The Psychotechnic History II

See The Psychotechnic History.

In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, clones (not yet called that) are grown exogenetically, not in a host mother.

On reflection, this History should definitely be collected in two omnibus volumes:

Vol I, THE SOLAR UNION - the entire contents of The Psychotechnic League and Cold Victory plus The Snows Of Ganymede;

Vol II, THE STELLAR UNION - the entire contents of Starship plus "The Acolytes," "The Green Thumb," the longer version of "Virgin Planet" and The Peregrine but maybe minus "The Chapter Ends."

For comparison, the first three omnibus volumes of the Technic History should be:

RISE OF THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE;
DECLINE OF THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE;
RISE OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE -

- and we know that the political framework of the League is the Solar Commonwealth. Thus, in Anderson's first future history, the Solar Union is succeeded by the Stellar Union whereas, in his second, the Solar Commonwealth is succeeded by the (interstellar) Terran Empire.

Recently, when I began to reread this future history, I became entirely focused on the future historical content of its opening three stories:

Etienne Fourre;
Stefan Rostomily;
political gangsterism;
the protean enemy;
the Pacific Colony;
the three class education system.

However, this post-World War III period is dwarfed by the much vaster context of two Dark Ages and two periods of interstellar civilization. The Un-man, Naysmith, flies his air boat to the Rockies; the Stellar Union Coordination Service field agent (Cordy), Trevelyan, flies his air car to that same mountain range but over a thousand years later in a different civilization facing different problems.

Naysmith identified the UN's protean enemy as man himself. This "enemy" destroys the Solar Union. Trevelyan, psychologically integrated, instead confronts the external problem of cosmic complexity overwhelming any cerebral or computational attempt to coordinate it. This problem destroys the Stellar Union.

Esperance

Nicholas van Rijn works with an Esperancian on the planet t'Kela in "Territory" and Philippe Rochefort visits Esperance in The People Of The Wind. Instead of maintaining armed forces, the utopian Esperancians in van Rijn's time helped other races in order to gain their goodwill. Unfortunately for this optimistic view, the t'Kelans understand profit but not charity.

Van Rijn can induce this race to become civilized by giving them opportunities to make profits in ways that are also profitable to himself, of course, but, on this planet, no other approach is practicable - and, indeed, the Esperancians are able to accept that this is the case.

Rochefort informs us that goodwill generated by Esperancian good works did not outlast the Troubles. However, a strong pacifist tradition remains and there are demonstrations against the planned attack on the Domain of Ythri. Esperance, like Avalon, Hermes, Dennitza etc is a well realized colony planet in the Technic History. Bells ring from the cathedral and from other churches in Fleurville when it is thought that the war is ended.

Philippe Rochefort

Father a minor functionary in the Sociodynamic Service;

Philippe born in Selenopolis, a spaceport and manufacturing center;

family moved a lot because of father's work;

Philippe spent several impressionable years among the crime and poverty of Venus, which had never been satisfactorily terraformed;

he joined the Navy not from chauvinism (no?) but to see the universe;

saw several planets for two or three years before commencing pilot training;

commanded a Meteor in the attack on Avalon;

lost his ship and crew and was captured but escaped but only as an unwitting pawn in an Avalonian maneuver;

was hospitalized during the disastrous landing on Avalon;

hoped to settle on Avalon with Tabitha Falkayn but their relationship did not last and she married Chris Holm.

Observations
I would like to know more about the Sociodynamic Service.

Selenopolis must be on the Moon?

Philippe recalls Dominic Flandry in that he "...stretched to the limit the tolerance granted officers as regards their dress uniforms - rakishly tilted bonnet..." etc (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 487).

Flandry also lost his first command.

However, Flandry always turned the tables on his enemies and did not disapprove of mixed colonies.

Causes Of The Terran War

(i) Violent border incidents mostly started by Ythrians, who are natural predators and have no central government to restrain them so that it is difficult to reach an accomodation.

(ii) With the capacity of space fleets to destroy planets, it is necessary to prepare for the worst contingencies.

(iii) It is unwise to let spheres interpenetrate when both species want the same planets.

(iv) The conflict is not only commercial but also political and military.

(v) The Ythrians have already gained Dathyna and either the Empire or the Domain must absorb the Antoranite-Kraokan complex at Beta Centauri.

(vi) Rectifying this frontier will armor the Empire against a Merseian attack - the Roidhunate is aggressively acquisitive and growing fast.

