Retrocontinuity

The author(s) of an established future history can inform us about earlier periods of the history in two ways:

(i) installments written later can be set earlier - prequels;

(ii) installments written later can be set later but can divulge for the first time information about earlier periods.

(i) Robert Heinlein described DD Harriman's death before he recounted how Harriman "sold the Moon."

Poul Anderson described Dominic Flandry's career before writing the Young Flandry Trilogy and also described interstellar exploration before interplanetary exploration.

(ii) Heinlein reveals that the Howard Families have existed throughout his Future History, that some Howards were involved in the revolutionary Cabal and that Andy Libby is a Howard.

The Last Flandry novel reveals the existence of the Dakotian and Zacharian communities and also recapitulates some earlier events from a different perspective.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Asteroid Queen," two characters encountered earlier, a United Nations Space Navy general and an oyabun in the Alpha Centauri System, turn out to be members of a Grail Brotherhood that has suppressed knowledge of the Slavers for three centuries. How plausible is this? (Some people think that this is how society is run.) If "The Asteroid Queen" is a canonical part of Larry Niven's Known Space future history, then this Brotherhood exists in the background of every other installment even though not explicitly referenced.

Three Master Races

Shwylt Shipsbane remarks, "'I suspect you actually like [Terrans].'" Brechdan Ironrede replies, "'Why, that's no secret...They were magnificent once. They could be again. I would love to see them our willing subjects...Unlikely, of course. They're not that kind of species. We might be forced to exterminate.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 92.

Forced, indeed! You might be forced to reconsider, Brechdan.

Djana (human) is horrified when she overhears Ydwyr (Merseian) discussing her as if she were an animal:

"'A reconditioning. It improved her both physically and mentally.'" (p. 351)

Under Ydwyr's tutelage, she had begun to see him as her father and to imagine a Merseian Christ or even that the Merseians did not need redemption... A reconditioning.

Chuut-Riit (kzin) thinks:

"With a fully-domesticated human species at their disposal, his son's son's sons could even aspire to...no, unthinkable"
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Children's Hour" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars II (New York, 1991), pp. 133-306 AT p. 155.

I would have preferred if Chuut-Riit had completed that sentence, though. Finally, he sounds exactly like one of Stirling's Draka looking forward to the subordination of the rest of the human race.

Lessons Learned

In his introductory novel, Ensign Flandry, Dominic Flandry has a mentor, Max Abrams. Flandry learns that human beings have a duty to act, that sometimes they do their best, a few times they succeed, and they dare not ask for more. Duties include resistance to aggression. On this basis, Flandry begins his career in Intelligence. He will succeed more than a few times.

In his introductory novel, Casino Royale, James Bond has no mentor and has already been working in Intelligence since before the War. Nevertheless, he now learns the lesson that will propel him through eleven more novels and two short story collections:

"He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy."
-Ian Fleming, Casino Royale (London, 1965), p. 189.

In an invented history, the Merseian threat can remain in place from Flandry's youth to his old age whereas Fleming, keeping each novel contemporary, had to acknowledge some real world changes. Thus, the focus shifted:

SMERSH under Beria (a historical figure);
SMERSH under G (a fictitious character);
SMERSH members joining Blofeld's SPECTRE after Krushchev has disbanded their organization.

Nevertheless, in his twelfth novel, Fleming, confessedly writing the same book over again, has reverted to the KGB under Semichastny (a historical figure). Flandry's equivalents of Beria etc are Brechdan Ironrede and Tachwyr the Dark. But Anderson also shows us Flandry aging and, beyond that, the rise and fall of civilizations, thus transcending Fleming's exclusive focus on the active career of a single individual whose earlier biography had to be revised to prevent him from reaching retirement during the series.

Going Hyper

When fictional characters travel in a jet plane, the technical parameters of their journey are laid down by factors external to the fictional text whereas, when an sf writer invokes "hyperspace," he can say what he wants. Thus:

in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, travelers take time to cross interstellar distances faster than light and cannot communicate by hyperspatial pulses across more than a light year;

in Anderson's For Love And Glory (New York, 2003), travelers take no time to jump across even greater distances and can communicate between planetary systems by hyperbeam;

Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven and others have their different versions of hyperspace - indeed, Niven rightly raises further questions about his version later in the Ringworld series.

