima facie links this work to Anderson's "The Star Plunderer," although that pulp short story was instead shoehorned into the author's later Technic History.

The political units in the Psychotechnic History are Unions (Solar and Stellar), not Empires. We are told enough about the First Empire to know that it is not the Stellar Union remembered under a different name.

What links "The Chapter Ends" to the Psychotechnic History? References to psychotechnicians, an Integrator and a trained nervous system. Also, in The Peregrine, humanity is expanding towards the Sagittarii. In "The Chapter Ends," the bulk of humanity has migrated to the Galactic Center and one, visiting Earth, says:

"'This part of space means nothing to us any more; it's almost a desert. You haven't seen starlight till you've been by Sagittarius.'" (p. 262)

A concluding note on an unfamiliar word:

"...he went with the Nomads through that abatis of woods." (The Peregrine, Chapter XX, p. 178)