(vii) Avalon, a unique case, does not prove that Terrans and Ythrians can be trusted to coexist.

The History Of Avalon

The Governor of Sector Pacis summarizes the history of Avalon:

five hundred years ago, a Grand Survey ship discovered inhabited Ythri and uninhabited Avalon, the latter not yet given that name;

Avalon was a potential colony but too far away at the time;

Ythri, forty light years further, was good for trade;

the Polesotechnic League collapsed three hundred years ago but, fifty years before that, many could see what was coming;

at that time, a human company led by an old trade pioneer approached Ythri with a proposal - let us colonize remote Avalon under your (uncorrupted, un-Terra-like) protection;

the Ythrians accepted and some joined the colony;

Terra responded to the Troubles by imposing the Empire whereas Ythri built the (smaller) Domain of colonies and allies;

the Avalonians, as some human beings and Ythrians had become, stood together, survived the Troubles, joined the Domain and now resist annexation by the Empire.

This summary clarifies, first, that the Avalonian colony was under Ythrian protection from the beginning, from before the Troubles and the Domain, and, secondly, that some Ythrians joined the colony because Ythri had been asked to give its protection. Thus, Falkayn's aim was freedom, not a biracial culture, but the former allows for the latter.

Ythrians

Philippe Rochefort watches a recorded lecture about the current enemy. Since, despite reading Poul Anderson's descriptions, I never retain any mental image of an Ythrian, let us paraphrase:

warm blooded;
feathered;
flying;
not birds;
young born viviparously;
four and a half months gestation;
females cannot fly far with a heavy pregnancy;
lips and teeth, not beaks (despite the attached image);
not mammals;
no hair or milk;
infants fed by regurgitation;
walking awkwardly on feet that have grown from wings;
standing on hands to lift wings;
flapping of wings pumps oxygen through gill-like antlibranchs into bloodstream, enabling a body heavy enough for intelligence to fly in terrestroid conditions;
large energy intake needed;
some sweet fruits eaten;
otherwise carnivorous;
therefore, living in small groups, each defending a wide territory;
evolved not from reptiloids but from amphibians;
primitive land animals retained a kind of gill;
small swamp-dwellers climbed into trees and developed a membrane for gliding;
membrane became wings as gills became superchargers;
internal water-hoarding system;
light but strong bones;
tiny, helpless cubs cling to either parent with elaborate digits retained on wings;
young also evade predators by climbing trees;
feet seized prey and manipulated objects;
rapid metabolism of flight prevents young from being born with undeveloped nervous systems;
parents cooperate to care for and carry young;
sexual equality;
females ovulate only once per Ythrian year (half Terran) and not for two years after giving birth;
Ythrians sexually active only at these times;
grief causes ovulation;
occasional females able to ovulate at will were killed, now shunned;
drought forced ornithoids onto savannahs where they evolved from carrion eaters into hunters;
feet became hands and made tools;
elbow claws became feet;
wings became convertible to legs;
hunters strike from above with spears, arrows or axes;
less need for cooperation than among proto-men;
beaked hawk-like uhoths used like dogs;
Stone Age ended not by agriculture but by herding and domestication of animals, encouraging invention of wheels for land vehicles;
agriculture an ancillary, providing fodder;
no cities;
flight, so no need for crowding;
sedentary centers for mining etc small with floating populations and wing-clipped slaves, the latter now being replaced by machines.

As on Diomedes, Poul Anderson has imagined not only a non-humanoid intelligent species but also its evolution.

A Mixed Colony

Robert Heinlein wrote several short stories with a common future background, then compiled a Time Chart to keep the stories consistent. His editor, John W Campbell, published the Time Chart. Imitating Heinlein, Poul Anderson compiled a (different) Time Chart and set some stories in successive periods of it. Later, Anderson wrote several initially unconnected works that converged to form a third future history. Each installment in this "Technic History" is a substantial novel or short story. They are clearly not written to any formula despite what seems, when analyzed, to be a systematic approach to their subject-matters, e.g.:

Ythri discovered by human explorers;
Ythrians learning from humanity, going into space, later transporting van Rijn;
Gray, later renamed Avalon, explored by Ythrians and human beings;
Avalonian islands colonized by Ythrians and human beings;
an Avalonian continent colonized by Ythrians and human beings;
Avalonian Ythrians and human beings successfully resisting Terran imperialism;
much later, an Avalonian Ythrian spying for Ythri and Terra against a common enemy;
Dominic Flandry predicting that mixed species cultures like Avalon will build fascinating new civilizations.

