How Rochefort Sees Holm

Poul Anderson clearly approves of the massive Avalonian defense operation masterminded and coordinated by Marchwardens Ferune of Mistwood and Daniel Holm in The People Of The Wind. And, as he is the omnipotent creator of both the Domain of Ythri and the Terran Empire, Anderson is able to ensure that the scale of the Terran attack is vast enough to warrant all that public expenditure on defensive measures.

However, Anderson also knows how to write a novel that expresses the complexities of political conflicts. Not everyone sees the issues the same way. If they did, then there would be no drive towards war in the first place. Philippe Rochefort, a young Terran Imperial officer, is bound to judge Avalonian intransigence from an antagonistic perspective:

"'...old Holm...and a few other old men and Ythrians, who don't care how many young die, as long as they're spared confessing their own stupid, senile willfulness -'"
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 603.

That almost hurts and is all too plausible! We have empathized with Holm and his cohorts so far and have not had too much trouble disagreeing with the dithering Avalonian Parliamentary President Vickery but here is Rochefort, a thoroughly good guy, an officer and a gentleman, starting a relationship with Tabitha Falkayn, wanting to move to Avalon after the war whatever the outcome, and he sees Daniel Holm as stupid and senile! Well, Holm Senior is intelligent, not stupid, but he is older... Might he be set in his ways, stubborn and intransigent?

These are the historical judgments that would have been made if the desperate strategy of luring the Terrans into a trap on the Avalonian surface had not paid off.

Ythrian Society Is Not A Civilization

Ythrians are winged carnivores but intelligent. The flapping of their wings pumps enough oxygen into their veins to generate the energy needed to lift bodies capable of intelligence in Earth-like gravity. Each Ythrian family needs territory for hunting or herding. The sexes are equal. Parents are bonded by care of children who cling to them in flight, not by sex, which is only when they are in heat.

Their Stone Age was ended not by agriculture but by herding and domestication. Agriculture developed later for fodder. Later, larger, more complex social units are not civilizations because winged Ythrians have never needed cities. Sedentary centers for specific purposes, like mining, industry, trade or religion, are small with floating populations. Since contact with Terrans, machines have mostly replaced wing-clipped slaves while, simultaneously, the Empire reintroduces slavery.

Families are grouped in "choths," diverse in size, organization and tradition. All free adults can participate in democratic meetings called "Khruaths" but the only way to enforce a Khruath decision, if enforcement becomes necessary, is for the presiding officers, the Wyvans, to cry Oherran, calling on everyone in the territory to attack the defiers of the decision. Oherran is a deathpride matter. Wyvans whose call of Oherran is rejected have no honorable course but suicide.

Associations And Parallels

Contemplating Virgil's celebration of the founding of the Roman Empire reminded me of Poul Anderson's account of the founding of the Terran Empire - although these are not exact parallels. The Roman Empire grew from a Republic that had replaced a monarchy whereas the Terran Empire was built in the ruins of a collapsed Commonwealth.

The founding of the Terran Empire recalled its Fall and our last sight of its capital, Archopolis. However, we last see Archopolis not in ruins, like Asimov's Trantor or Anderson's Sol City, but in its heyday during the lifetime of the Empire's last great defender, Dominic Flandry.

This, in turn, led to a search for whatever accounts there are of Archopolis, and also of the Coral Palace, during that period. The texts present a certain amount of information although it is necessary to reread carefully to identify the details.

One other part of the global Terran conurbation that is described is Admiralty Center in the Rocky Mountains:

"A metropolis in its own right..." - Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 379;
multicolored walls so high that their lower levels must always be lit;
tangled elevated ways;
"...pinnacles crowned with clouds and sunlight" (pp. 379-380);
noiseless ground and air vehicles;
dense, electronically controlled air traffic among the towers;
tunnels and chambers beneath the foundations;
an endless beehive hum and underground growl;
junior technicians, admirals and scientists, not all of them human;
entry flanges on the Naval Intelligence tower;
"...the nexus of Imperial strength..."  (p. 380).

There are similar scenes in a couple of the Star Trek films.

Introductions IV

Of the six works collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, by Poul Anderson:

the two novels have no Introductions although the first has an extended Prologue beginning 500,000 years earlier;

two are introduced by Hloch of the Stormgate Choth in his Earth Book Of Stormgate - in fact, these are the concluding stories of the Earthbook so this is Hloch's last appearance in our lists of Introductions;

one is introduced by Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society;

one is introduced by Michael Karageorge, whose words however were composed not by Poul Anderson but by the Compiler of the Saga, Hank Davis, in a very welcome literary joke at the expense of this very early and otherwise rather discordant installment of the History.

Volumes I-III cover the first of the two long periods of the History. The second period, covered by Volumes IV-VII, is considerably less rich in Introductions, although I will seek out any that may be there. It certainly has no equivalent either of Hloch, who binds together twelve pre-Imperial works, or of Arkwright, who somehow insinuates himself in different ways into three Introductions without in any way being connected with the stories that are being introduced.