In FLAG, a spaceship melodiously says:

"Stand by for hyperjump,'" (p. 88)

- and, in Ensign Flandry, a ship's captain announces:

"'Stand by for hyperdrive. Stand by for combat. Glory to the Emperor.'" (Young Flandry, p. 172)

But they are talking about different kinds of hyperspace.

The Pathetic Fallacy In Under The Yoke

"...the gardens shone with the cruelly indifferent beauty of nature.
"No, the nun thought. The pathetic fallacy. Nature is merely indifferent, it is the heart of fallen man that is cruel."
-SM Stirling, Under The Yoke (New York, 1989), p. 268.

I have often remarked on the pathetic fallacy in Poul Anderson's works so it is appropriate to find an explicit comment on it in this work by SM Stirling. But there seem to be two meanings of "pathetic fallacy." The nun means the mistake of attributing human feelings to nature whereas I mean the literary device of evoking human feelings by describing parallel natural phenomena: the sun shines when someone is happy etc.

The nun is all too aware of cruelty among her Draka owners. Stirling continues to surprise us by imagining just how depraved a human society might become:

"When the time comes to geld the Yankees an' hitch them to the plough, we'll cut off their balls with a knife they competed to sell us; an' while we rape their virgin cheerleader daughters, they'll still be whimperin' about contracts."

Minutes of the Supreme State Council
Archon Edwina Palme Presiding
Archona, Executive Building
July 10, 1947
MOST SECRET: LEVEL XIX PERSONNEL ONLY (p.311)

They would have to keep such minutes secret. But could any State Council express itself in such terms? Yes, the Nazis were able to plan technological genocide.

In this second Draka volume, Stirling makes more of an effort to convey Draka speech patterns and accents. A master to a serf:

"'...work bettah, and we'll all be happier.'" (p. 291)

This has the pleasing effect of distancing the self-styled "...brothers and sisters of the Dragon breed..." (p. 304) from the reader to a greater extent. In fact, they want to differentiate themselves from humanity:

"'...we never fo'get yo're human...It'd be mo' accurate to say we don't consider ourselves human in the usual sense; we're higher up the food chain. In terms of culture, if not biology, though the eugenics people are workin' on that...yo' farm the earth an' we farm yo'. Domesticated humans are much mo' profitable an' rewardin' than plants and animals...'" (p. 272)

And here is a suitable comparison with a non-human race:

"'Don' you worry though, little ones. Momma an' poppa are goin' give yo' the whole world fo' a toy.'" (p. 260)

On Merseia:

"The small being who lay on the furs wrapped a fist around the gnarled finger that stroked him. Brechdan Ironrede melted within himself. 'You will have stars for toys,' he crooned. 'Wudda, wudda, wudda.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 28.

The Twilight Of The Terran Empire

Did Hank Davis, Compiler of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, write the blurbs? This one is quite good:

"It is the twilight of the Terran Empire. The warriors who made it great are long gone now, and the traders of the Polesotechnic League who made it possible are the dimly-remembered stuff of legend. Alien enemies prowl its outer precincts, and Sector Governors conspire for the Throne of Man. On Terra herself, those who occupy the labyrinthine corridors of power busy themselves with trivialities and internal politics, as outside the final darkness gathers."
-Young Flandry (New York, 2010), back cover.

The blurb deploys evocative terms and phrases: twilight; Empire; warriors; legend; enemies prowling; Throne; not only "corridors of power" but "labyrinthine" ones; the final darkness gathering.

The warriors that made the Empire great include the Founder who, in the previous volume, led a slave revolt, seized a slaver ship and attacked the slavers' planet. How did the League make the Empire possible? It "...spread a truly universal civilization..." (The Van Rijn Method, p. 146), which the Empire took over when the previous system of government had broken down.

