Nemesis

In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, later generations incorporate the achievements of their predecessors. Planetary Engineers receive mind training from skilled psychotechnicians and therefore, like the title character of "The Sensitive Man," can exercise some control over involuntary functions. Also, one Engineer is even a clone of the "superman," Rostomily, like the earlier Un-men. Nomads preserve knowledge of such achievements through the subsequent Dark Ages. Eventually, Galactic men exercise much greater psychophysical powers. One Engineer, regarding science as a war of men against nature, reflects that nature is too strong and can easily shrug aside humanity - but the Galactics, by applying their artificially mutated brains, control cosmic forces, expending very little energy.

The omniscient narrator of The Snows Of Ganymede ascribes the downfall of the Psychotechnic Institute to "Hubris, Nemesis, Ate." (p. 47) Pride, retribution and ruin form a perfect Hegelian triad. A few pages later, an Engineer displays the hubris of Frankenstein by casually explaining how scientists have created microscopic life:

"'It was just a matter of reproducing and accelerating the chain of physiochemical reactions which led to the first life on Earth. Oparin had sketched that out as far back as 1930 or so.'" (p. 56)

We hardly notice this Frankensteinian achievement among the many other signs and wonders of Anderson's first future history.

Inner And Outer

Un-men fight political opponents of human unity. This political opposition is an external expression of psychological contradictions addressed by psychotechnicians. Ultimately, the enemy is within. See "The Old And Protean Enemy," here. Complementarily, the Order of Planetary Engineers addresses the real external enemy:

"He had meant to be a soldier in man's finest war, the fight of all men against a blind and indifferent nature which had brought their kind forth without caring."
-Poul Anderson, The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), p. 6.

(I write "the real external..." but of course nature is one and we are its self-consciousness, synthesizing subject and object, although usually experiencing antithesis, alienation and conflict.)

Aiming to serve all mankind, therefore needing to remain apolitical, the Order made itself independent of the Solar Union government and therefore survived the Humanist Revolution that outlawed the Psychotechnic Institute. Furthermore, Engineer cadets continue to receive mind training from skilled psychotechnicians - presumably also Order members.

Ironically, the Order, asked to terraform two colonized outer satellites, finds that the outlawed Institute is hiding in the outer System and that it is necessary to thwart the Psychotechnicians' plot for a violent return to power.

Social Chaos

Poul Anderson's "The High Ones" posits a future world-wide Soviet dictatorship. Usually, a story with such a premise would describe oppression on Earth. Instead, we are shown how the Terrestrial regime affects the crew of a spaceship exploring another planetary system, although one crew member reminisces about his childhood in Soviet-dominated North America.

Reading "The High Ones" made me reflect on the social upheavals that led to the establishment of the Soviet regime - a tidal wave of world events overwhelming any group trying to achieve a positive outcome. Anderson conveys exactly that feeling in his Psychotechnic Future History and in the parallel text, Planet Of No Return.

The first Psychotechnic story, "Marius," begins inauspiciously for a future history. It is raining and cold and the street lights have not been restored. There is dusk between ruined walls where tattered people dwell among rubble. This is the aftermath of a World War III so close to the "present," the time of writing, that the viewpoint character, Etienne Fourre, chief of the Maquisard Brotherhood and French representative in the United Free Europe Supreme Council, had been a partisan in World War II.

Fourre's coup, described in the story, leads to the social application of the new science of psychotechnics and the Psychotechnic Institute's uphill struggle against mass irrationality is described in "The Sensitive Man" but the Institute is later overwhelmed by social upheavals that are meticulously described in four pages of The Snows Of Ganymede. In "Brake," a world in turmoil plunges down towards the Second Dark Ages.

Superdielectrics

Chapter 5 of Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), summarizing the downfall of the Psychotechnic Institute by presenting a lot of concentrated information in just four and a half pages, mentions one detail that is not developed anywhere else in the series:

"[The Humanist movement] was made the more dangerous by the general availability of superdielectrics, accumulators of fantastic capacity which could be charged from almost anything; cheap, simple energy sources for vehicles and weapons.
"The balance of military power was shifting away from central government and toward the small, fanatic group. It was no longer possible to enforce order." (p. 50)

Does this make sense? Yes, cheap energy sources fit with the kind of technological advances that are made in the series. And there has to be some explanation of how a popular movement was able to start an armed revolution.