Philippe Rochefort, a Lieutenant in the Terran Space Navy that attacks Avalon, disapproves of mixed colonies on the grounds that people should be what they are and stand by their own. Be what we are? But what can we become? On Avalon, Christopher Holm becomes, then is, Arinnian of Stormgate Choth - although he does experience some problems in making the transition. Tabitha Falkayn/Hrill, a third generation member of Highsky Choth brought up by Ythrians, has no problem about identifying with Ythri while acknowledging her humanity. She advises Arinnian:

"'...a man or woman who tries to be an Ythrian is a rattlewing.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 502.

"'Can't have it on both wings, son.'" (p. 504)

I dislike Rochefort's idea of standing by your own. This seems to assume a conflict of interests with other groups. His ancestors on Terra suffered because of this attitude. He acknowledges that he is a human supremacist because mankind leads Technic civilization.

"'...my sort of people are the xenosophont's best friend. We simply don't want to imitate him.'" (p. 489)

What sort of people? Rochefort is under no obligation to imitate anyone but, if we makes it his business to disapprove of cultural mixing, then he is not the xenosophont's friend.

Many Transitions

Baen Books' Poul Anderson The Technic Civilization Saga, Vol III, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011; compiled by Hank Davis) is a paradigmatic transitional volume. It collects:

the end of the van Rijn series;
the end of The Earth Book Of Stormgate;
two early pulp stories introducing the Terran Empire;
the novel that provides the background for the Earth Book.

In that latter novel, the Terran Empire has grown to its maximum volume whereas its future antagonist, the Merseian Roidhunate, is still small but growing... We await only the debut of Dominic Flandry in Vol IV.

Tabitha Falkayn/Hrill of Highsky Choth says of herself and her chothmates:

"'Most of us keep to the Old Faith...'" (p. 502)

but also:

"'God stoop on me if I ever make use of him...'" (p. 600)

The Old Faith is polytheistic whereas the New Faith is of God the Hunter. But religious phrases permeate language whatever individuals believe. Avalonians are in long-term transition to a single biracial culture:

"'...this thing of ours, winged and wingless together...'" (p. 662)

Even Daniel Holm, who opposed his son joining a choth, invokes "'Deathpride...'" (p. 566), draws strength from a New Faith funeral rite and describes Admiral Cajal contemptuously as "'...that Terran...'" (p. 560)

One cultural difference is discernible during negotiations. Cajal notices that Holm is:

"...haggard, unkempt, stubbly, grimy, no hint of Imperial neatness about him..." (p. 552)

Holm bluntly tells the Admiral that he does not believe anything he says whereas the Admiral preserves the diplomatic niceties while learning that the colony on Avalon has indeed become an alien culture.

Civil And Military Authorities

The Avalonian civil and military authorities are:

the High Wyvan of the Great Khruath of Avalon;
the President of the Parliament of Man;
the First and Second Marchwardens of the Lauran System.

Although Avalon is part of the Domain of Ythri, the High Wyvan of Ythri has no authority to order the Avalonians to cease resistance to the Terran Empire. The Avalonian High Wyvan advises a Terran Admiral:

"'Ythrian practice is not Terran...The worlds of the Domain are tied to each other principally by vows of mutual fidelity. That our fellows are no longer able to help us does not give them the right to order that we cease defending ourselves. If anything, deathpride requires that we continue to fight for what help it might afford them.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 582.

On Avalon itself, Khruath and Parliament vote to continue resistance after the defeat of the rest of the Domain. Somewhere in the text, although I can't find it right now, the High Wyvan of Ythri calls on Avalon to yield for the good of the Domain but that is all that he can do. Avalon is better equipped to resist because some of its human citizens apply the Terran principle of centralized military command but Marchwarden Daniel Holm also invokes the Ythrian concept of "'Deathpride...'" (p. 566)

The novel ends with the Terran War over and Avalon still in the Domain:

"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of light.
"High is heaven and holy." (p. 662)

More Plants On Avalon

"...plants whose ancestral seeds arrived with the pioneers had here long ceased to be foreign."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 659.

Anderson goes on to mention:

grasses;
trefoil;
sword-of-sorrow (see In The People Of The Wind, Chapter Nineteen here);
pine;
harp vine (see In The People Of The Wind, Chapter One here);
jewelleafs (same link as for "harp vine").