Alien enemies include not only a rival imperialism but also barbarians armed with spaceships and nuclear weapons by unscrupulous traders - the other side of the League. The corridors of power include the city-sized Admiralty Center where Flandry receives his orders in the third Young Flandry novel.

The second paragraph of this blurb describes Flandry as "...blazing a trail across the galaxy..." whereas, of course, in this era, known space comprises only one outer part of a single spiral arm. Anderson's text is more considered and restrained than an extravagant blurb.

The Marines

"Everybody knows the Empire was won and is maintained by naked power, the central government is corrupt and the frontier is brutal and the last organization with high morale, the Navy, lives for war and oppression and anti-intellectualism."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 6.

I wouldn't have said it was that bad. The Terran Imperial Navy includes Max Abrams, Ilya Kheraskov, Dominic Flandry and presumably some others like them.

But let's see some marines in action. It is their invariable rule to obliterate when one of their own is shot dead in an ambush. This happens while they are brutally annexing Brae. Buildings have been smashed, anti-Imperialists are being exiled and a collaborationist government is being installed. When a single marine is fatally wounded by a shot from a house:

another squad member instantly flips a tracer dart from his belt;
the dart follows a trace of ions to the front of the house;
a rover bomb is launched from a shoulder-borne rack;
the front wall of the house is destroyed;
the squad attacks with debris striking their helmets;
Flandry's marine escort, joining him around the dying man, look wistfully towards the sound of blasters and bombs.

So, yes, they do sound like guys who live for war, oppression and maybe also anti-intellectualism.

When someone in a crowd throws a missile at the police, it is the police's job to identify their assailant and to make their way through the crowd to arrest him, not to attack the crowd. We might say the same to these marines: attack your attacker; do not destroy an entire building with anyone else in or near it.

To Be Previous

(Poul Anderson fans, please bear with me. This post is about Neil Gaiman, Paul Shackley and Dominic Flandry in that order - although why I belong in a list that starts with a successful writer and ends with a fictitious character remains to be demonstrated.)

Neil Gaiman...
...when first applying to work as a journalist, untruthfully claimed already to have worked for several well known magazines. He reasoned, first, that his prospective employer was unlikely to check and, secondly, that he would prove himself, or not, during his first few months of work. In fact, he then did work for all the named magazines within twelve months so was he lying or merely anticipating?

Me
When I was preparing to work as Master in Charge of Religious Education at Bentham Grammar School, my predecessor, a Church of England vicar, said that he had ordered a set of Good News Bibles for First Year classes, adding "...with which, of course, you're familiar?" What could I possibly reply but "Yes"? I was committing myself to become familiar with the Good News Bible as soon as possible. Twelve months later, having been made redundant from the school, I started to train as an RE Teacher. (Sometimes, England is Looking Glass Land.) A fellow student had heard that, although the Good News was not a good translation, it was good to use if you just wanted the story. After a year of working with that text, I knowledgeably responded, "Yes, the Good News is very readable." I had fulfilled the commitment that I had made to that vicar.

Dominic Flandry...
...says, "'I've been too busy working with Commander Abrams.' In point of fact he had done the detail chores of data correlation on a considerably lower level."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 44.

Because the nineteen year old Ensign Flandry has brought new data, well organized, and a live prisoner, he has been temporarily assigned to Commander Abrams' Intelligence section and he describes this temporary assignment as "'...working with Commander Abrams...'" when talking to the beautiful Persis d'Io. But he very soon is busy working with Commander Abrams, first as his aide on a trip to Merseia, then on a crucial and dangerous Intelligence mission. Flandry, confident, competent and creative, both makes claims and delivers the goods.

An Alien Point Of View

See Merseia.

In Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry, Lord Hauksberg, Max Abrams, Brechdan Ironrede and the title character have all been viewpoint characters. Surprisingly, when all four meet, the pov is that of Brechdan, the Merseian.