However:

superdielectrics should be mentioned as part of the background of later stories;
I have argued that, in the social conditions described, small fanatic groups would not be able to attract mass support;
the armed forces, also using the new enemy sources, would outnumber and outmanoeuvre any small groups.

Murder And Psychodynamics

The latest news from here is that Poul Anderson's Murder In Black Letter is available from Amazon for £144.00 - more than I am willing to spend on a single book. I need someone to give me a grant to research Poul Anderson! (But I am not asking readers of this blog to contribute!)

Meanwhile, however, Anderson's Psychotechnic Future History remains eminently worthy of discussion. Baen Books left a big hole in the History when they did not include "The Snows of Ganymede" in their 1980's uniform edition of the series. In "Snows," Planetary Engineers travel to the outer Solar System to study the feasibility of terraforming Ganymede and Callisto. In "Brake," set fifty years later, an Engineer travels to the outer System with machines to terraform Europa.

These two stories could be collected as a single volume to be called The Order Of Planetary Engineers. References in "Brake" to the Engineers' castle on the rim of Archimedes Crater and to the curiously named University of X on Ganymede make some sense after reading "Snows."

In "Brake," Anderson, wanting to inform his readers that Terrestrial society is rapidly descending towards the Second Dark Ages, makes Captain Banning refer, first, to the conflict between Oriental Kali worshipers and Occidental protechnological Puritans and, secondly, to three complicating factors:

Kali worshipers are only one branch of the Ramakrishian Eclectics;
many Asians support Technic civilization just as some Americans worship Kali;
there are also Husseinite Moslems and a New Christendom.

This all sounds a bit ad hoc and in fact there are no stories set on Earth in this period so we do not see the Kalists, Technics etc in conflict. They are referred to only here. But the point is made that Earth is in very bad shape.

Before the two Planetary Engineers stories, "Holmgang," "Cold Victory" and "What Shall It Profit?" could be collected as The Humanist Revolution: before and after. That would leave six other pre-FTL stories as maybe something like After World War III?

Mass Unemployment II

In the economy with which we are familiar, competing corporations make profits by:

paying wages or salaries to large numbers of employees;
selling commodities to the purchasing public, most of whom have been paid wages or salaries.

In the world economy of Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958):

"...only some twenty-five per cent of the adult population was even partially employed..." (p. 49)

- and they were:

"...the genius class which could still work..." (p. 50)

I would expect an education system that "...really fitted the needs of the individual and his society..." (p. 48) to realize and release the full potential of each individual and thus to increase the number of, by our standards, "geniuses" in society.

But the seventy five per cent are not generating profits for any employer either by producing or by purchasing commodities. Who employs the twenty five per cent? They are doing the jobs that cannot be done by "...computers, automatons, and semi-volitional machines..." (p. 49). But this work does not, it seems, consist in producing commodities to be sold competitively to the seventy five per cent. So it does not seem that the genius class is employed by competing, profit-seeking corporations.

The strengthened world government, conserving natural resources and applying "rational economics" (pp. 48-49), must in this case identify those socially necessary tasks that cannot be computerized, automated or roboticized and assign suitable human employees to these tasks just as it assigns a citizen's allowance to the seventy five percent.

Further, that government is elected by the general population, not just by the occupied class. Thus, the (fully educated) public can participate in discussions about the allocation of resources and can by this means ensure that their own lives are as fulfilled as possible? At least, they have no reason to start smashing things up which, we are to understand, is what too many of them start to do!

I really am trying to understand Anderson's premises and to reason from them as consistently as possible but this subject matter is inherently controversial because of the conflicting presuppositions that we bring to it so I welcome comments from anyone in general and from those who agree with Anderson in particular. These few stories address issues that are discussed in fictitious historical texts by Wells and Stapledon.

