Not Only Times But Also Places

A future history series should feature places where some of the characters live, work or spend time so that the reader vicariously experiences not only the passage of time, biographical, generational, historical - even geological and cosmological - but also a number of fully realized physical locations. History is temporal but historical events are spatiotemporal and sometimes contemporaneous. John Ridenour is on Freehold and Chunderban Desai is on Aeneas while Dominic Flandry pursues his career in Intelligence. Earlier, some Polesotechnic League stories had overlapped.

The Rebel Worlds introduces some locations on Aeneas, then most of The Day Of Their Return is set on that planet. Nicholas van Rijn has a penthouse in Chicago Integrate and Dominic Flandry has an apartment in Archopolis. However, these characters move around so much that what we get is a quick succession of places and planets although each of these is realized in detail. We see Flandry in his office at Intelligence Headquarters only once in his entire series.

In the Man-Kzin Wars series, Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling take the trouble to establish the setting of Harold's Terran Bar which Anderson reuses. In one scene, we see this nightspot when it is empty in daylight. Only the proprietor and the bribe-accepting police chief meet and eat:

wurst;
egg and potato salad;
breads;
shrimp-on-rye;
gulyas soup -

- although the police chief has only a croissant and espresso. More for our food thread.

Retrocontinuity

The author(s) of an established future history can inform us about earlier periods of the history in two ways:

(i) installments written later can be set earlier - prequels;

(ii) installments written later can be set later but can divulge for the first time information about earlier periods.

(i) Robert Heinlein described DD Harriman's death before he recounted how Harriman "sold the Moon."

Poul Anderson described Dominic Flandry's career before writing the Young Flandry Trilogy and also described interstellar exploration before interplanetary exploration.

(ii) Heinlein reveals that the Howard Families have existed throughout his Future History, that some Howards were involved in the revolutionary Cabal and that Andy Libby is a Howard.

The Last Flandry novel reveals the existence of the Dakotian and Zacharian communities and also recapitulates some earlier events from a different perspective.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Asteroid Queen," two characters encountered earlier, a United Nations Space Navy general and an oyabun in the Alpha Centauri System, turn out to be members of a Grail Brotherhood that has suppressed knowledge of the Slavers for three centuries. How plausible is this? (Some people think that this is how society is run.) If "The Asteroid Queen" is a canonical part of Larry Niven's Known Space future history, then this Brotherhood exists in the background of every other installment even though not explicitly referenced.

Organized Crime

The Polesotechnic League protects Merseia from the effects of a nearby supernova. Merseia is not yet politically united so the League deals with the Merseians' only international organization, the Gethfennu, organized crime. Thus, humanity earns the enduring enmity of the Merseian aristocratic party.

Flandry enriches a vice boss on Irumclaw but only so that the vice boss will then pressurize the Empire to continue defending that Imperial frontier - against the Merseians.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Children's Hour," the Yakuza, Japanese organized crime, still operate in the Solar System and have also moved to the Alpha Centaurian colony where they will help UN agents against the kzinti occupation without charge. Kzinti estates are squeezing out human society. Yakuza can try to deal with either but are safer with the latter.

I think that the Mafia is a survival of feudal social relationships (tradition, protection, violence, personal loyalty, religious observance) into capitalist society. A survival and an adaptation: organized criminals want either to transfer into legitimate businesses or to continue to prey on legitimate society. Either way, they need to protect that society against any invader (Nazi, Draka, kzin) that would really try to change the rules of the game.

Planha And Eriau

Fantasy and science fiction feature characters speaking languages that are unknown to us:

Tolkien has Elvish, Orcish etc;

CS Lewis tells us a few words of Solar, e.g., hnau and eldil;

some Star Trek fans have invented Klingon;

the kzinti "Hero's Tongue" has unusual consonant combinations like "Kdapt," "kzin" and "sthondat";

Poul Anderson does not tell us any Temporal or Anglic but does impart a few words of Planha and Eriau;

Planha-speaking Ythrians live in choths whose Wyvans can call Oherran;

Olaf Magnusson knows Eriau and two other major Merseian languages;

Max Abrams, introduced to Brechdan Ironrede, responds in fluent, accented Eriau, "'The Hand of the Vach Ynvory is my shield...'" (Young Flandry, p. 94);

when Flandry and Tachwyr meet, Flandry inquires about Tachwyr's wives and children in polite Eriau and Tachwyr must ask whether Flandry is still a bachelor in Anglic because the Eriau equivalent would be an insult.