In Ardaig, the original capital, Merseia's eternal city, the Terran Embassy is on Qgoth Heights, where it had originally been a mere legation outside the limits of the since-grown city. Now, Lord Oliveira of Ganymede, Imperial Ambassador to his Supremacy the Roidhun, speaking Eriau, introduces his Majesty's envoy, Lord Markus Hauksberg, Viscount of Ny Kalmar. Brechdan notices:

lanquid manner but good physical condition;
eyes watching closely;
good grasp of Eriau.

Next to be presented is Commander Max Abrams who intones:

"'The Hand of the Vach Ynvory is my shield.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 94.

To Abrams, the Hand is precisely the opposite of a shield but he knows the right thing to say! Brechdan notices:

dense accent but fluent Eriau;
both words and gestures exactly correct;
a dignified greeting from one near in rank to his master who is your equal (how status-conscious can these Merseians be?);
"Handle with care." (ibid.)

Abrams' aide, Flandry, is alert but young and junior. The ones to watch are Hauksberg and Abrams...

Brechdan hopes that he will not have to visit Starkad because it is easier to use a planet if you have not seen its people... So even the Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council can have qualms of conscience. The Merseians are not a moral lost cause but we know this from Dennitza. Also, Dwyr is conscious of enslaving another race.

Oliveira, courteous to Merseian custom, has excluded females from the reception which means that Hauksberg's concubine, Persis d'Io, having traveled from Terra via Starkad, cannot be present. The Empire is indeed preferable to the Roidhunate.

Irumclaw

In Ensign Flandry, there are Irumclagians and, at the beginning of the following volume, A Circus Of Hells, Flandry is on Irumclaw.

Any sf writer can tell us that an interstellar empire is declining and withdrawing from its periphery but Poul Anderson is also able to present imperial decline in social terms with a hint of the pathetic fallacy to back it up.

First, the pathetic fallacy - Flandry leaves the naval compound:

"Soon after the red-orange sun had set..."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 203.

Anderson gets his readers to imagine sunset colors - not only has the sun just set but it was red-colored to begin with - immediately before he discusses declining empire. I have used the accompanying color illustration, although we have had it recently, because of its appropriate background coloring.

Next, as Flandry walks between the homes and private parks of the wealthy, he reflects that "...they epitomized man's trajectory." (p. 204) When the settlement had been large, prosperous and well inside the Imperial boundaries, it had attracted both mercantile commerce and aristocratic culture but now the mansions are either empty or owned only by those who prey on the declining numbers of spacemen and Navy personnel while, outside the treaty port boundaries, the natives revert to barbarism.

"Tonight Irumclaw lay like a piece of wreckage at the edge of the receding tide of empire." (ibid.)

It is appropriate that Flandry's somber reflections occur just after nightfall. They prefigure the Long Night of Empire that haunts Flandry's life.

Battle On Golden Bay

See here.

In Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry, Flandry is in the principal Kursovikian seaport, Ujanka, on Golden Bay, when a small Merseian submarine surfaces and starts to shell the town with incendiary chemicals. Taken by surprise, the Sisterhood centrum has to be reminded by radio to ring Quarters so that crews will take their ships out on the bay. Even despite the Merseian sub, they will be safer scattered than docked.

Lieutenant Kaiser in the Navy Engineers' dome above the bay informs Flandry that, because the greenskin airfleet is hovering directly above, Terran fliers are scrambled to cover Highport, nowhere else, while Admiral Enriques tries to contact the Merseian Fodaich. Transports able to spray firefighting chemicals will arrive in half an hour if they are not shot down by the gatortails. Meanwhile, fish-drawn Siravo catapult boats approach Ujanka.

Flandry and armed Tigeries crowd into his flier, depart and return with the sun behind them. He lands on the sub where there are three helmeted Merseians at either gun and three or four with blasters and machine pistols in the opened conning tower. The Tigeries disembark firing at the Merseians in the conning tower who return fire while other Merseians run from behind the tower. Flandry, flying above the tower, turns sideways and fires down, clearing the tower of Merseians. His flier, hit, crashes onto the tower, blocking its hatch. Tigeries have taken the forward gun and used it against the Merseians below Flandry but reinforcements approach from the after hatch. Flandry uses his blaster set on wide beam until there is silence. While the Tigeries go astern to shoot anyone who emerges, Flandry calls the Navy to come and get them.