Mass Unemployment

Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958) lists reasons why the Psychotechnic Institute was unable to counteract social problems that led to the Humanist Revolution and to the outlawing of the Institute. The reasons include:

"...mass unemployment on a scale never seen before..." (p. 49)

This would be a problem if it caused mass poverty on a scale never seen before. However:

"...no one starved, a citizen's allowance was enough to assure living quite comfortably..." (p. 50)

So what is the problem?

"...the genius class which could still work and get extra money was hated and envied." (ibid.)

Why?

"It is not good for a society when most of its citizens have no vested interest in its smooth operation." (ibid.)

But they have a vested interest. They are living quite comfortably. And we have already been told that the economy had recovered and society had improved because of factors that included:

"...education which, for the first time in centuries really fitted the needs of the individual and of his society..." (p. 48)

In these circumstances, such an education would not produce a population wanting but unable to find paid employment. Instead, after at most a single transitional generation, the educated world population would understand, appreciate and enjoy leisure with its opportunities for recreational and cultural activities. I write "activities" because recreation need not be passive. It can involve not only watching drama but also amateur dramatics.

Historical and moral education would also inculcate the understanding that irrational hatred of a minority is socially destructive. The other factors mentioned would help:

withering nationalism;
population decline;
conservation;
rational economics;
sane penology;
psychiatric care;
critical thinking (pp. 48-49).

A story set earlier in the series describes what a robot sees as he walks among men:

"...houses which practically took care of themselves..." (Cold Victory, New York, 1982, p. 16);
"...giant, almost automated food factories..." (op. cit.);
"...self-piloting carplanes...quietly overhead" (op. cit.);
a colorist, a composer and a group of engineers;
a short standard work period;
a picnic, a dance, a concert, a pair of lovers, a group of children;
"...an old man happily enhammocked with a book and a bottle of beer -" (op. cit., pp. 16-17).

The general conclusion:

" - the human race was taking it easy." (p. 17)

People who not only are able to take it easy but also whose education has equipped them to understand and appreciate their situation have no reason either to envy the few who contribute more or to resort to violence. (We do not fight for the air we breathe but might if we were down to the last oxygen cylinder on a space station.)

Despite all this, there are:

"Anti-robot riots; the lynching of technies and scientists; the election of intellectually corrupt representatives..." (The Snows Of Ganymede, p. 50)

Riots and lynchings? In the social conditions described, any fanatical minority that wanted to perpetrate such atrocities would be dealt with by the "psychiatric care" and "sane penology." They would not be able to communicate their insanity to wider numbers whose education would equip them to appreciate the contributions of scientists and technicians and to value the social wealth and liberation from drudgery represented by robotics. "Critical thinking" would counteract any tendencies towards intellectual corruption.

Anyone who replies that most people would be unable to make creative use of leisure is thinking of people as they are now, not of a new generation growing up and socially trained in a qualitatively different environment.

Thus, I think that Anderson presents both a utopia and a dystopia that are mutually inconsistent.

The Psychotechnic Institute

(Last post till at least 15 Oct.)

Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), which I am reading for the first time, not rereading, is a mine of information not only about the Order of Planetary Engineers, to which its central character belongs, but also about the Psychotechnic Institute, after which this future history is named.

I will have to check this by rereading some earlier stories in the series but I think it is correct to say that there is no story directly about the Institute itself. I have learned more about the Institute from The Snows Of Ganymede than from any other installment of the Psychotechnic History. Ganymede, set fifty years after the Institute was outlawed, nevertheless summarizes the history of that organization in the four plus pages of Chapter 5.

The summary displays two typical historical contradictions. First, Asia is a center of resistance to the new scientific culture. Thus, when, thanks to that culture, the global economy recovers and Asia becomes the center of that economy, the resistance gains power. Secondly, however, although the Humanists oppose technology, they cannot abolish it and are necessarily resisted by the extraplanetary colonies so that their new regime cannot last.

