Trade Pioneer Crews II

I detoured from "Lodestar" to trade pioneer crews. We know that Falkayn's is not the only such crew. Chee Lan will join another when Falkayn's disbands. Before that, in "Lodestar" itself, we are told that:

"The crews maintained rendezvous stations."
-Poul Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (New York, 2010), p. 642.

How many trade pioneer crews does Solar Spice & Liquors have and have other companies copied the idea? - assuming they have found out about it.

Coya Conyon writes a letter to Falkayn and gives it to a trustworthy trade pioneer bound for the same volume of space as Muddlin' Through. Either that pioneer will hear of Falkayn's team at a rendezvous station or he will leave the letter there to be collected. The rendezvous stations are described as "...turbulent..." (ibid.) Hundreds of robot probes explore thousands of planets on the hither side of the galactic frontier. A pioneer crew must be ready to hurry to any planet deemed promising by a probe - all the more so if other companies have by now adopted the same practice, although we are not told whether they have.

Events accelerate. We see Falkayn leading his team only twice before he has become:

"'...a target figure. Right-hand man and roving troubletwister for Old Nick.'" (p. 332)

Not just another Master Merchant leading a pioneer crew but right-hand man! And his role will become greater still. Eventually, he will:

found the Supermetals Company;
run SSL while van Rijn, traveling around in Muddlin' Through, does necessary damage limitation work throughout the League;
found a colony that will survive the Solar Commonwealth and defeat a fleet of the Terran Empire.

Today, Saturday, will be a day trip to Liverpool so maybe no blogging.

Trade Pioneer Crews

After Nicholas van Rijn has appeared in five installments of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization and David Falkayn has appeared in two, they finally appear together - although for less than three pages - but only so that van Rijn can explain to Falkayn, and thus also to the reader, why Falkayn, who has been first an apprentice, then a journeyman factor, and is now a Master Merchant, has also become the leader the first "trade pioneer crew." These crews are van Rijn's idea and I wonder whether they remain exclusive to his Solar Spice & Liquors Company?

Which of them initiated this interview, van Rijn or Falkayn? Van Rijn has been watching Falkayn since Ivanhoe. Falkayn says that he would like to open new sources and markets. But van Rijn points out that there is a lot competition on new planets discovered by the Polesotechnic League. However:

while visiting and colonizing interesting planets, space travelers have bypassed millions of others, many not even catalogued;
of these, statistics indicate that thousands are potential sources and markets;
so - choose a sector, establish a base, dispatch hundreds of automated probes and send a pioneer crew to any promising planets;
if the crew confirms that the prospect is promising, then they pave the way for commercial agreements and notify van Rijn;
three crew members of different species, a Master Merchant, a planetologist and a xenobiologist.

I could not have planned it better myself. In fact, I could not have planned it at all!

Meeting An Alien

To reinforce my earlier point about the oddness of doing regular business with non-human intelligences, David Falkayn enters the office of Beljagor, the Polesotechnic League factor on the planet Vanessa, and, for the first time in his life, sees a being from Jaleel. Beljagor is "...somewhat anthropoid" (The Van Rijn Method, p. 274) but:

he is just above a meter in height;
his (visible) feet each have three thick toes;
his hands have three mutually opposed fingers;
his only garment is a kilt;
he has gray scales and a yellow abdomen;
his nose resembles a tapir's snout;
his ears resemble bat wings;
"carroty" (carrot-colored or carrot-like?) cilia grow from his head;
a chemosensor tendril of flesh grows from above each of his small, ultraviolet-detecting eyes.

Despite all this unfamiliar alienness, Falkayn thinks that Beljagor is not so bad when the factor offers him a beer and he responds, "'Thank you, sir.'" (ibid.) They then discuss immediate practical business as straightforwardly as if they were members of a single species. The only distinction that concerns Falkayn is the Beljagor is a Master whereas he himself is a mere journeyman.

Also in the office is a shape that Falkayn does recognize and finds "...not an unpleasing sight..." (p. 268), a Vanessan, Beljagor's liaison officer, a slim, brown-furred, tail-squatting tyrannosaur with a large shimmering dorsal fin (!) who, Falkayn can see, is neither male nor transmitter but female. Personally, I would take one look in that office and run like heck.