Abrams had advance notice of the attack but could not compromise his source and goes down on his knees before God when Flandry saves Ujanka.

History And Fiction

When Ensign Flandry, the hero, is a guest at a party hosted by Lord Hauksberg, the latter's concubine, Persis d'Io, wants to hear Flandry's account of his adventures among the Tigeries.

"He made the tale somewhat better than true: sufficient to drive Abrams into a coughing fit."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 44.

Abrams is Chief of Intelligence on Starkad. Flandry adds that he has been:

"'...busy working with Commander Abrams.' In point of fact he had done the detail chores of data correlation on a considerably lower level." (ibid.)

So the Adventures of Dominic Flandry begin here already with Flandry's exaggerated account to Persis. Having just read what Flandry did for the Tigeries, we do not think that he needed to exaggerate - or was that Flandry's account that we read? Where does fiction end and fiction within the fiction begin?

According to Hloch's Introduction in The Earth Book Of Stormgate, The Man Who Counts is one of several historical novels featuring Nicholas van Rijn, apparently reasonably accurate although of uncertain origin. Van Rijn  lives in folk memory as hero or rogue on many planets. Flandry tells a story of van Rijn when posing as a storyteller on Unan Besar. Our only account of the Founder of the Terran Empire may be historical fiction.

We need to read Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization carefully in order to discern how much of the narrative comes to us from an omniscient narrator and how much from sources internal to the History. The latter could legitimately be contradicted by any later additions to the series.

Battle At Sea

In Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry, a Merseian flying submersible has shot down Ensign Dominic Flandry's flitter. The Ensign has escaped by gravity impeller, losing his blaster while exiting the sinking vehicle but keeping his regulation knife, and has landed on the Archer, a merchant ship of the Sisterhood of Kursoviki. Because the Archer's Terran-provided radio has been damaged and no longer works, the Kursovikian Tigery captain, Dragoika, agrees to return to Kursoviki Island where Flandry will be able to rejoin his fellow vaz-Terran in their base, Highport, on Mount Narpa. Meanwhile, however, for several days, Flandry, unable to breathe sea-level Starkadian air, must wear a helmet, must push unappetizing Starkadian food and vitamin supplements through his chowlock and must conserve the power in his impeller's capacitors to operate the helmet's pump and reduction valve.

The vaz-Siravo attack the Archer. A submarine of leather stretched across wood, pulled by four large fish, surfaces. On its deck, dolphin-like Seatrolls in airsuits with artificial limbs aim a large catapult. Their first missile misses the ship but spreads flames across the water: Greek fire from undersea oil wells. The second hits and most of the crew must fight the fire with a water pump and buckets. Flandry, manning the Terran-provided deck gun, kills the draught fish with a chemical shell. Swimming Seatrolls climb the undersea net used as a warning device. Ten are on board with spears, axes and two machine pistols. The defenders have five Terran rifles, also swords, pikes, crossbows and knives, but most must fight the fire. Flandry fires another shell into the sea to kill any more approaching Seatrolls. Dragoika's fish spear kills one pistoleer and the other takes shelter.

Leaping Tigeries, armed with swords and pikes, fight lumbering Seatrolls, armed with spears and axes. Dragoika drums firefighters away from their weapons back to their firefighting. The armed Tigeries defend the firefighters against the Seatrolls. The Seatroll pistoleer pins down the Tigery riflers. Flandry, flying with his impeller and wielding Dragoika's sword, disarms the pistoleer and calls the Tigery riflers to come out. The remaining Seatrolls, except the pistoleer, are killed and Flandry, still using the impeller, helps to spread a wet sail over the fire. He can now adapt the Siravo powerpacks for his helmet and has taken a prisoner. He is a hero to Tigeries and Terrans and has begun his career as a nemesis of the Merseians.

