Limits On Interstellar Communication

"The 'instantaneous' pulses emitted by a ship in hyperdrive are detectable at an extreme range of about a light-year. They can be modulated to carry information. Unfortunately, within a few million kilometers quantum effects degrade the signal beyond recovery; even the simplest binary code becomes unintelligible."
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 132.

However, the interstellar civilization in Anderson's For Love And Glory has an instantaneous hyperbeam. I remember that there was some limitation on the use of hyperbeam but not what it was.

In the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space History:

"'Someday they'll miniaturize hyperwave equipment to the point where it'll fit into a spaceship.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Inconstant Star" IN Niven, Ed. Man-Kzin Wars III (New York, 1990), p. 211.

And, later in that history, Beowulf Shaeffer, exploring the galactic center alone in a spaceship, speaks to his puppeteer employer instantaneously by hyperphone. (Too easy.)

Anderson's Starfarers features an instantaneous and transtemporal communicator and Ursula Le Guin's future history has the instantaneous ansible. However, the true master of interstellar communication is James Blish:

his ultraphone is FTL but not instantaneous;
his CirCon radio and Dirac transmitter are instantaneous;
in one application of the Dirac transmitter, it receives messages from the past and future as well as from the present;
his Heart Stars empire and Angels also have instantaneous interstellar communication.

This is the kind of systematic treatment of a theme that we often find in Anderson's works.

Future Catholicisms

(St Peter's Cathedral, Lancaster.)

There is:

a Jerusalem Catholic Church in Poul Anderson's Technic History;

a Neocatholic Church in Anderson's For Love And Glory;

a Reform Catholic Church in Anderson's Starfarers;

a Reformed Catholic Church on Wunderland in Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Hall of the Mountain King";

an Imperial Church, recognizably Catholic, in Pournelle's CoDominium future history.

Anderson and Pournelle present the inner thoughts and points of view of characters who subscribe to their future versions of Catholicism whereas Pournelle & Stirling, at least in the passage to which I refer, merely mention that there is a Reformed Catholic church in a town among the Jotun Mountains. Nevertheless, this is enough to establish the existence of such a Church.

"The Hall of the Mountain King" is an installment of the Man-Kzin Wars sub-series of Larry Niven's Known Space future history. Thus, this single reference establishes the existence of a Reformed Catholic Church in the Known Space timeline. This denomination may never be referred to again. Alternatively, some contributor to the series could build a story around it. How was the Church "reformed"? Might a kzinti Kdaptist, believing that God made Man in His image, seek admittance to a Terrestrial religion? Etc. See here.

The Short Future Histories

The previous post postulated a conceptual sequence comprising one future history each by Heinlein and Niven and four by Anderson. Anderson succeeds Heinlein but also surpasses him both in the number of his future histories and in their length and scope.

For completeness, we should also mention four shorter and more specialized future history series by Anderson, covering respectively:

post-nuclear Earth;
asteroid colonization;
extrasolar colonization;
interstellar trade;
interstellar exploration.

The Kith history exists in two forms, the first emphasizing trade, the second emphasizing exploration. As always when formulating such lists, I learn more in the process.

Meanwhile, we have been assured that SM Stirling's Under The Yoke should still be in the post, Volume II not of a future history about men versus technology but of an alternative history about men versus men.

Two Volumes? II

See previous post.

But then, thinking this through again - and please tell me if I get anything wrong -, that tax-hungry Dominancy is presented in Chapter 21 of Starfarers which is the altered form of "Ghetto." It becomes necessary to compare the texts of "Ghetto," collected in Maurai And Kith, and of Starfarers, Chapter 21. We find several textual alterations including this one: the regime that is called "the Dominancy" in Starfarers had been called "the Star Empire" in the original version. That explains why members of its highest caste are called the Star-Free.

Thus, in the original version of the History, it was to be understood that the increased taxation introduced in "Ghetto" had preceded the physical suppression that was later referred back to in "The Horn of Time the Hunter." Did that suppression occur during the long period when Envoy was away from Earth in Starfarers?

Poul Anderson wrote:

"...I made "Ghetto," much revised, a part of my novel Starfarers. I was going to incorporate "The Horn of Time the Hunter" as well, but Karen convinced me that it was too dark."
-Poul Anderson, Going For Infinity (New York, 2002), p. 137.