Noah Arkwright

Noah Arkwright is a commentator comparable to Le Matelot, although with more humor. Arkwright's points are:

there are so many planets that many are humanly habitable;

there are so many intelligences that many are humanly comprehensible -

- so we can bypass the rest.

Incidentally, none of the many races discovered so far is technologically superior. In fact, mankind was the first into interstellar space in its immediate spatial volume. Ythrians and Merseians get the hyperdrive from us. I have been told that technological superiority is a feature of Babylon 5: human and similar races avoid regions of the galaxy where incomprehensible technology is in regular use?

Arkwright discusses an issue that I still find fascinating: human beings getting used to doing regular business with intelligences whose bodies can be of any size or shape. Could you do it - tell your receptionist to send in a visitor whose physical description was completely unknown to you until he/she/yx appeared in your office doorway?

Arkwright quotes a prospector on Quetzalcoatal describing his partner:

"'...he looks like a cross between a cabbage and a derrick...'" (The Van Rijn Method, p. 265).

He also belches hydrogen sulfide, sleeps in mud and passes time not by playing poker but by discussing philosophy. (Well done. Far too many even of Poul Anderson's aliens have a head with two eyes above a nose above a mouth...)

Arkwright makes some further points:

most races have as many individual and cultural variations as humanity;

hence, there can be some overlap with humanity;

nevertheless, a non-human being can show us only his humanly comprehensible aspects

therefore, he can seem two-dimensional;

Arkwright mentions some stereotypes - Warrior, Philosopher, Merchant etc;

but we can seem flat to him - humanity is a subject of bawdy jokes on many planets.

These observations:

make the Polesotechnic League period seem very real;

also emphasize that it is a period in which much is still being learned. 

More On Ikrananka

"Tidal action has forced one hemisphere of the small, eccentrically orbiting, librating planet Ikrananka to face its red dwarf sun but such slow rotation generates a weak magnetic field so that the planet retains an atmosphere although most of its water has frozen on the cold side making the warm side a slowly deteriorating desert whose inhabitants, struggling for survival in their season-less, rhythm-less environment, regard nature as hostile, believing in demons but not in gods, whereas dwellers on the edge of the Twilight Zone with rain, snow, day, night and constellations, more conventionally believe in an annually dying and rising god and a single devil whose power can be neutralized. The latter are easier to trade with."
-copied from "Unusual Heavenly Bodies" (see here). 

Fr Axor might see evidence for his Universal Incarnation here? 

"Rangakora [in the Twilight Zone] had a perfectly standard polytheistic religion, with gods that wanted sacrifice and flattery but were essentially benevolent. The only major figure of evil was he who had slain Zuriat the Bright, and Zuriat was reborn annually while the other gods kept the bad one at bay."
-Poul Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (New York, 2010), p. 175.

Anderson effortlessly sketches an alien equivalent of familiar Terrestrial myths. The Ikranankans who lack this "...perfectly standard polytheistic religion..." are harder to deal with because their pessimistic belief makes them paranoid, suspicious of each other and certainly of any newcomers. Adzel insists that acceptance of missionaries be included in the trade deal:

"The Katandarans would surely leap at Buddhism, which was infinitely more comfortable than their own demonology. Together with what scientific knowledge trickled down to them, the religion would wean them from their hostility complex. Result: a stable culture with which Nicholas van Rijn could do business." (p. 205)

A result acceptable to Adzel and van Rijn for completely different, indeed opposite, reasons.

Other details: 

Anderson cleverly has the Ikranankans ride not galloping quadrupeds but leaping bipeds;
Falkayn, not yet knowing of the human community on Ikrananka, cannot believe his eyes when he sees a scene from an sf magazine cover - a young woman pursued on zandara-back by a band of lance- and saber-armed beaked natives.

What Is To Be Got From Ikrananka

At least two new intoxicants;
several antibiotics;
potential spices;
spectacular furs;
other goods to be identified;
a civilization to trade with.

Robots brought pictures and samples so the trader team investigates but, of course, must solve problems with the natives first.

On T'Kela, the carnivorous dominant species could not understand charity but could understand profit-making whereas, on Ivanhoe, the idealistic dominant species could not understand mere profit-making and had to be shown that human beings also valued something transcendent. Fortunately, some of the traders celebrate Christmas.

What is the problem on Ikrananka? I am about to reread "The Trouble Twisters" to remind myself.