Merseian Customs

In Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry, when Brechdan Ironrede, Hand of the Vach Ynvory, walks on a terrace of his ancestral castle, Dhangodhan, we see several Merseian customs:

a sentry not only displays his blaster but also slaps his boots with his tail;
 a gardener folds arms and bends;
Brechdan touches his forehead to both clients, as he would not do to slaves;
he salutes the sun, as is his hereditary right (Terrans can do that whenever they want);
his bailiff is an Ynvory so they exchange kin-salutes, right hand to left shoulder;
Brechdan will hear his client folk at his morning audience;
wives (plural) should be thrifty, trustworthy and cultivated;
the gardener goes beyond required ceremonial by kneeling and embracing the approaching Heir's tail;
Hand and Heir set the guard an example by first discussing matters affecting the race (pompous asses, if you ask me);
an Ynvory does not send personnel into danger but stay behind without higher duty.

Plenty of respect but mainly for fellow Merseians and, even then, not as equals. The race divides into kin, females, clients and slaves.

Battle In Space

Ensign Flandry, Chapter Seventeen.

An Imperial squadron:

Star-class (pocket battleship): Sabik, old, obsolete, due to be scrapped, not expected to see action again;

light cruiser: Umbriel, also old etc;

destroyers: Antarctica, New Brazil, Murdoch's Land;

scoutships: Encke, Ikeya-Seki, one energy gun each, quick and maneuverable but too small to count as fighting units - their mission, while protected by the other ships, to verify a rogue planet a few light-days away on a collision course with the star, Saxo.

Merseian forces:

in Saxo orbit: six warships;

guarding the rogue: one ship equal to Sabik, but newer and better armed, and one heavy destroyer.

Balance of Forces:

Thus, five Imperials against eight Merseians.

The course of events:

The Imperial squadron leaves the Saxonian system on gravitics to avoid detection by hyper wakes. After twenty four hours, the New Brazil proceeds at superlight but, in accordance with orders, returns to the squadron when it detects, and is followed by, the two craft at the rogue. The six Merseian ships at Saxo move to join the two pursuing New Brazil. Ships in hyperspace communicate not by electromagnetic radio but by modulating their instantaneous hyper wakes, an effect detectable up to a distance of a light year.

A Merseian Fodaich tells Captain Einarsen that he is entering an interdicted region but Einarsen, not recognizing interdictions in unclaimed space, proceeds under Merseian protest. However, because other Merseian craft are approaching, Einarsen requires the Merseians to withdraw at full speed. When they do not, combat is inevitable.

When the ships approaching from the rogue sheer off:

Sabik and Umbriel accelerate towards the larger ship;

New Brazil, supported by the approaching Murdoch's Land, turns on the smaller ship;

Antarctica continues to escort the scoutships.

Missiles and anti-missiles are launched. Sabik and Umbriel are damaged but destroy their antagonist. The squadron reunites but what had happened with New Brazil and Murdoch's Land? I am getting confused by the battle and am also about to be interrupted here so will continue "Battle In Space" in another post.

The Importance Of Military Intelligence

Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry demonstrates the necessity of accurate, realistic military intelligence.

Lord Hauksberg:

"'[The Merseians]'re rational bein's too, y'know.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 8.

"...rational..." is fatally ambiguous. Of course the Merseians have the ability to reason - they are a linguistic species - but it does not follow from this that they are "rational," in any other sense implied by Hauksberg, wanting to avoid conflict etc. Later, he tells Abrams:

"'If we can discover who the reasonable elements are in their government, we can cooperate with those - most discreetly - to freeze the warhawks out.'" (p. 84)

Hauksberg's first responsibility is to find out what the Merseian government is really like, not to make in advance the anthropomorphic assumption that it divides into reasonable elements and warhawks. Abrams replies that all the Merseians are reasonable but "'...they don't reason on the same basis as us.'" (ibid.)

This is almost certainly true to some extent since they are in fact alien. Hauksberg then calls Abrams unreasonable and paranoid. Real life Abrams-types can be unreasonable and even paranoid but it remains necessary to heed and respond to what they say, not just to dismiss it in advance, especially if they can back it up with any relevant experience or evidence.