Three Master Races

Shwylt Shipsbane remarks, "'I suspect you actually like [Terrans].'" Brechdan Ironrede replies, "'Why, that's no secret...They were magnificent once. They could be again. I would love to see them our willing subjects...Unlikely, of course. They're not that kind of species. We might be forced to exterminate.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 92.

Forced, indeed! You might be forced to reconsider, Brechdan.

Djana (human) is horrified when she overhears Ydwyr (Merseian) discussing her as if she were an animal:

"'A reconditioning. It improved her both physically and mentally.'" (p. 351)

Under Ydwyr's tutelage, she had begun to see him as her father and to imagine a Merseian Christ or even that the Merseians did not need redemption... A reconditioning.

Chuut-Riit (kzin) thinks:

"With a fully-domesticated human species at their disposal, his son's son's sons could even aspire to...no, unthinkable"
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Children's Hour" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars II (New York, 1991), pp. 133-306 AT p. 155.

I would have preferred if Chuut-Riit had completed that sentence, though. Finally, he sounds exactly like one of Stirling's Draka looking forward to the subordination of the rest of the human race.

Subordination

We see human beings subordinated to:

Martians in The War Of The Worlds;

extrasolar aliens in Martian-like machines in John Christopher's Tripods Trilogy;

Borthudians in the van Rijn period of Poul Anderson's Technic History;

green Merseians in the Flandry period of the Technic History;

feline kzinti in Larry Niven's Know Space History;

green Treens in Dan Dare;

Daleks in Doctor Who;

fellow human beings who make themselves biologically superior in SM Stirling's Draka History.

(That is another of those lists that grew in the writing.)

I was reminded of Draka and serfs when reading about a kzin and his human secretary. Like a Draka, the kzin promises to attend the secretary's offspring's naming-day celebration.

Subordination can be one way to survival. In a novel by Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle, workers asked what they thought about the prospect of an alien invasion, said that, under the aliens, they would still have to work. In one of Aesop's fable, a donkey carrying a heavy burden is advised to run away from an invading army but, when told that they are unlikely to make him carry anything heavier because he is already at his limit, says that he will stay where he is.

Having said all that, slavery is definitely worse than paid work and should be resisted at all costs!

Three Princes

Max Abrams recommends that Dominic Flandry read some Machiavelli (see here):

Machiavelli wrote The Prince;
Gramsci wrote The Modern Prince;
Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling wrote The Prince.

Gramsci and Pournelle & Stirling based their titles on Machiavelli's. Thus, here we have two works of science fiction linked to two works of political theory. Pretty smart stuff, as I wrote recently about something else. See here.

I will be interested to compare Pournelle's and Stirling's political thinking in their The Prince with Abrams' advice to young Dominic.

To Space, To Fight

Science fiction heroes usually go to space willingly although James Blish's Crispin DeFord is press ganged by an Okie city. Jerry Pournelle's John Falkemberg seems to be in the same boat as DeFord, shuffling forward in a line of involuntary transportees but this turns out to have been a mistake. The Bureau of Relocation is authorized only to transport Falkenberg to Lunar Base because he has been appointed to CoDominium Navy Service. Should "...gangland youth..." on p. 15 of The Mercenary (London, 1977) have read "gangling youth"?

Thus, he goes willingly not only to space but also to fight, like Robert Heinlein's Matt Dodson joining the Space Patrol or Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry joining the Terran Space Navy. The CD Navy is more akin to the Patrol than to the Terran Navy because it is charged not with defending an interstellar empire but with preventing nuclear war on Earth.

As in several future histories, humanity must survive the near future threat of nuclear annihilation if it is to have any longer term future in the galaxy. Unfortunately, in this fictitious history, the legacy of that threat follows mankind into space.

Singhs In Space

I was pleased to find a Sikh in Poul Anderson's Terran Empire.

It is easy to increase our knowledge of a fictional world. The author needs only to write something new. Anderson's last novel to feature Dominic Flandry reveals for the first time the prior existence of two communities, the Dakotians and the Zacharians, and also tells us how earlier events in the Technic History had affected a man named Magnusson. Thus, earlier history is recapitulated and re-presented from a different perspective.

So far, I had found only three religions in Jerry Pournelle's Second Empire of Man. However, nowhere in the texts was it stated that there were only three religions and the sudden appearance of a man named Singh raises the possibility that this history also incorporates Sikhs. But not necessarily: googling the surname (here) reveals that it is not after all exclusive to Sikhs. Thus, although Pournelle has raised a possibility, he remains free to develop the hint in any direction he wants. (He probably does not intend to pursue the issue of Singhs but you never know!)