The new scientific culture had:

"...involved the scrapping of traditions which had existed since prehuman times." (p. 49)

I do not think that we have any traditions going back that far? The text continues:

"In many ways it went against animal instinct..." (ibid.)

Maybe that but biological instincts are different from and deeper than social traditions.

"Individual psychology suggested ways to get around this, but there was no way to recondition a billion and a half human creatures en mass." (ibid.)

Psychotechnics involves social equations, but these are failing to cope with social change, and individual psychology, which cannot be applied to the world population. The Institute tries to cut corners with illegal activities like contraceptives in synthetic foods and subversion of hostile organizations. Thus, some Humanist accusations are valid. This reads like real history.

The Institute And The Order

The Psychotechnic Institute applies a science for the good of mankind and advises government. The Order of Planetary Engineers applies science for the good of mankind and sells its services, having become independent of government. If we express it like this, then the difference of function between the two organizations can be reduced to the inclusion or exclusion of a single letter, the indefinite article. Notionally, therefore, the Order could have incorporated the Institute?

On the other hand, they apply qualitatively different kinds of "sciences." Engineering a physical environment is a different proposition from engineering a social environment. Moreover, the Institute was founded eighty years earlier than the Corps that became the Order and their histories differed, with the Institute outlawed in 2170 but the Order surviving until some time after 2270.

They are a bit like secular equivalents of churches but not rival churches, orthodox and reformed, more like two attempts to found the church on different bases in the first place. They might also be a bit like Isaac Asimov's First and Second Foundations except that their activities are not coordinated.

The Snows Of Ganymede summarizes the account of the development of a science of society that was given in Anderson's Planet Of No Return. Statistics in the nineteenth century were the first application of scientific method to social processes. The twentieth century contributed:

games theory;
communication theory;
general semantics;
"...the principle of last effort..." (p. 48) - least?;
generalized epistemology.

The Institute, absorbing all similar groups, formulated fundamental equations about human relations with a field dynamics approach, made discoveries about individual psychometrics and brought about economic recovery through:

strengthened world government;
withering of nationalism;
education fitting the needs of the individual and society;
population decline;
conservation;
rational economics;
sane penology;
psychiatry;
critical thinking.

However, progress broke down because of:

Asiatic cultural resistance to technology;
general human resistance to rationality;
mass unemployment;
failure of the field equations to offer any solution.

This passage parallels Anderson's account in Mirkheim of the decline of the Polesotechnic League. The Snows Of Ganymede even also uses the phrase "Technic civilization." (p. 51)

Jovian Society

In Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), the colonists on Ganymede are called Jovians, not Ganymedeans. After over a century of isolation, they speak a dialect variant of archaic English with "y'all" as the second person plural pronoun.

This reminded me of a point that I forgot to make when discussing Perish By The Sword. In that novel, a character who has been faking an accent is advised, first, that "you-all" is a plural and, secondly, that it is usually pronounced more like "y'all." "You-all" is indeed a plural but, in terms of usage, I think that I have heard it used to address a single person and with the first syllable fully pronounced!

Jovian society has four classes:

Cincs are the rulers - Cincs of first and second grade are ex officio Archangels;

Angels are priests, artists, engineers, poets, scientists and philosophers;

Hounds are tall, genetically identical security men;

Sergeants are commoners, "...part of the machinery..." (p. 35), capable only of unskilled manual labor, for which they are cheaper than automation or robotics, with no individuality, conditioned and continually propagandized - Porters are silent and have four arms;

children, taken early from creches, are psych-tested and, if picked for Angel or Cinc, "...never told who their parents were" (ibid.);

each Cinc above novice level maintains as many guards as he can support to protect him not from the easily controlled Sergeants but from other Cincs because:

"'God gives victory to the righteous, but we men can't know who that is. Many're called but few're chosen.'" (p. 36)

Well, that is one way to find out which ones God favors!

The novel gives a practical example of psychotechnic manipulation. When the White American opponents of the American government began to fund the colony on Ganymede, the government surreptitiously subsidized the colony because:

"'The Psychotechs foresaw that the attempt would exhaust and break up the organization on Earth.'" (p. 16)

Thus, the science of social prediction was used not necessarily for the common good but for sectional interests. Consequently, the Psychotechnicians were later overthrown by the Humanists.