On p. 8 (see above), Hauksberg continues, "'S'pose many of 'em're lookin' for some way out...'"

Many? Why suppose this? There are three possibilities: many are looking for a way out; some are; none are.

Speaking to Runei the Wanderer, the greenskin cinc, Hauksberg privately assumes that the latter is honest and wants to wind up the affair before it gets out of hand because the only alternative is to prepare for war. But what are the facts? Maybe Runei is dishonest? Maybe he and his superiors want to escalate the conflict? In which case, to assume the opposite is disastrously irresponsible.

Flandry discovers that the Merseians had carefully engineered the conflict on Starkad so that the Terran fleet would mass in the Saxonian system and would then be destroyed when Saxo was hit by a rogue planet, thus leaving Terra defenseless. Hauksberg convinces himself that the Merseians would have warned the Terrans of the approaching rogue "'[i]f we'd shown a genuine desire to cooperate...'" (p. 188) But not otherwise? Does he think that the Merseians were sincere in their support for the sea people? But, in that case, the Merseains would have started to evacuate Starkadians as soon as they had learned of the rogue. It is difficult to understand how Hauksberg rationalizes this position. The man seems to be incapable of learning anything.

Flandry asks Hauksberg whether he has read any history, listened to any Merseian speeches, read any Merseian books, seen the Terran dead and wounded. Human history is relevant although allowances must be made for differences among aliens. Merseian speeches and books are directly relevant. The wounded and the dead are an emotive argument because they exist on both sides in any conflict and do not in themselves account for the causes of the conflict.

Rank, Class And Species

Rank becomes complicated in an aristocratic society. In the Terran mission on Starkad, Admiral Enriques commands five thousand men, including Commander Max Abrams of Intelligence and Ensign Dominic Flandry. Then Lord Hauksberg arrives on a fact-finding mission from which he will report back to the Emperor. However, Hauksberg first proceeds to Merseia with plenipotentiary authority to negotiate the protocol of an agreement. Abrams accompanies Hauksberg as an expert on Starkad. Flandry accompanies Abrams as his aide. As a nobleman, Hauksberg holds a reserve commission equivalent to captain which was automatically activated when Abrams was posted to him. Thus, Hauksberg is Flandry's senior commanding officer as long as the latter is Abrams' aide.

Flandry flees back to Starkad accused by Hauksberg of capital charges:

high treason;
mutiny;
desertion;
kidnapping;
threat and menace;
assault and battery;
theft;
insubordination;
etc.

On his return to Starkad, Flandry adds:

not surrendering himself;
creating dissension between the Empire and an associated country;
imperiling his Majesty's forces;
resisting arrest.

Enriques ranks Hauksberg formally and in certain procedural matters. However, the latter holds a direct Imperial mandate which empowers him to negotiate temporary agreements with Merseia that become policy determinants. Thus, Enriques is ordered to allow the Merseians to search Imperial ships for Flandry.

The issue is complicated by inter-species interactions. The Terran mission to Starkad is to help the land-dwellers. However, the Tigeries recognize personal, not collective, loyalties. Loyal to Flandry because he had defended them from attack, they protect him from his fellow vaz-Terran. Enriques must come to Flandry in a house surrounded by armed Tigeries. Flandry introduces Vice-Admiral Juan Enriques of the Imperial Terrestrial Navy to Dragoika, captain-director of the Janjevar va-Radovik. Enriques bows as if to the Empress.

When Enriques sends a squadron to check Flandry's allegation against the Merseians, Flandry in good faith travels on the squadron, temporarily re-attached to Enrique's command, the charges against him held in abeyance. Dragoika, not sharing Flandry's good faith, insists on accompanying him on behalf of the Sisterhood. Flandry is appointed liaison officer and told to keep his pet savage out of the way. He pretends that she has astronautical knowledge and should be kept informed, thus gaining for both himself and her communication with the bridge.