Sex And Spying

In spy fiction, how often does our hero's sexual prowess become one of the skills to be used in Intelligence work? En route to Merseia, Ensign Flandry has initiated an affair with Lord Hauksberg's mistress. On Mersia, Max Abrams acquires sensitive intelligence that must be transmitted to Earth without the knowledge of either Hauksberg or their Merseian hosts. Solution: arrange for Hauksberg to surprise Flandry with the mistress so that the Ensign can be sent home in disgrace... Later in his career, Flandry obtains important intelligence from a Resident's wife.

SMERSH baits a trap for James Bond by persuading Tatiana Romanova to contact British Intelligence with the story that she has fallen for Bond and will defect bringing with her important intelligence provided that it is he who comes to get her. Of course, Tatiana, like several other women on the other side, really does fall for Bond.

I am not sure how long this Flandry-Bond comparison will continue but, while it does, I find it as interesting as anything else.

Lessons Learned

In his introductory novel, Ensign Flandry, Dominic Flandry has a mentor, Max Abrams. Flandry learns that human beings have a duty to act, that sometimes they do their best, a few times they succeed, and they dare not ask for more. Duties include resistance to aggression. On this basis, Flandry begins his career in Intelligence. He will succeed more than a few times.

In his introductory novel, Casino Royale, James Bond has no mentor and has already been working in Intelligence since before the War. Nevertheless, he now learns the lesson that will propel him through eleven more novels and two short story collections:

"He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy."
-Ian Fleming, Casino Royale (London, 1965), p. 189.

In an invented history, the Merseian threat can remain in place from Flandry's youth to his old age whereas Fleming, keeping each novel contemporary, had to acknowledge some real world changes. Thus, the focus shifted:

SMERSH under Beria (a historical figure);
SMERSH under G (a fictitious character);
SMERSH members joining Blofeld's SPECTRE after Krushchev has disbanded their organization.

Nevertheless, in his twelfth novel, Fleming, confessedly writing the same book over again, has reverted to the KGB under Semichastny (a historical figure). Flandry's equivalents of Beria etc are Brechdan Ironrede and Tachwyr the Dark. But Anderson also shows us Flandry aging and, beyond that, the rise and fall of civilizations, thus transcending Fleming's exclusive focus on the active career of a single individual whose earlier biography had to be revised to prevent him from reaching retirement during the series.

Flandry, Bond And Two Others

Here I compare James Bond/007 to two nameless characters: the Prisoner has a number, No 6, and V is a number, 5, an accidental numerical sequence. Now we can add Dominic Flandry to the list although we are not told his code number.

(i) 007 endlessly, eternally, engages external enemies of freedom.

(ii) The Prisoner (maybe) frees himself by realizing that the ultimate enemy is internal, No 1 = I.

(iii) V, with help from others, (maybe) frees society: people who have become internally free will no longer allow themselves to be externally enslaved.

(iv) Flandry does not seek any internal or anarchic liberation but does recognize that his society is flawed whereas Bond does not.

007, No 6 and V form a conceptual sequence. It is good to find Flandry's place somewhere between 007 and V.

Bond And Flandry

Two sexually active secret agents enjoying the good life while killing agents of a foreign/alien dictatorship and other enemies of freedom: these are the obvious similarities between James Bond and Dominic Flandry. Also, Flandry gets neither of the women that he really wants. Bond proposes twice and even marries briefly once but both women wind up dead.

Flandry fights Merseians and their agents of other species, Aycharaych, A'u and Magnusson. Bond has four kinds of adversaries:

Russian Intelligence outfits including, until Kruschev disbands it, SMERSH;
Nazis left over from the War;
North American gangsters;
the independent European organization, SPECTRE, and its founder, Blofeld.

As each enemy is eliminated, the next springs up and this cycle could be prolonged indefinitely. However, whereas Bond never reflects on the society that he protects from the various villains, Flandry learns that Technic Civilization has made wrong choices, has become decadent and will almost certainly be destroyed by its internal contradictions even if not by any of its external opponents. Further, this civilization follows a historical pattern. Thus, Anderson and Flandry see further and deeper than Fleming or Bond.

Flandry And Bond

Is Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry a science fictional equivalent of Ian Fleming's James Bond? There are obvious parallels. However, having just reread the opening chapters of Casino Royale, I am more aware of several differences.

By contrast with Bond, Flandry functions almost as a private operator. After his induction into Intelligence by Max Abrams, he is shown as receiving orders from a superior on only four occasions:

from Kheraskov, once;
from Fenross, twice;
from Molitor, once.