Spans, Illuminates And Completes...II

The previous post showed that The Earth Book Of Stormgate not only spanned and completed the Polesotechnic League period of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization but also applied the perspective of the post-League novel, The People Of The Wind. Thus, there were:

two League collections, starring van Rijn and Falkayn respectively;

two League novels, each starring both;

one post-League novel, featuring a direct descendant of both;

the concluding League collection, including one more novel and presented from a post-League perspective.

However, the narrative was not yet complete:

one more pre-League story was written later;

two post-League stories preceded The People Of The Wind;

the History of Technic Civilization continued for many volumes after The People Of The Wind.

Fortunately, not only the six volumes and three separate stories already mentioned but also all subsequent volumes have been fully incorporated into Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, seven omnibus volumes collecting the entire History in chronological order for the first time.

The eleven works collected in Vol I, The Van Rijn Method, comprise:

the one newer story;

seven of the twelve works that had been collected in The Earth Book;

two of the three works that had been collected as The Trouble Twiters;

one of the three works that had been collected as Trader To The Stars.

Further, the previously collected stories retain their fictitious introductions from the earlier collections:

seven by Hloch of the Stormgate Choth;

one by Vance Hall commenting on Noah Arkwright;

one by Noah Arkwright;

one by Le Matelot, beginning "'The world's great age begins anew...'"

The perspective expands. The Saga is like a bigger and better Earth Book.

The seven works collected in Vol II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, comprise:

the two remaining works that had been collected in Trader To The Stars;

the one remaining work that had been collected in The Trouble Twisters;

three more from The Earth Book;

the first of the two League novels, Satan's World.

The faithfully reproduced introductions are:

a passage from the first Trader story in Vol I;
Urwain the Wide-Faring's memories of Noah Arkwright;
a passage from Percy Shelley's "Hellas";
three more from Hloch.

(Who is this guy, Noah Arkwright? Don't ask.)

The six works collected in Vol III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, are:

the second League novel, Mirkheim;
the two remaining stories from The Earth Book;

the two post-League stories mentioned earlier;
The People Of The Wind.

The introductions are:

two more - plus one conclusion - by Hloch;

one from the much later perspective of Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society;

one by Ayeghen's contemporary, Michael Karageorge (this time scripted not by Poul Anderson but by Saga compiler, Hank Davis).

Thus, the expanded Earth Book extends from the second story in Vol I to the third story in Vol III and the History continues for another four and a half volumes
after that.

There is in addition a perspective from right outside the fictitious history because introductions by the author, where they exist, are also included. In his introduction to "The Night Face," in Vol VII, Flandry's Legacy, Anderson informs the reader that Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn, Christopher Holm, Dominic Flandry and other characters lived in the past of this story.

The inclusion of Holm may be a surprise. However, Christopher's/Arinnian's role is pivotal because he is a viewpoint character in The People Of The Wind and, fictitiously, one of the authors of The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Noah Arkwright IV

I should have thought of this before. Is Noah Arkwright's name symbolic? Did he want to fund an expedition outside known space because he had intuited or received a warning about what would soon happen to the Solar Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic League?

Look what does happen. In the very next story, the League helps the Merseians to survive radiation from a nearby nova. Terrans will later have reason to regret the existence of Merseia. Two stories later, another race threatens the Commonwealth and the League. Then piracy starts within the League. Then Falkayn's trader team barely escapes from a native uprising against exploitation by a League company. Next, inequalities between planets become so intense that Falkayn breaks his oath of fealty to van Rijn in order to help the poorer species that are being left out by interstellar civilization.

Finally, the Commonwealth is challenged by yet another coming race and the League is split by civil war... Van Rijn and Falkayn know that this is the beginning of the end and start to make other plans for their futures. Is Noah Ark-wright's name a warning of these troubles to come?

Noah Arkwright

(I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness. The future historical and time travel aspects of the story line are handled well.)

Now let's get to grips with Noah Arkwright. The Trouble Twisters by Poul Anderson is, or was, three stories about David Falkayn:

"The Three-Cornered Wheel" introduces Falkayn;

in "A Sun Invisible," Falkayn works for Nicholas van Rijn's organization;

in "The Trouble Twisters," van Rijn appoints Falkayn to lead a trader team which embarks on its first expedition.

That third story is the only occasion when we see the trader team on a routine expedition. In all four of the remaining works that feature the team, they are caught up in some extraordinary situation or emergency. Indeed, in the last work, Mirkheim, the team has long since disbanded but van Rijn reconvenes it to deal with the outbreak of a war.

