Finishing "Outpost Of Empire"

In the concluding section of Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire" -

(i) The outbackers know that an attacking spaceship will descend. The section begins with a description of the descending ship as seen from below but then goes on to describe Captain Chang sitting on the bridge. The viewpoint moves to inside the ship. We have seen many fictional spaceship bridges, in Star Trek and in the works of sf writers like James Blish and Poul Anderson. HMS Isis, commanded by Chang, exists only in this passage.

(ii) An intelligently controlled ecology defeats high tech hardware and space technology, as in the film Avatar?

(iii) We meet another Nuevo Mexican Space Admiral, Fernando Cruz Manqual, and are informed that that planet produces many military men.

(iv) Like the Avalonians, who appeared in an earlier volume of the Technic Civilization History, but unlike the Aeneans, who will re-appear in the next installment, the Freeholders have fought the Terran Empire till they got what they wanted. Thus, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that the Empire defended by Dominic Flandry is always successful.

(v) Having first met John Ridenour in Ensign Flandry, we were pleased to meet him again here but this second appearance is also his last.

Arulians And Outbackers

Are the Arulians, with their blue feathers and seven-fingered hands, an optional extra in Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire"? They might generate that impression but they have three roles, of which at least one is crucial:

they are the local pawns of Merseia - thus, even this backwater planet exists in an interstellar, inter-imperial context;

they influence the human outbackers both culturally and scientifically;

traveling secretly in Arulian spaceships, some outbackers have visited and studied in the Terran Empire.

That third point is essential. Despite living in the planetary forest, the outbackers are more cosmopolitan than the inhabitants of the provincial Cities with whom they are in conflict. Anderson knew that a population cannot have a broader perspective on the universe unless it has had a broader contact with the universe and, in this case, that broader contact has been provided by secret journeys in Arulian spaceships.

Ridenour acknowledges that the outbackers have "'...a true civilization.'" (Captain Flandry, New York, 2010, p. 48) I prefer to call what the outbackers have built a post-civilization because it is a society created by a group of people after they have left the cities but taking with them knowledge gained by their predecessors who had lived in cities. Anderson's text acknowledges my preferred terminology -

An outbacker says:

"'...you admit we are civilized. Or post-civilized. At any rate, we aren't degenerate, we are progressing on our own trail.'" (p. 49)

And, earlier, Ridenour had thought:

"Not a civilization, Ridenour felt sure. You could not have a true civilization without libraries...buildings...reliable transportation and communication..." (the word he is looking for is "cities") "But you could have a barbarism that was subtle, powerful and deathly dangerous ...Hyksos...Dorians...Lombards...Vikings...Crusaders...Mongols...Aztecs..." (p. 33)

Ridenour moves beyond thinking of the outbackers as subtle, powerful barbarians so he calls their society "...a true civilization..." but I think he should have gone one stage further and added "post-."

More On John Ridenour

Because, in Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire," John Ridenour has become a viewpoint character, we are given a physical description of him which I do not think that we received in Ensign Flandry? He is tall, wiry, blond, hatchet-faced, pipe-smoking and unfashionably but serviceably dressed (Captain Flandry, Riverdale NY, 2010, p. 5).

Later, in a passage where Karlsarm of the Freeholder "savages" is the viewpoint character, Karlsarm sees that the Mayor of Domkirk is accompanied by a tall, yellow-haired, sharp-featured fellow who does not look like a Freeholder so we know that we are seeing Ridenour from the outside. Sure enough, Ridenour introduces himself by name and Karlsarm must conceal his excitement at the fact that here is an Imperialist!

So far, we have sympathized with each of these two men when he was our viewpoint character although their aims have been diametrically opposed. Now that they have met, we might begin to receive some elucidation as to why there is a conflict between them. And, first, Ridenour must unlearn what a "savage" is. A few pages later:

"Ridenour stopped chewing because his jaw had fallen. Savages weren't supposed to talk like that!" (p. 30)

So what has the "savage" said? Outbacker society is not a civilization because it lacks cities. In fact, it sets out to destroy the few (nine) cities that there are on Freehold. But can there be a post-civilization whose members retain literacy, literature, numeracy, scientific knowledge, practical understanding of technology, newly developed mental and physical skills and ways of controlling other organisms?

Why Freeholders Leave The Cities

As usual, Poul Anderson presents an in-depth explanation that makes us feel that he is describing a real social process.