Moreover, Molitor is the Emperor and gives Flandry a free hand. Flandry progresses from Ensign to Fleet Admiral whereas Bond remains a Commander.

Fleming presents a lot of details of the Intelligence network of which Bond is just one part:

M's Chief of Staff and private secretary share a room;

M receives a memorandum from Station S, with Appendix A on Le Chiffre from the Archivist and Appendix B on SMERSH, unsigned;

Section Q runs the Morgue, travel and equipment;

 

the head of Bond's department is called Clements;

 

Leningrad Section III gave Le Chiffre funds to finance a French trade union that will be a fifth column in the event of war (as a former trade unionist, I question whether any trade union would be able to receive and conceal Russian funds or to control its members as a fifth column but I do not know about circumstances in France in the early '50s);

 

Le Chiffre embezzled the funds to buy brothels, lost this investment because of changed laws and police raids and hopes to recoup the money through gambling (thus he combines every possible kind of evil!);

 

Bond bought his Bentley in 1933 and gained his 00 number by killing a Japanese cypher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm;

 

while in France, he is controlled obliquely through Jamaica and we are told how this works;

 

he is helped by Mathis of the Deuxieme Bureau, Vesper Lynd of Station S and Leiter of the CIA;

there is probably another Secret Service agent reporting independently from Royale-les-Eaux.

All this sounds complicated, sordid and very different from the universe inhabited by Dominic Flandry.

Dilemma?

Poul Anderson's many fictional characters face moral issues, e.g., Nicholas van Rijn as a merchant and Dominic Flandry as an Intelligence officer. Anderson knew better than to treat such issues simplistically and there is one hypothetical moral dilemma that I do not think that he ever posed.

The dilemma goes: either you kill a lot of people now or you do nothing in which case many more people, maybe even including those that you would have killed, are instead killed by someone else. What do you do? I responded to one fictional example here.

How often does anyone face such a dilemma? How could anyone be sufficiently certain either that there were only two choices or that these were those two choices? In Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye, Admiral Kutuzov sterilizes a planet in order to prevent a sector rebellion. Although the Imperial Parliament and Navy approve his action, surely Kutuzov is guilty of war crime and genocide by any civilized standard? What value is there in a peace bought entirely through force and intimidation? The Empire has surely forfeited its right to any loyalty from the population of that sector?

Life And Death

There are times when it is appropriate to debate religion and times when it is appropriate to be quiet and listen - or even to read the service.

Dominic Flandry:

"'Will the captain read the service?' she asked...
"She handed him the prayerbook. Me? he thought. But I never believed - She was watching. They all were. His finger stained the pages as he read aloud the majestic words."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 444.

Rod Blaine:

"Do I believe any of this? Rod wondered."
-Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote In God's Eye (London, 1979).

Rod hears:

"'Eternal rest...'
"'I am the Resurrection...'
"'I heard a voice from Heaven...'
"'Day of wrath, and doom impending...'
"'Unto Almighty God we commend the souls...'" (pp. 390-391)

It is generally accepted in society that we attend marriages and funerals of friends and colleagues, irrespective of their religious tradition. This unites us - most of us. Only a few sectarians disagree.

Rod rightly questions but rightly keeps quiet during a funeral service. There are appropriate channels to continue questioning. One of the chaplains is his confessor. When Rod inwardly philosophizes:

"...there's got to be some purpose in this universe..." (p. 391)

- he begins a discussion in which I would argue otherwise. Our inner conflicts imply that we have evolved without any design or purpose.

Dominic Flandry is less reflective. His nearest approach to deep questioning is when he asks his dead fiancee to help him believe...and adds that he is sorry.

Why Empires? III

Just under three years ago, I posted about "Space Secret Service Stories" here. "A Style In Treason" by James Blish and the early pulp magazine Dominic Flandry stories by Poul Anderson are good examples of works that are enjoyable to read but not presented as plausible futures.

Blish's High Earth-dominated confederation served - or betrayed? - by a thousand year old "Traitors' Guild" confronts an alien interstellar empire called the Green Exarchy which:

"...drew tithes from six fallen empires older than man..."
-James Blish, Anywhen (New York, 1970), p. 19.

Anderson's Terran Empire, served by the heroic Dominic Flandry, confronts the green Merseians with their interstellar Empire and plans for galactic conquest.