Of these, only grasses and pine are imports. Harp vine and jewelleafs have been described before but this might be the only reference to sword-of-sorrow.

Livewell On The Wind

"Where [Tabitha] stood, a hillside sloped downward, decked with smaragdine susin, starred with chasuble bush and Buddha's cup, to the strewn and begardened city, the huge curve of uprising shoreline, the glitter on Falkayn Bay. Small cottony clouds sauntered before the wind, which murmured and smelled of livewell."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 647.

Three senses: colorful flowers and glittering bay; murmuring wind smelling of livewell.

These might be the only sauntering clouds anywhere in literature?

The extraterrestrial plants named in this passage are:

susin;
chasuble bush (see "In 'Wingless'" here);
Buddha's cup (see "In The People Of The Wind, Chapter One" here);
livewell.

In particular, Avalonian livewell weaves in and out of the narrative and I have tried to chart the references to this flower in earlier posts. "Buddha's cup" is obviously an evocative and colorful name bestowed on another native flower by human colonists of Avalon.

Reflections On Avalon

"Rochefort...and his hastily assembled crew...ran interference for the lumbering gunships till these were below the dangerous altitude. En route, they stopped a pair of enemy missiles. Though no spacecraft was really good in atmosphere, a torpedo boat combined acceptable maneuverability, ample firepower, and more than ample wits aboard. Machines guided by simple robots were no match."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 630.

Hold that thought. It is a plausible hypothesis that "...no spaceship was really good in atmosphere...," but Anderson seems to write with the confidence of experience - and makes us feel that we also know it from experience. A small torpedo boat with a live crew of three has just the right combination of maneuverability and firepower for atmospheric combat. Of course it does. Larger craft, like "...the lumbering guns...," are obviously unsuitable. We knew that before we read this passage, didn't we?

"...the glitter on Falkayn Bay." (p. 647)

Remember that young Polesotechnic League apprentice from Hermes that we met on Ivanhoe? Centuries later, there is a Bay named after him on the planet that calls him Founder. Details like that firmly establish that we are reading a History. Still later, there is an Adzel Square on Aeneas.

Munteanu And Ozumi

Who?

Munteanu and Ozumi appear on just over one page of Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind, on pp. 627-628 of Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011). Munteanu's sole literary role is to explain something to Ozumi and thus to the reader.

Captain Ion Munteanu, commanding fire control on HMS Phobos, while attacking Avalon, briefs his officers, including Ensign Ozumi. To paraphrase dramatically:

Munteanu: Our mission is to attack a city.
Ozumi: When we bombard a military target with enough torpedoes, a few bypass the negafields but surely cities are better protected?
Munteanu: Yes, cities have powerful, complicated defense systems, including surface-to-space launchers. We will fire our largest missiles, programmed to detonate at substratospheric altitude. At least one should reach that altitude before interception but, if not, we will try again.
Ozumi: Not a continent buster?
Munteanu: No. Heavy missiles, clean, discharging output, mainly radiation, directly ahead. Blast would not penetrate negafields. We will hit the town center and its fringes are flammable.
Ozumi: Why do it?
Munteanu: Centauri, their chief seaport and industrial capital, would be able to attack our landing force.
Ozumi: "'Women and children -'" (p. 628)
Munteanu: The enemy should have evacuated nonessential personnel. I lost a brother here last time.

The Avalonians killed Munteanu's brother because he was attacking them. A pacifist, when asked, "What would you do if you saw an enemy soldier raping your sister?," replied, "Whatever else I did, I would not send my son to kill his cousin." Munteanu sounds as if he would send his son to kill someone's cousin - an attitude that would prolong war indefinitely.

Anderson has already shown us the vigorous life of Centauri. Now, because of the Terran attack, we see the Ythrian Quenna, with burning feathers, melting eyeballs, ruptured eardrums and smashed capillaries, falling into a blazing house beside a boiling canal.

A Change Of Scene

"'Phil!' she shouted. Ah, Arinnian thought. Indeed. The next betrayal.


"'At ease, Lieutenant. Sit down.'"
 -Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 618.

What a marvelous device in drama and prose fiction is the change of scene. Hrill shouts "Phil!" and Arinnian thinks, "...betrayal," because they have just heard Philippe Rochefort escaping from Avalon in a stolen spaceship. Admiral Cajal says, "At ease..." because, hours later, Rochefort stands before him. A double space between paragraphs informs the reader that there has been what we have come to know and recognize as "a change of scene."