Future Historical Writing

In The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), Poul Anderson writes a narrative that is not only fascinating in itself but also is set within an already established fictitious history. The viewpoint character's superior remarks:

"'The Mars and Venus projects were already well under way when the old corps was founded.'" (pp. 26-27)

The Chronology in another volume confirms this. Colonization of Mars and Venus began in the 1970's whereas the Planetary Engineering Corps was not founded until 2055 and did not go independent as the Order of Planetary Engineers until 2080. An earlier story was set on Venus.

When exogenesis from a single cell is mentioned, another character elucidates:

"'It was used a good two hundred years ago by the old U.N. Inspectorate to create a corps of gifted secret service men...Identical heredity, identical training - the psychological effects are curious, for you get a completely devoted band of brothers.'" (p. 28)

Indeed. These "UN-men" - one in many and many in one - had their own story earlier in the History.

We learn considerably more about planetary colonization projects -

Venus
Chemical treatment removed poisons from the atmosphere;
special bacteria strains released oxygen from its compounds;
hydrogen explosions brought water to the surface;
deserts are being reclaimed;
plants were developed for the new conditions;
animal cells from Earth were grown by exogenesis;
Hilsch tubes and wind power were used for energy.

Mars
Oxygen obtained by bacterial process;
water by drilling;
also, ice from Saturn's rings redirected to fall on Mars;
large scale electrolysis;
atomic energy;
the physics of low potential;
hopefully, solar energy to be beamed from Mercury;
genetically engineered plants, animals and human strains;
need to replenish air that leaks into space.

Mercury and the Moon
No attempt to create an atmosphere;
solar power used directly or stored;
efficient airlocks;
large underground installations.

Uranus
No attempt at colonization;
no energy sources or useful minerals;
too far for energy beamed from Mercury.

Ganymede
Buildings of ice, a good moldable insulator;
most of the city underground;
but, for terraforming, are there ore deposits for structural metal, enough water, compounds, usable oxygen, internal heat?;
maybe sink shafts and start hydrogen-lithium fires to warm the globe, using some of the energy for out-door lighting?;
how to remove the methane and ammonia?;
molar potential barriers to eliminate airlocks;
improved efficiency in food synthesis reactions. 

Future Historical Events

Any installment of a future history series might refer to two kinds of historical event:

those that are mentioned only in this single work;

those that form the common background of the series, binding it into a single fictitious history.

Despite their pioneering work in interplanetary colonization, the Pilgrims and the White American Church are mentioned only in The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958) - please correct me if I am wrong (Wrong: see combox) - whereas other passages in this work refer directly or indirectly to major events in the Polesotechnic History.

With the help of the Chronology in Starship, we can list these events more precisely:

1958 World War III
1965 First Conference of Rio makes UN world government
1975 Psychotecnic Institute founded
         Mars and Venus colonized
2009 Second Industrial Revolution causes mass technological unemployment
2035 Second Conference of Rio begins move towards Solar Union
         White Americans begin Ganymede colonization
         Venus clans break from UN
2045 City of X founded on Ganymede
2055 Planetary Engineering Corps founded
2080 Corps becomes independent Order
2100 Ganymede isolated from inner Solar System
2105 Solar Union founded
2125 Humanist Manifesto published
2170 Humanist Revolution
         Psychotechnic Institute banned
2180 Humanists overthrown
2220 Order now wealthiest, most influential private organization in the System
         White Americans ask Order to terraform Ganymede and Callisto

I have not listed events in this pre-FTL period that do not impact on The Snows Of Ganymede. However, these are:

2126 First STL ship launched
2130 Cosmic religion begins
2200 Limited physical immortality developed in secret
2205 Psychodynamic social engineering in an STL ship

The historian de la Garde is short-sighted enough to think that nothing beyond the Asteroid Belt will ever be economically important because:

too few resources;
too difficult to colonize;
energy needed for mere survival.