I think that:

the several stories that Anderson revised for later republication should be preserved in both versions;

the way to do this with the Kith stories is to publish both a three-story collection and the later novel;

thus, in the original History, the Star Empire oppressively taxes and later physically suppresses the Kith, whereas, in the Starfarers future history, the Dominancy oppressively taxes the Kith but is later superseded by the Governance and other regimes.

Two Volumes?

Of Poul Anderson's three Kith short stories, two were incorporated in different forms into his novel, Starfarers. Should there therefore be two Kith volumes? -

a collection of all three stories in their original forms;
the novel.

These two volumes would constitute alternative versions of the Kith History. Both versions culminate with a ship returning from an unusually long exploratory voyage, either five or ten thousand years/light years. But they are different ships with different missions.

In the short story, "The Horn of Time the Hunter," the exiled Kith ship, the Golden Flyer, has explored the fringes of the galactic nucleus. We are not told what her crew found there except that it was neither wisdom nor the Elder Race. The story ends before they reach the Solar System but, en route, they have found, on an extrasolar planet, human colonists who have adapted to living in water. As in Anderson's Technic History, enough time has elapsed for human beings to adapt to different planetary environments.

This story also summarizes some future history that diverges in detail from the course of events presented in Starfarers. In the novel, a political regime called the Dominancy persecutes the Kith with exorbitant taxes whereas in "The Horn of Time...," a regime called the Star Empire physically attacks the Kith so that those who are not captured flee from the Solar System and meet in council at Tau Ceti, a rendezvous point in both versions of the History.

This mention of the Star Empire reads like a reference to an earlier installment of the series and, of course, even if such an installment did not exist at the time when "The Horn..." was written, Anderson could have added such a "prequel" later.

The viewpoint character of "The Horn..." is Jong Errifrans of the Golden Flyer and in "Ghetto," incorporated into Starfarers, Kenri Shaun recalls his friend, Jong Errifrans of the Golden Flyer.

Starfarers And The Time Patrol

In the Time Patrol series:

macroscopic time travel is possible - people can go;
past events can be changed;
a post-human Danellian confirms that the purpose of the Patrol is to prevent random changes, which would preclude life or consciousness.

In Starfarers:

subatomic time travel is possible - information can be sent;
past events cannot be changed;
a message from the future confirms that the interstellar drive stabilizes the universe.

Thus, in Starfarers, interstellar travelers fulfill a cosmic role similar to that of Time Patrollers. Among its many other qualities, Starfarers is a contribution to the theory of time travel. 

Captain Ricardo Iriarte Nansen Aguilar

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Captain Nansen is one lucky guy. Of the four women in the Envoy crew, he is with one, Kilbirnie, until she unfortunately dies during the voyage and is married to another, Dayan, by the end of the novel.

In Chapter 5, Nansen and Dayan ride on his family estate in Paraguay.
In Chapter 49, he has a similar estate on the planet Harbor.
In Chapter 52, Nansen and Dayan, married, ride on the estate on Harbor.

Such an estate traditionally employs servants. Such are unnecessary on Harbor but Anderson reproduces that ambiance. The household staff are really apprentices spending time with the starfarers.

Nansen addresses parliament. Chapter 52 is a beginning:

the Envoy crew and the surviving Kith are coming together;
better starships are being built with new knowledge;
new terrestroid planets will be colonized;
planetary engineering systems will make settlement possible or easier than before;
anyone who wants to will be able to star travel;
other races will be contacted;
millions of starships flying will make the cosmic substrate more stable (this was explained earlier);
now that they know that it is possible, human beings will discover how to build transtemporal communicators.

Most of this is still to happen. It does not necessarily involve recontacting the quantum intelligences as I had thought. But it was those intelligences that had received messages from the future about the cosmic role of interstellar travel.

Inside And Outside

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

"'You - you are from outside?'" (p. 489)

The Kith crew of Fleetwing have been enclosed within their large, now immobile, interstellar spaceship for years. Those who were children have grown up but the crew has stopped having children and has practiced euthanasia to conserve resources. Each of them looks at the stars once a year.

It is easy to imagine a situation in which:

resources are recycled indefinitely;
new generations continue to be born;
the crew forgets how to look out at the stars;
it seems to them that their ship is the entire universe.