The stories from The Trouble Twisters are, rightly, separated in the Baen Books Technic Civilzation Saga. Thus, the two stories about Falkayn's earlier career are in Volume I whereas the four works about the team before its disbandment are in Volume II and its reconvening by van Rijn is in Volume III.

What has any of this got to do with anyone called Noah Arkwright? - you may well ask. In The Trouble Twisters, if not also in their original magazine appearances, each of the three stories has a fictitious Introduction and fortunately the Introductions are reproduced in Baen Volumes I and II. Each of the Introductions refers in a different way to one Noah Arkwright.

The first of the Introductions is an excerpt from Vance Hall's Commentary on the Philosophy of Noah Arkwright which, however, does not mention Arkwright! Hall reminds his readers that nuclear fission, lasers, artificial gravity and the hyperjump confounded earlier predictions about the impossibility of nuclear power, ray guns, space drives and faster than light travel but nevertheless asserts that Parkinson's Laws, Sturgeon's Revelation, Murphy's Law and the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics are immutable.

We might infer, first, that Arkwright would have agreed and, secondly, that Murphy's Law at least is exemplified in the story being introduced. Otherwise, the Introduction is irrelevant. In order to learn anything further about Arkwright, however, we must study the remaining Introductions which I will do in a subsequent post.

A Non-Linear Sub-Series

The "Trader Team" sub-series in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization comprises just five works. In the first, "Trader Team"/"The Trouble Twisters," Nicholas van Rijn explains his trade pioneer crew idea to David Falkayn:

robot probes will investigate as yet unexplored planetary systems that have been bypassed by the frontier of known space;
a crew comprising a Master Merchant, a planetologist and a xenobiologist of different species will visit any that seem promising.

In this story, Falkayn leads his team on their first mission and coins a term for their new profession, "trouble twister." (1)

It might be expected that the remaining four works would describe four more missions but they don't. On the one hand, we are to understand that Falkayn's and other teams enrich van Rijn by continuing to pioneer for several decades. On the other hand, the remaining works present different kinds of events that are turning points for the team, for their civilization or for both.

In the second work, "Day Of Burning," the team is not pioneering but is on a rescue mission simply because theirs was the nearest League ship to the planet Merseia when a threat to all life on that planet was detected. Falkayn claims to have seen planets devastated by all-out nuclear strikes. That must have happened between stories and would not have been on a pioneer crew mission. This story is a turning point for Technic civilization because the Merseians later become the main adversaries of the Polesotechnic League's successor, the Terran Empire.

 In the third work, Satan's World, the team is on yet another kind of mission, investigating a data processing company based in the Solar System where, because of exploits that we have not read about, Falkayn is known to be:

"Right-hand man and roving troubletwister for Old Nick." (2)

(Falkayn's coinage has become a single word.)

This novel is a turning point for Technic civilization because it shows that the Polesotechnic League could be vulnerable to external threats which, in turn, is a prelude to recognition of internal threats to the League's continued prosperity and stability. The novel is a potential ending for the series: the team has to be split up and might not survive, as indeed Technic civilization might not. When, at the very end, they have defeated their enemies and are embarking on a new pioneering mission, things have changed. They have passed a turning point. Their share in Satan's World has made them rich for life. They now pioneer because they want to, not because they have to. In that sense, the first phase of their troubletwisting career has ended.

And this sub-series could have ended there. However, Anderson next wrote "Lodestar," based on an idea suggested by his editor John W Campbell, for a John W Campbell Memorial Anthology. The team visits an established League base. Thereafter, the story follows van Rijn and his granddaughter, Coya, who finally discover that Falkayn and his team have secretly worked against van Rijn's business interests in order to help the poorer rational species whose needs are ignored by the League. This is a turning point for the League, for the relationship between van Rijn and Falkayn and, we later learn, for the relationship between Coya and Falkayn who have married and started a family by the time of the fifth and last work in this sub-series, Mirkheim.

Arguably, the sub-series proper ends with "Lodestar." That is the last time we see Falkayn's team during that period of their employment by van Rijn. Mirkheim, set many years later, is a sequel in which, during many other epochal events, van Rijn reassembles the long dispersed original team but for a different kind of mission and in very different circumstances. We learn that Coya had married Falkayn and joined the team for five years but stopped pioneering when they started a family and that that had ended the team, with its members going their separate ways. Thus, there is another entire period, of Coya on the team, which is not covered by any of the stories.