Finally, when the Merseian plot has been exposed, everything must be covered up. Therefore, all the charges against Flandry must be dropped.

Diplomacy

Although this cover illustration shows our hero and his Starkadian ally prepared for physical combat, Poul Anderson's characters are also masters of diplomatic language and conflict. To paraphrase -

Hauksberg: If Flandry is caught, treat him like a pirate.

Abrams: He is entitled to a court martial and has diplomatic immunity.

Hauksberg: He and you were accredited by me, not by the government.

Abrams (to Brechdan): Merseia accepted Terran rules of war and diplomacy because they work. You may deport us but any other action, whatever our accreditation, would be ground for breaking off relations or declaring war.

Brechdan: Diplomats have no right to spy.

Abrams: Nor has the government to which they are sent. Dwyr was planted on me as a spy but his sympathies were with Terra.

Brechdan: My compliments on turning him.

Abrams: His Majesty's government will deny that.

Hauksberg: How dare you speak for the Empire?

Abrams: How dare you? Will the Hand agree that my mere prediction is probably correct?

Brechdan: What do you expect of the Empire?

Abrams: If Merseia is reasonable, Terra will probably respond in kind.

Brechdan: "Reasonable" includes dropping charges against you?

Abrams: Yes. Dwyr and Flandry acted without my knowledge.

Brechdan: I would stand by a subordinate.

Abrams: What happens to him is outside our control. Without pomposity, I want to save myself for further service to the Empire.

Hauksberg (with venom): We'll see.

Brechdan: On Merseia, that is not pompous. "'I salute you. Lord Hauksberg will oblige me by considering you innocent.'" -Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 144.

Reading Young Flandry II

Brechdan Ironrede tells Max Abrams:

"'Commander...your young man makes me proud to be a sentient creature. What might our united races not accomplish? Hunt well.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 145.

Merseians, like the Ardazirho or the kzinti, regard themselves primarily as hunters, not as, e.g., builders or thinkers. We can agree with Brechdan's sentiment while not accepting his concept of "united." However, a genuine union of the two species as equals develops on Dennitza.

A Merseian captain about to fire on Flandry's ship tells him and his companion:

"'...prepare your minds for the God.'" (ibid.)

A civilized being realizing that another faces death must treat him with respect. Here, at least, we are equals.

In the Young Flandry trilogy, our hero goes through some fundamental stages of development - rites of passage?:

"Something had changed in his face. He was almost a stranger...she had identified the change in him, the thing which had gone and would never quite come back. Youth." (pp. 151-152)

"'...I'll wish this, that you never get the [woman] you really want.'" (p. 365)

These interactions with two young women define the Flandry of the later series.

Reading Young Flandry

"Foreseer" is indeed a regular form of Merseian address. See Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), pp. 123, 138.

Even in the midst of a dramatic action scene, Anderson pauses to describe natural beauty:

"Korych flamed over the edge of the world. That sunrise was gold and amethyst, beneath a million stars." (p. 137)

No scientific advance has ever been exactly as imagined by sf writers. Armstrong and Aldrin were not Cavor and Bedford. The same will be true of faster than light travel if that is ever to be achieved. Sf writers have made us very familiar with a particular imaginary scenario: spaceships traversing hyperspace or warp space journey between stars many times faster than light but nevertheless may require weeks or months to cross "known space" because of the distances involved, although how long it is supposed to take can be forgotten for the sake of advancing the story.

The stars are visible from the hyperspace in Anderson's Technic History but other versions of hyperspace are featureless voids or, in Larry Niven's Known Space future history, mere absence, not darkness but what you see behind your head.

Dominic Flandry makes at least five long hyperspace journeys, each in the company of a different woman. I am just about to reread the first of these in Ensign Flandry. Please note: one woman each time, not four. These are occasions for conversation and closer acquaintance, opportunities for the author to develop the characters and to have them explain themselves and their mission to each other.

Interstellar travel is a symbol of freedom in American sf but there is a contrast between this freedom and enclosure in a metal vessel. Maybe more imaginative work needs to be done on other means of interstellar travel?