I was fascinated when I read about such an enclosed artificial universe in Robert Heinlein's Orphans Of The Sky. Brian Aldiss presented a more elaborate version in Non-Stop and James White creatively adapted the idea to a marine setting in The Watch Below. The Fleetwing crew do retain their knowledge of the outside universe but nevertheless it is a considerable shock when some of them meet unfamiliar spacesuited figures and one exclaims:

"'You - you are from outside?'" (p. 489)

The Shauns Of Fleetwing

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

The crew of the Kith ship, Fleetwing, includes Shauns:

in Chapter 1, Ricardo Nansen rescues his friend, Mike Shaughnessy, on an extrasolar planet;
in Chapter 10, Michael Shaughnessy meets his older great-grandson, Ramil Shauny;
in Chapter 12, old Michael Shaughnessy goes to the planet Feng Huang to die;
in Chapter 17, Ormer Shaun is second mate of Fleetwing;
in Chapter 21, when Fleetwing visits Earth, its crew include Wolden Shaun and his son, Kenri Shaun;
in Chapter 46, when Fleetwing is at the planet Brent its crew includes Vodra Shaun;
in Chapter 51, Ricardo Nansen rescues the surviving crew of the wrecked Fleetwing, including Evar Shaun.

I realized the Shaughnessy-Shauny-Shaun line of descent and Nansen's opening and concluding rescue missions only while listing Shauns. There is always more to be found in Anderson's texts when we look more deeply into them.

Emprises And A Dominancy

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

The Venture League is:

"...an organization that aimed to launch fresh emprises among the stars." (p. 471)

"Emprise" evokes both "empire" and "enterprise." Envoy has returned with enough information to launch, on Harbor, if not on Earth, an industrial revolution, a scientific revolution and religious and philosophical transformations. Al Brent, if he had survived, would probably have argued for conquering the unenterprising Earth to which they returned.

We learn the name of yet another political regime. There has been not only a Dominancy and a Governance but also a Mandatory that left warhead craters on Harbor during its dying days.

Nansen and Dayan, with a much younger crew, take Envoy to rescue the last Kith ship. Like Captain Kirk, Nansen boards the stranded Fleetwing but, unlike Kirk, he is able to argue that his experience makes him the most suitable candidate for this role. He of course knows the doctrine that "'The commander should stay with the ship.'" (p. 479)

We approach the conclusion of Starfarers. How many entirely different situations have we encountered in its fifty two chapters? Several of the characters appear in only a single chapter. Others survive for many chapters and millennia thanks to time dilation. The Envoy crew sitting "...under a vine-draped trellis..." (p. 472) are like the immortals conferring around a picnic table in The Boat Of A Million Years yet how different are their stories.

A Secular Prophet

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Chandor Barak, director of the Venture Society academy, tells Captain Nansen:

"'...you are the hero. I could well say you're the prophet. We need your imagination.'
"Nansen felt uncomfortable about that. But no matter. The zeal before him lighted his own fire afresh. This was not about gain or glory, it was about the nature of humankind, and humankind's place in the universe." (p. 466)

That does sound prophetic. But is it mankind's place in the universe that motivates people to travel long distances into unknown regions? I think that Europeans invaded other continents for gain and glory and sometimes rationalized their own enrichment with fine sounding phrases. Anderson imagines a situation in which the returned Envoy crew members have no economic motive for space exploration but instead really do believe that this is the way forward for mankind.

That is my hope for the future. Freed by technology from material want, some human beings may relapse into passivity but others will be freed to pursue worthy goals like the exploration of the universe. Knowledge is primarily an end, not a means.

The Venture League

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

(The present Queen of England, occasionally mentioned on this blog, will visit her Duchy of Lancaster tomorrow after a week of exhaustive security preparations. This means that, if we look out at the right time, we will see the Royal Train passing behind our house early in the morning.)

In the previous post, does the autumnal sunlight pervading a summer day on Harbor presage that the Envoy crew will be unable to reverse the inexorable decline of interstellar travel? As it turns out, they do reverse it. Although Anderson wrote two short dystopias, all of his longer works end optimistically. The Night Face ends somberly - but is not very long.