In these works at least, neither Blish nor Anderson seriously proposed empires as probable forms of interstellar government. They were instead exotic settings for futuristic adventures. "Earth" is not enough. It must become High Earth or Terra. The language is colorful and, coincidentally, both sets of villains are green. Or, rather, the Merseians, like ERB's Tharks and Dan Dare's Treens, are green whereas the mysterious Exarch is "Green."

"A Style In Treason," in particular, reads more like an alternative universe fantasy than like hard sf. However, despite Flandry's pulp origins, Anderson was able to transform the Flandry series into a serious dramatization of the reasons for the rise and decline of civilizations. The series matures with its hero.

Merseians And Moties

Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry is the opening volume of the Dominic Flandry series, a major part of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. In Ensign Flandry, the title character is given a guided tour of the planet Merseia but must leave in a hurry. Merseian supremacism threatens the Terran Empire. The problem is ideological.

Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye is the opening volume of the Moties diptych, a major part of Pournelle's CoDominium future history. In Mote..., crew members and passengers from the human spaceship, MacArthur, are given a guided tour of the planet Mote Prime but must leave in a hurry. The Motie breeding cycle threatens the Second Empire of Man. This problem is biological.

I appreciate two works simultaneously without implying that there is any textual one-to-one correspondence. Both series are Heinleinian future histories although with a structural difference. Whereas Anderson's Psychotechnic History and, I think, Pournelle's CoDominium History were consciously modeled on Robert Heinlein's Future History, the Technic History grew into a vaster Heinleinian template by the fusion of two originally independent series.

A future history comprises several successive periods, e.g., -

Heinlein: technological advances, interplanetary imperialism, the Prophets, the Covenant, the first mature culture;
Asimov: Robots, Empire, Foundation;
Cities In Flight: the Vegan Tyranny, the Earthman culture, the Web of Hercules, new universes;
The Seedling Stars: Port Authority; extrasolar colonies; a far future "Watershed";
Psychotechnic: UN, Solar Union, Stellar Union, Galactic civilization;
Technic: several periods, including Commonwealth (van Rijn) and Empire (Flandry);
Niven: interplanetary exploration; UN and Belt, Man-Kzin Wars, Known Space, the Thousand Worlds;
Pournelle: CoDominium, First Empire, Secession Wars, Second Empire.

(Blog readers will recognize Asimov's as another fused future history.)

James Blish and Poul Anderson also link the future to the past -

After Such Knowledge:
Roger Bacon, possibly inspired by a demon, invents scientific method;
demons manifest in the twentieth century;
a Jesuit biologist suspects demonic influence on an extrasolar planet in the twenty first century.

The Boat Of A Million Years:
immortals live through history into an indefinite future. 

Star Trek And The Future Histories

David Birr explains this bizarre cover image in a comment here.

Star Trek TV series, films and novels have become a future history and a cultural reference point. When I told a friend about a "reality storm" in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, he remarked that that sounded like something out of Star Trek, then laughed when I told him that one of the characters had said that that sounded like something out of Star Trek.

A narrator in Robert Heinlein's The Number Of The Beast compares the bridge of Lazarus Long's spaceship to the bridge of the Enterprise - although I would prefer not to refer to The Number Of The Beast.

Isaac Asimov scientifically advised Star Trek. James Blish adapted episodes as short stories and wrote the first Star Trek novel. At a Memorial evening for James Blish in London, Charles Monteith of Faber and Faber described Blish's Cities in Flight future history as "a higher and greater Star Trek."

Larry Niven adapted a Known Space story as a Star Trek animated episode. Niven and Jerry Pournelle place a Chief Engineer from New Scotland on a Navy spaceship and say that this ethnicity is common among Engineers.

If Kirk were in Intelligence and Vulcan were in the Klingon Empire, then Star Trek would parallel Poul Anderson's Flandry series. Many sf stories about spaceship crews exploring extrasolar planets could be adapted as Star Trek episodes.

Addendum: Are Moties like intelligent tribbles?

Civil Strife

This Saturday afternoon, I neither read nor blogged but attended a community event described on another blog. This event turned out to be peaceful and harmonious although it had been organized in response to potential strife.

Such strife is an unfortunate aspect of contemporary society. Science fiction can show us utopias free from civil strife or dystopias where conflicts have intensified but how much sf presents street conflicts in future cities?

In Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history, John Christian Falkenberg's troops face street demonstrators and, in Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, a group of beings Merseian by species but not by loyalty marches on the Dennitzan Parliament, with Dominic Flandry and his fiancee hidden among their ranks. For me, that latter scene rings true.

However, maybe most fiction shows us the leaders and decision-makers at the top of a society rather than conflicts arising from below?