There is no such phenomenon in reality. I cannot start to walk towards Lancaster railway station, then, by virtue of an instant "change of scene," be greeted by a friend as I arrive at Birmingham railway station. But Rochefort does not experience any instantaneous transportation either. Between departing Avalon and meeting Cajal, he has:

traveled through space;
rejoined the Terran fleet;
been identified, interrogated and hypnoprobed;
made statements that, we learn, have been recorded, transcribed and read by the Admiral;
maybe eaten, slept and waited;
received an unexpected invitation to meet the Admiral.

Cajal refers to statements and hypnoprobing and Rochefort refers to interrogators. Thus, we know some of what has happened. Thus also, the "change of scene" exists neither in our world nor in Rochefort's but only at the narrative interface. The reader alone enjoys this privileged perspective. We skip the tedium, proceeding directly from a dramatic escape to its strategic consequences. And we take this for granted, rarely reflecting that narrative techniques like point of view and change of scene have had to be refined by generations of fiction writers.

Ythrians And The Elements

I said here that Ythrians are less distanced from their natural environment than are human beings. When Arinnian sees Eyath in flight:

"Sunlight from behind turned her wings to a bronze fringed by golden haze."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 590.

That is a good image but I have fully appreciated it only in the process of quoting it. Arinnian thinks:

"She could be the sun itself...or the wind, or everything wild and beautiful above this ferroconcrete desert." (ibid.)

Descending, "...she braked in a brawl of air..." (ibid.)

Thus, sun, wind ("The People of the Wind") and brawling air.

Eyath's way of mourning is to immerse herself in turbulent Avalonian weather. She perches on a crag in rising wind for hours at night, becoming cold, wet and stiff. The rain is "...slow as tears..." (p. 606), an explicit pathetic fallacy. When Eyath ascends at Laura-rise, air in nostrils and antlibranchs wakens blood, making her muscles throb.

"At your death, Vodan, you too were a sun." (ibid.)

Despair is dispelled by beating wings and buffeting winds and "...washed out by rain..." (ibid.)

Hungered by energy expenditure, she hunts, swoops, grasps a reptiloid, snaps its neck on impact, sits on a sea rock and eats raw meat, surrounded by spouting surf. Poul Anderson has truly imagined an alien intelligence that remains much closer to its animal origins and natural environment.

High Wyvan Trauvay

The Terran Empire and the Domain of Ythri go to war. We saw Ythri in "Wings of Victory," the opening story of The Earth Book Of Stormgate, and see it again briefly from space in Chapter XII of The People Of The Wind.

We know that the Terran Emperor is the most powerful person in the Terran Empire but who is his opposite number in the Domain? There is no equivalent but the attacking Terran Admiral must speak with High Wyvan Trauvy. A Wyvan is a presiding officer entrusted with the explication of customs, precedents and Khruath decisions and with trying cases. Admiral Cajal understands that "Wyvan" translates as "Judge" or "Lawspeaker."

Ythrian families join together in self-organizing choths. Each choth has a Wyvan. Also, free adults in a territory periodically meet as a regional Khruath which has judicial and some legislative but no administrative powers. Winners of a vote in a Khruath rely on willingness to comply or on their strength to enforce.

Regional Khruaths elect delegates to Year-Khruaths which cover wider territories and which also send representatives to the planetary High Khruath. Wyvans are chosen for each Khruath and any free adult can also attend Khruaths at any level. This works for Ythrians, who are less garrulous than human beings. Avalonian human beings retain a Parliament of Man with a President but many human beings join choths, thus accepting Ythrians laws and customs with the right to attend Khruaths.

High Wyvan Trauvy presides in the High Khruath of Ythri and thus is the opposite number, although not the equivalent, of the Terran Emperor.

Details And Dishonesties

We do not notice as Poul Anderson carefully plants narrative details that will be crucial later. Arinnian and Eyath travel to visit Hrill and Draun in a flitter because it would be too far for his gravbelt or her wings but why does he tell her that, "'The flitter's spaceable -'" (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 591)?

Because the reader needs to know. But why do we need to know that? And why should a small vehicle used for atmospheric flight also be capable of interplanetary travel? Because Arinnian plans to feed disinformation to a prisoner, then to let that prisoner escape in the carelessly unguarded flitter and rejoin the Terran fleet. Genuine defectors will also be allowed to leave Avalon with the same misleading intelligence.

I am glad that I am not involved in waging a war. It involves not only death and destruction but also dishonesty, duplicity and double-dealing on an industrial scale.