Captain Nansen's Venture League encounters political opposition already discussed here. Reverting for a moment to what Nansen found on Earth before traveling to Harbor:

Kith Town is empty except for robot caretakers;
the newest homes were last occupied centuries ago;
few visit physically because everyone on Earth can access virtuals;
but there is a visitors' center with overnight accommodation;
ships come rarely and stay briefly;
crews stay in a hostel or aboard;
constellations and the North Star have changed;
the Town is surrounded by ruins because -

"From time to time, a city had engulfed the starfarers' dwelling place." (p. 462)

It was the realization that more than one city had enclosed Kith Town that brought home to me the passage of time in this future history. With nothing to be done on Earth, Nansen and his crew travel to Harbor to found their Venture League there. What happens next?

The Pathetic Fallacy On Earth And Harbor

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

In a Seladorian ritual, the leader chants, "'...oneness.'" (p. 461) Then:

"The voice grew shrill. '...bring down the falsehoods of the Biosophists...'
"A carnivore screamed, somewhere off in the dark. Zeyd wondered how serene Earth really was and how long its peace could endure." (ibid.)

A carnivore screaming in darkness is a perfect counterpoint to, and comment on, someone chanting "oneness," then denouncing falsehoods. Are the the carnivore and the darkness within the Seladorian?

Nansen the starfarer visits an empty Kith Town. History, indeed. We saw this place bustling with life millennia earlier and, even then, were given a brief history of how a city had grown up around the Town, then the surrounding City district had economically declined. Five years after visiting Earth and its empty Kith Town, Nansen leads the new Venture League on Harbor at Tau Ceti:

"Though it was summer in this hemisphere, to Earthside eyes the sunshine spilling from the blue would have had a mellow, autumnal quality." (p. 464)

Nansen has returned from far space to the autumn of interstellar travel but hopes that it will have a new spring and summer. Another perfect pathetic fallacy. Mirkheim ends with a sunrise (a beginning) that is red (the color associated with sunsets, an end). Anderson's prose affects his readers whether or not they analyze it.

Three Thousand Years Of Peace

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Nansen's Terrestrial hostess says that the planet has had "'Three thousand years of peace.'" (p. 459)

Nansen replies, "'Thanks to...Selador.'" (ibid.)

- and thinks: Who seems to have done better than the Christ they seem to have forgotten. (ibid.)

Selador has not done better than Christ. Nanotechnology has abolished want and therefore also conflict for material resources. Result: peace. Selador happens to be the religious founder whose name is still quoted.

Zeyd witnesses a ritual in a clearing in a rain forest:

"'In the name of Selador...oneness.'" (pp. 460-461)

Oneness, yes. "In the name of..." is a formula in which any name could have filled in the blank. I hardly need list some of the obvious alternatives. The voices grow shrill as the congregation chants, "'...bring down the falsehoods of the Biosophists...'" (p. 461) I think that that is unlikely. A philosophy that has been global for three millennia will not still chant the names of its defeated opponents. The Anglican Communion does not ritually denounce the falsehoods of the Mithraists or the Manichaeans.

On the other hand, if such conflicts really are still so close to the surface, then Zeyd was right when he "...wondered how serene Earth really was and how long its peace could endure." (ibid.)

Today, I have done other reading and this evening have attended our small sf group. Nevertheless, when I return home and read a few pages of Anderson, I find plenty to post about so it seems that there will a few more posts this month. Anderson always addresses key questions like:

What do people believe?
How does it affect their behavior?
How is society held together?
How long can stability - or apparent stability - last?
How do people respond to change, especially if it has long been delayed?
What should the minority who value change do in any situation? (The situations change with history.)

Cautious Communication

Poul  Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

(I might stop at 100 posts for May, an average of 104 per month so far this year, but thinking about Poul Anderson's works never ceases.)

How can half a dozen individuals assess an entire society that is new to them? Some well-meaning visitors were completely misled by Stalinist Russia. The Envoy crew are cautious with the future Earth. Only two of them descend to the surface and they refuse "'...a mnemonic in a modern language-'" (p. 456). They do not want to risk mental alteration along with linguistic knowledge.

"The mansion stood on the far edge of town, not very big though ornamented with pilasters, changing iridescences, and a winged cupola." (pp. 457-458)

Inside the mansion, a translating device is required which, Nansen concedes, "...didn't make for intimate conversation, but it served well enough here." (p. 458)

I have attended meetings where an interpreter was needed both for the talk and for the questions and answers. This slowed down everyone's thought processes. Responses that were usually immediate were delayed and thus perhaps more considered.

Now, speaking of other languages, I have some Virgil to prepare for next Tuesday...