As part of a longer history, the sub-series is also rich in both prequels and sequels that tell us what van Rijn and some of the team members did both before and after this period. But my point here is that Anderson, having defined the role of a trade pioneer crew, does not present merely a linear series about successive exploits of such a team. Taking it as given that they had such exploits, he instead paints a broader picture by spacing his stories out through time to show us what happened to the League throughout an entire historical period.

For what it is worth, I now think that the entire Technic History could best be collected as:

The Polesotechnic League (9 works);
Star Traders (9);
League And Empire (6);
Young Flandry (3);
Flandry And Empire (9);
Children Of Empire (3);
Long Night And Dawn (4).

It is possible to rethink this issue endlessly and to keep arriving at different conclusions. The problems are where to divide the omnibus volumes and what to call them. Van Rijn dominates his period, appearing not only in six works of his own but also in four of the five "Trader Team" works. Thus, the proposed Star Traders volume would, with the exception of "Day Of Burning," be an extended van Rijn series but with a pluralized title, Star Traders, not Star Trader, in order to acknowledge that this volume covers Falkayn and the team as well as Old Nick.

Again, Mirkheim's status as really a sequel to the Trader Team sequence could be acknowledged by placing it at the beginning of the following volume which would therefore be called League And Empire, not Avalon And Empire. Near the end of Mirkheim, Coya bears Nicholas Falkayn who addresses his son in the very next story set in the Falkayns' colony on the planet Avalon and this omnibus volume ends with Avalon resisting the Empire. Thus, League And Empire would be an appropriate title as showing not interaction (they do not coexist) but transition between the Polesotechnic League, beginning its decline in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim, and the Terran Empire, becoming territorially aggressive in The People Of The Wind.

(1) Anderson, Poul, David Falkayn: Star Trader (compiled by Hank Davis), New York, 2010, p. 206.
(2) ibid., p. 332.

Trader Team

I still cannot re-read Anderson's Technic History without rethinking its subdivisions. It seemed obvious that the Trader Team sub-series comprised: "The Trouble Twisters" "Day of Burning" Satan's World "Lodestar" Mirkheim However, I now regard Mirkheim not as part of but as a sequel to the series as I will explain below. The Trader Team has three periods. The first starts with "The Trouble Twisters" and ends with Satan's World. Only one work, "Lodestar," is set in the second period and no works are set in the third period which we are told lasts for five years. After the third period, the team disperses and is temporarily reassembled for a different purpose only once three years later in Mirkheim. In "The Trouble Twisters," Nicholas van Rijn explains his "trade pioneer crew" idea to his protege David Falkayn and Falkayn leads one such crew on its first mission. The reader might expect the remaining installments of the series to recount further missions of this crew but instead we do not see them on such a mission ever again. They are engaged in different kinds of activities in the next two works: a rescue mission in "Day of Burning" and a different kind of investigation in Satan's World. In "Day of Burning," Falkayn states that he has seen planets devastated by nuclear strikes although visits to such planets would not be a usual activity for a pioneer crew. In Satan's World, their entire civilization is threatened. The team has to be split up and might not survive. Thus, this volume is a potential ending to the series. It ends with the team members rich for life but setting out again as a pioneer crew not because they have to but because they want to. That is why I say it ends their first period. In "Lodestar," the crew takes a few days off on a pleasant planet, then Falkayn seeks out and finds a source of wealth which he gives to the poorer races, not to the wealthy van Rijn: an end of innocence for the team. The story features van Rijn's granddaughter, Coya. In the third period, which we do not see, Coya has married Falkayn and joined the team. This period ends when the Falkayns start a family and stop pioneering and the team disperses. In Mirkheim, van Rijn reassembles the original team not to resume pioneering but to address an emergency which is the beginning of the end of the League period. Thus, Mirkheim is a sequel. I now think that omnibus collections of the League period of the Technic History should be: THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE STAR TRADER TRADER TEAM LATTER DAYS IN THE LEAGUE Volume I would comprise seven stories introducing, apart from the League, the Jerusalem Catholic Church, Ythrians, Avalon, Adzel, van Rijn and Falkayn. Volume II is van Rijn. III is the team. IV would be Mirkheim preceded by two other stories set during the League period.