Therefore, he thinks that the main line of history will remain in the inner System, despite the colonization of Ganymede and the launch of STL interstellar ships.

De la Garde made no allowance for further technological advances. Despite the Second Dark Ages beginning about 2300:

the hyperdrive is invented in 2784;
Nomad culture begins in 2815;
the Stellar Union and Coordination Service are founded in 2900;
the Third Dark Ages do not begin until 3200;
there are interstellar Empires, then a multi-species galactic civilization with extraordinary personal control of cosmic energies, after that.

Excelsior!

The Snows Of Ganymede II

In Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), we soon learn why Yamagata, who is introduced on the first page of the text, page 5, had not been listed in the Cast of Characters on p. 2. On p. 7, he commits suicide so that Davenant and Kruse can share his air. Before removing his helmet on Ganymede in about 2220, he remarks:

"'They'll stick my name in Hero's Hall or some such foolishness...'" (p.7)

In his world, that is a more lasting testimonial than a mention on page 2 of an Ace Double published in 1958.

I already knew of the Order of Planetary Engineers from reading other works in this series, mainly "Brake," set c. 2270, but Ganymede gives us the full lowdown on this outfit, which is like the Order of Communicators in "The Communicators." Imagine something like the idea of a medieval religious order but applied to scientific practice instead of to spiritual practice. The apolitical, supranational Order serves mankind. What its members forgo in high salaries, they gain in training, prestige, comradeship and sense of mission. Their Archimedes Academy is a Lunar fortress, nicknamed "the Abbey." (p. 9)

Pages14-16 present just under two pages worth of solid Andersonian future historical writing from "...the lunatic years of the latter twentieth century..." (p. 14) to 2100 AD, as recounted in de la Garde's Short History of Interplanetary Colonization (p. 16). After World War III, both the White American Church and the Pilgrims reacted against "...the spreading of scientific method in human relations..." (p. 14) (The appliance of science to society was championed by HG Wells but opposed by CS Lewis. See articles on my Science Fiction blog. Thus, Anderson contributes to an important battle of ideas.) (2100 AD was a significant year in Robert Heinlein's Future History on which this first of Anderson's several future histories was directly based.)

The Pilgrims tried to reestablish an imagined norm and made an exodus to Mars whereas the White Americans tried to anticipate an imaginary millennium and made an exodus to Ganymede. In Anderson's Planet Of No Return, Dissenters made an exodus to Mars but to escape from a New Christian theocracy, not from scientific society, so these two fictitious histories are parallel but not identical.

The Snows Of Ganymede

I have just received by post an ACE Double Novel Book, "TWO COMPLETE NOVELS," (New York, 1958) The Snows Of Ganymede and War Of The Wing-Men, both by Poul Anderson. (Ace Doubles could be by different authors.)

Wing-Men, "Complete & Unabridged," is pp. 5-160 on one side of the volume whereas Ganymede, "Complete Novel," upside down on the other side, is pp. 5-96. My rule of thumb for novel length is 100+ pages so I don't count Ganymede.

Everything shorter than a novel I count loosely as a "short story." I recognize that there is in fact an intermediate length but do not understand the terms "novelette" and "novella": long short story and short novel? (I might even have these the wrong way round.) These more precise length delineations make sense to publishers, editors and authors but maybe not to readers.

For both "novels", pp. 1-4 are blurb, Cast of Characters (incomplete), title page and publishing details. The Ganymede Cast of Characters lists:

Hall Davenant
Lyell
Thorval Kruse
Angel-Three Garson
Cinc-Four Halleck
Roberts-John

in each case followed by a cryptic comment but does not include Yamagata, who speaks on p. 5.


The opening sentence:

"Three dead men walked across the face of hell." (p.5)

- if taken literally, would introduce a fantasy but we learn almost immediately that they are on Ganymede with Jupiter on the horizon and the local equivalent of snow falling. They are "dead" in the sense that they will be when their air runs out: prolepsis = referring to a future event in the past tense as if it were already accomplished or completed.