Causes Of Conflict

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

A returned Envoy crew member asks his Terrestrial guide:

"'I gather that religions, customs, even laws vary from group to group, and each develops as it chooses, or splits off to start something new. Doesn't that lead to conflict?'" (p. 454)

Why should it? I think that social conflicts are caused only by contradictory material interests. Northern Irish Catholics demonstrated and rioted because of their social and political disadvantages, not because of their doctrinal disagreements with Presbyterians.

The guide replies:

"'All are Seladorian...Different deity or none, different usage, yes, but all accept the oneness of life. That means, too, the oneness of humans.'" (pp. 454-455)

I agree. There are at least three ways in which people of different faiths can live harmoniously, by accepting:

social customs and the secular laws of the land;
scientific procedures;
the rules of philosophical debate and civilized discourse.

We need and can have: difference without division; unity without uniformity. I don't know whether I heard or read that somewhere or invented it but I think it makes sense.

The Envoy man remains skeptical:

"Zeyd knew of no faith that had ever brought universal harmony. He wondered how meaningful these cultural uniquenesses were, and what measures were now and then necessary to maintain the global peace." (p. 455)

Why should any measures be necessary? Previous faiths existed in and reflected periods of economic and military conflict. Zeyd applies out-moded assumptions.

The Two Kith Future Histories

The Original History
The Kith trade between stars at sub-light speeds.
They maintain Kith Town on Earth, where they are increasingly oppressed.
One banished Kith ship, returning from an exploratory mission to the galactic center, finds descendants of human colonists who have become aquatic.

The Starfarers History
The zero-zero drive makes relativistic interstellar travel possible.
Envoy embarks on a long exploratory mission.
The Kith trade between stars at sub-light speeds.
They maintain Kith Town on Earth, where they are increasingly oppressed.
Selador, the son of a Kithman, founds a Terrestrial religion that opposes space travel.
The Seladorians become a persecuted but growing minority.
Kith trade declines.
Kith visiting Earth find Seladorians everywhere.
Envoy returns to an Earth that has been united by Seladorianism for three thousand years.
The Envoy crew and the Kith remnant begin to build an interstellar civilization in cooperation with quantum intelligences encountered during Envoy's exploratory mission. 

Eleven Millennia Later

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Earth when Envoy returns after an absence of eleven millennia:

"Down from tundra and taiga swept wind-bellowing steppes; boreal forest yielded to broadleaf woods and these to jungle..." (p. 445)

"The groundside scene was of graceful columns and ogive windows open on a garden." (p. 446)

Of course, there is more going on than this but I found these five words worth googling on just two pages. I previously discussed this future Earth in "Starfarers And Seladorians."

Addendum: And, a few pages later, "'...no matter how much internal variegation it enjoys, it is now the only civilization on Earth.'" (p. 451)

The speaker means "variation." "Variegation," apparently, is a botanical term.

Places of business include "...ateliers..." (p. 453)

Seladorianism

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

All existence is one;
the Ultimate realizes itself through life;
life, the meaning of existence, evolves toward identity with the Ultimate;
however, humanity has taken a wrong turn;
having technology is part of being intelligent but human beings have taken technology too far and in wrong directions;
they have adapted to technology instead of it to the Meaning and have cut themselves off from their living environment;
they must restore destroyed forests and prairies and stop using bioengineering to adapt individuals for specialized, e.g. military, purposes;
they have learned from space travel but must now withdraw to Earth;
if they continue in the wrong direction, then they will become extinct.

The Seladorians cultivate oases, are acquiring new land at the expense of the former occupants and want "...to abolish the machines on whose productivity depended the subsidies that kept poor folk alive." (p. 418) We might agree with some Seladorian tenets but not others. In this novel, there is a strong tendency among technological races for spacefaring to decline and Seladorianism is part of this tendency on Earth. That alone shows us that Anderson regards this religion as a mostly negative force.

A Rich Text

I am able to post frequently and the subject matters of the posts vary because Poul Anderson's texts are rich, the current text addressing physics, cosmogony, alien biology, hypothetical nonchemical life, technology, society, history and religions both real and projected. Starfarers belongs both to the sub-genre of future history and to the class of works that deal with the concept and implications of time travel.

Still to come in Starfarers are:

Chapter 46, the last Kith installment;
Chapters 47-52, the immediate and ultimate outcomes of Envoy's return to Earth.

After finishing Starfarers, there will be other Poul Anderson works to return to.