Another detail: Hrill has sex with the prisoner, who is her house guest, Philippe Rochefort. Arinnian travels happily to visit Hrill, then sees her holding hands with the Terran. Now Arinnian is indeed happy to have Rochefort lied to and induced to leave but Hrill is not. Draun just wants to kill Terrans. ("Terrans," of course, do not include human Avalonians.) Then Rochefort inadvertantly informs Eyath that her fiancee was killed by friendly fire...

And, because of the nature of Ythrian sexuality, that will lead to a situation between Draun and Eyath that will make mortal enemies of Arinnian and Draun. Five characters of two species; endless conflicts and complexities.

Human-Ythrian Cultural Fusion

When I wrote here that Daniel Holm identified with an extraterrestrial tradition, I thought even as I wrote it that I was overstating the case although I was not sure how to rephrase it. Holm, a human being, wants his planet, Avalon, to remain in the Domain of Ythri. To this end, he confers with an Ythrian just returned from Ythri about how to resist encroachments by the human-led Terran Empire. However, this is a matter of present political arrangements, not of any tradition.

But then I reread the account of Ferune of Mistwood's funeral (see here) and Holm's response to it:

"'And that Terran thought we'd surrender.'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 560.

Here, Daniel Holm, who resisted his son joining a choth, draws strength from a rite of the two thousand years old Ythrian New Faith and says "'...we...'" All the barriers between himself and the Ythrians are down as he sets himself against those inspired by the Roman Empire.

Holm's other source of inspiration is the Terrestrial literature quoted by his deceased friend, Ferune of Mistwood:

"'...-their finest hour-...'" (p. 567)

Cultural fusion could not be completer.

How Can A Planet Mobilize In Secret?

How can a colony planet of a mere fourteen million, mostly ranchers, secretly build fortifications that significantly damage a Terran fleet? See here.

The electorate authorized the Admiralty to take any necessary action;
the Admiralty constructed facilities in uninhabited regions;
they had abundant nuclear energy, natural resources and automatic technology;
self-reproducing machines use the abundant minerals available in an underpopulated rural environment;
thus, no publically visible existing industry is involved in war production;
it is hard for Terrans to spy on Avalon where the population is either non-humanoid Ythrians or human beings who "'...no longer think, talk, even walk quite like any Imperial humans...'" (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 513);
the Second Marchwarden of the Lauran System had traveled through the Empire, had done advanced study at an Imperial academy and is excellent on security.

It is unfortunate that such advanced technology has to be used for such purposes. There must be some parts of the galaxy where this is not the case?

Dialogue And Narration

Poul Anderson's omniscient narrator describes a battle in space:

"Hours built into days while the fleets, in their widely scattered divisions, felt for and sought each others throats."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 519.

But then he directly, conversationally, addresses the reader:

"Consider: at a linear acceleration of one Terran gravity, a vessel can, from a 'standing start,' cover one astronomical unit..." (ibid.)

I think that "Consider:..." is inappropriate. It introduces a paragraph about velocity and distance. This is information that Anderson wanted to convey to the reader but which should have been put into the mouth of a protagonist or fictional observer rather than inserted into the flow of the narrative in a way that makes us aware of being directly addressed. Stylistically, this distracts us from the content of the passage. We ask: "Who is addressing us?" etc.

There is a more effective interaction between dialogue and narration a few pages later, when:

"[The Admiral's] glance traveled from screen to screen on the comboard. Faces looked out, some human, some nonhuman, but each belonging to an officer of Imperial Terra. He found it hard to meet those eyes." (p. 543)

(We wonder about the species of the nonhuman officers and what their eyes looked like.)

Admiral Cajal says:

"'We had no idea what fortifications had been created for Avalon -'" (p. 544)

- and continues without pausing:

"'- and the defenders used our ignorance brilliantly.'" (ibid.)

Cajal's sentence is interrupted for us, although not for his hearers, because the omniscient narrator inserts three paragraphs beginning, "In orbit...," "On the surface..." and "In the air..."

In orbit
Hundreds of automated stations exclusively powering defensive screens and offensive projectors, guarding supply craft shuttling from the surface.

On the surface and on the moon
A grid of negafield-shielded detectors, launch tubes and immense energy weapons, buried, underwater, on the ground or at sea.

In the air
Patrolling pursuit craft.

The Avalonian Admiralty has constructed these fortifications in secret and Cajal goes on to explain how this must have been done...