(i) The original, individualistic, colonists of Freehold made scant provision for the unsuccessful so some of the latter withdrew to the forest.

(ii) Some fugitive criminals and dissatisfied romantics also withdrew.

(iii) The first generation survived by trading gems, fur or labor for manufactured goods.

(iv) However, the second and third generations adopted an uncivilized way of life.

(v)Three hundred years ago, many Christians responded to anti-Christian sentiment by withdrawing to the forest, thus allowing the Mechanists to come to power with minimal violence.

(vi) Therefore, Hedonists withdrew to avoid persecution.

And the Imperial investigator, Ridenour, wonders whether the alien Arulians, who by his time have been on Freehold for two centuries and who occasionally trade with the outbackers, have also influenced their ideas. Failures, criminals, romantics, traders, laborers, self-sufficient forest dwellers, Christians, Hedonists and possible alien influence: what a mixed bag! - the sort of mixed bag from which Poul Anderson would expect a dynamic new culture to emerge.

We should note two points about the conflict between the Cities and the forest dwellers:

each City wants to cultivate the land around it and ultimately to civilize/urbanize the entire planet whereas the forest dwellers want the forests to remain as they are;
so far, we have heard only City-dwellers telling Ridenour about their problems with the "savages" but what is the "savages"' point of view?

Aruli

The inhabited planet, Aruli, is mentioned only once in Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History, in "Outpost of Empire." This story is set on the humanly colonized planet, Freehold. I am fairly certain that one of the four works set after the Fall of the Terran Empire refers to the importation of specially designed organisms from Freehold, although I do not have this reference to hand. This would mean that Freehold joins Atheia and Kraken as one of the colonized planets that provide a link and a degree of continuity between the periods of the Terran Empire and the Allied Planets.

Meanwhile, what does "Outpost of Empire" tell us concerning Aruli, which is not a colony but an independently inhabited planet?

The Arulians are thin, blue-feathered, sharp-snouted, seven-fingered bipeds. Lieutenant Muhammad Sadiq of the Terran Space Navy refers to the Arulian enemy as "'...the blues...'" (Captain Flandry, Riverdale NY, 2010, p. 10). (The Terran Empire, ruling the entire Solar System and a vast volume of extra-solar space, of course incorporates all the territories of the former British Empire and Commonwealth.)

Arulians:

have three sexes and a breeding cycle;
do not own property but act mutually with their "pheromonesharers" (p. 12);
instinctively, are less combative individually but possibly more so collectively;
do not recognize Imperial fealty, instead living and dying under the Law of the Sacred Horde and finding "'...truth's wellspring in Eternal Aruli...'" (p. 12);
are ruled by the Bearers of the Horns, a position that has recently been seized by Merseian-sponsored revolutionaries.

Arulian mercantile associations, using Merseian technology, traded with Freehold and some Arulians settled there with an extraterritoriality agreement two centuries ago. But, when the Terran-Merseian relationship deteriorated, the Nine Cities of Freehold applied for and were granted membership of the Empire. Arulians on Freehold revolted and were found to have smuggled tons of war supplies and thousands of troops into wilderness areas beforehand. When John Ridenour interrogates an Arulian prisoner, their only common tongue is the main Merseian language, Eriau.

I think that that exhausts what we are told about Aruli but it is merely a prelude to the conflict between the Cities and the human forest dwellers. I have not got to grips with this latter conflict yet.

Freehold II

In Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire," the planet Freehold is bigger than Earth and very fertile but the human colony is small because:

"...the system lies on the very fringe of human-dominated space..." (Captain Flandry, Riverdale, NY, 2010, p. 11);

storms, diseases and nutritional deficiencies in local food caused early high mortality;

the system had formed in a metal-poor region before entering this spiral arm so that industrial development is impossible and extra-planetary trade essential;

staying in their cities, where they can better resist the hostile environment, but economically unable to expand the cities, the colonists have practiced a lot of birth control;

the cities should be able to export food to other colony planets like Bonedry or Disaster Landing but are now in conflict with non-human settlers, the Arulians, and with rural human beings...

There are only nine cities and we quickly learn most of their names:

Domkirk;
Sevenhouses;
Nordyke;
Oldenstead;
Waterfleet;
Startop;
?

Not all yet. Freehold is proving to be as fascinating and complicated as Aeneas, Daedalus and other colonized planets in Anderson's Technic Civilization History.