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.

Technological Levels And Prime Directives

How do human societies of different technological levels interact? An idea common to Star Trek, the Okies series and the CoDominium future history is a Prime Directive against interference in lower level societies although the only way to ensure no interference would be to prevent any interaction. By contrast, the Allied Planets of Poul Anderson's Technic History assess isolated planets in order to determine whether the attempt to recivilize them is worth the effort.

In King David's Spaceship, Jerry Pournelle shows the high tech Second Empire interacting with two isolated planets of different levels. The main difference seems to be that men on Prince Samual's World fight with guns whereas the inhabitants of Makassar use swords. The planets differ in other physical and sociological details and are realized in commendable detail.

I get the impression that the CoDominium History primarily comprises:

the Falkenberg series (4 vols);
War World (5);
the Second Empire (3) -

- which in turn correspond to three historical periods:

the CoDominium;
the Old Empire;
the New Empire and First Contact.

It is like a shorter alternative to the Technic History.

Comparative Chronologies

In an sf future history series, which comes first: the stories or the time chart/chronology? In the case of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, Anderson has told us that, following Robert Heinlein's example, he compiled a time chart, then wrote several stories that fitted into that chart, whereas, in the case of his Technic History, the stories, originally two independent series, came first; the Chronology of Technic Civilization has been compiled later by Sandra Miesel.

When future historian Jerry Pournelle created the CoDominium History, he had the fine examples of Heinlein and Anderson to follow if he wanted to. Pournelle's Chronology begins by clearly showing when his CoDominium timeline diverges from ours:

CHRONOLOGY

1969  Neil Armstrong sets foot on Earth's Moon.
1990  Series of treaties between United States and
          Soviet Union creates the CoDominium.

The Chronology continues with an interstellar drive in 2008 and interstellar colonies in 2020. This CoDominium timeline displays some parallels with James Blish's Okies timeline which has Colonials leaving the Solar System in 2021 and a Proclamation of US-USSR unification in 2027.

My rereading of Poul Anderson's For Love And Glory has been interrupted by rereading Alan Moore's Watchmen, which in turn has been interrupted by rereading Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye (London, 1979). These works in turn have generated posts on World Wars and Chronologies. Reading or rereading, even if chaotic, usually provides material for blogging. However, this lap top is rapidly declining so there may be further technical delays.

Niven and Pournelle begin what feels like a substantial novel set in an interstellar empire comparable to Anderson's Terran Empire. In the first full paragraph on p. 17, the omniscient narrator tells us what the Imperial forces find on entering New Chicago and also how the New Chicago revolt had affected the Empire. The second paragraph presents Sally Fowler's point of view: she felt the Marines' eyes on her. The third paragraph recounts word for word what one Marine guard thinks about Sally. The fourth paragraph reverts to Sally's point of view: she felt nothing. This page is a bit too disjointed pov-wise.

Non-Interference

SM Stirling, The Sky People (New York, 2006).

Good morning. A new month and a new post.

"...Non-interference as far as humanly possible was official doctrine..." (p. 208)

Sounds familiar - Prime Directive, Starfleet, Time Patrol, Okies. It is as if this principle has proliferated between universes. However, Poul Anderson also presents the opposite perspective. His Allied Planets set out to re-civilize human populations that had been isolated during the Long Night and, in at least three different Anderson stories that have been discussed on this blog, aliens among us secretly manipulate Terrestrial civilization for good or ill.

Which stories? This time, instead of listing titles or giving links, I invite page viewer participation in remembering three - or maybe more? - stories that fit this description. Meanwhile, SM Stirling's "Lords of Creation" series - a designation bestowed on the mysterious planet designers by the viewpoint character, Marc - continues to be an enjoyable read. I have yet to finish reading the first of the three installments.

Gods And Stars

James Blish's starfaring Okies swear by the gods of all stars as if an interstellar frontier has revived polytheism.

In Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys Tetralogy, Niall of the Nine Hostages, after an ill-advised attack on the city of Ys, promises unblemished animal sacrifices to the gods in return for a safe voyage home.

In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization:

Nicholas van Rijn continually offers candles and altar cloths to St Dismas;

Dagny, Od's Daughter in the House of Brenning on the ocean planet of Kraken, vows to "'...the gods a hundred Blue Giant seabeasts...'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 489), if she can rescue her husband unhurt.

Dagny has received, not as a scientific education but as an oral tradition, an understanding of how stars and planets condense from the interstellar medium and even of why younger planetary systems contain more metal than older systems. Nevertheless, she remains part of a society whose lowest strata have lost technological control of their environment and have resumed the ancient practice of offering beasts to the gods.

Dagny's Krakener dowry to Roan Tom was their home, Skerrygarth, towers above surfs and reefs - like a smaller Ys.

The Structures Of Flandry And Okies

Original Series
Flandry: seven stories, collected in two volumes.
Okies: four stories, collected in one volume; Okie civilisation ends in the third so the fourth is an aftermath.

Works Written Later But Set Earlier
Flandry: three "Young Flandry" novels.
Okies: one prequel and one juvenile novel.

Works Set Later
Flandry: two later Flandry novels; one novel about his daughter; four works set after the Empire = one novel + one collection(?)
Okies: one novel about the end of the universe.

Related Works
Flandry: the earlier Technic History.
Okies: other series with related ideas.

Qualitatively though not quantitatively comparable.

"A Wilderness of Stars"

Even with faster than light spacecraft, science fiction (sf) characters rarely venture outside their home galaxy. While traveling within the galaxy, Poul Anderson's David Falkayn sees "...a wilderness of stars...," including the Milky Way, its satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, and its sister galaxy in Andromeda. (1) These names evoke a few other sf works. Both Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven present an entire species fleeing from the Milky Way to a Magellanic Cloud. Asimov's non-human beings, few in number, need only a hyperspace ship or two whereas Niven's beings, an entire population, travel at sub-light speeds in a Fleet of Worlds.

 

In James Blish's Okies tetralogy:

New York flies to the Greater Magellanic Cloud;

Mayor Amalfi of New York becomes Mayor of the Cloud;

the dirigible planet He flies from the Milky Way to and through the Andromeda galaxy, then to the Greater Magellanic;

Hevians, accompanied by Amalfi and other New Earthmen, fly He to the Metagalactic Center where they briefly survive a cosmic collision;

the concluding one and a quarter volumes are, unusually, set entirely outside this galaxy.

Although Falkayn, while viewing the Magellanic and Andromeda galaxies, makes only a comparatively short interstellar journey, he addresses cosmic issues, like the aftermath of a supernova, that match those presented by Blish. Falkayn does not expect to travel much further:

"...the Magellanic Cloud and the Andromeda galaxy made small and strange by distances he would never see overleaped." (1)

Centuries after Falkayn, human beings have travelled around two or three spiral arms but remain within the galaxy. 

 

Elsewhere, Anderson does present:

faster than light intergalactic travel by human beings in The Avatar;

an intergalactic civilization in World Without Stars;

slower than light (STL) travel as far as the Magellanics and the Andromeda by self-programming artificial intelligences in Genesis;

 
relativistically accelerating STL flight between clusters of clusters of galaxies and into the next universe in Tau Zero.

In World Without Stars, human beings no longer die of old age or disease and spaceships can make instantaneous jumps across intergalactic distances albeit with time-consuming spatial journeys between jumps. There is therefore both time and capacity for intergalactic exploration and for trade with the "Yonderfolk" of other galaxies although most of the action of the novel occurs on a planet orbiting a lone star located between galaxies. Anderson's attention to details and to scientific precision ensure that his works match the sometimes more spectacular-sounding events of Niven's Known Space or Blish's Okies.

(1) Poul Anderson, Mirkheim, London, 1978, p. 59.