Vocabulary And Violence

"She...deployed her diriscope..." (The Man-Kzin Wars, p. 154)

I could not find "diriscope" by googling.

"...the fulvous crescent." (p. 163)

This is a color.

"...in the course of gigayears..." (ibid.)

Of course a gigayear is a long time but how long?

"...they'd banked gametes..." (p. 166)

Again, we know the general meaning but I did not know most of those details in the Wiki article.

"...buckminsterfullerene." (p. 168)

"'...a small astrobleme...'" (ibid.)

"...the metal-poor rock is friable..." (ibid.)

"Sixty carbons around one lanthanum..." (ibid.)

Meanwhile, the violence is excellent. When kzinti land to take prisoners, their boat is toppled by explosives and each kzin is shot. Next, Dorcas hijacks the tug, empties it of its contents, then uses it to haul those former contents onto a collision course with the kzinti warship. Last, the tug itself is launched at the kzinti base. Anderson's characters get the job done with minimum effort.

Organized Crime

The Polesotechnic League protects Merseia from the effects of a nearby supernova. Merseia is not yet politically united so the League deals with the Merseians' only international organization, the Gethfennu, organized crime. Thus, humanity earns the enduring enmity of the Merseian aristocratic party.

Flandry enriches a vice boss on Irumclaw but only so that the vice boss will then pressurize the Empire to continue defending that Imperial frontier - against the Merseians.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Children's Hour," the Yakuza, Japanese organized crime, still operate in the Solar System and have also moved to the Alpha Centaurian colony where they will help UN agents against the kzinti occupation without charge. Kzinti estates are squeezing out human society. Yakuza can try to deal with either but are safer with the latter.

I think that the Mafia is a survival of feudal social relationships (tradition, protection, violence, personal loyalty, religious observance) into capitalist society. A survival and an adaptation: organized criminals want either to transfer into legitimate businesses or to continue to prey on legitimate society. Either way, they need to protect that society against any invader (Nazi, Draka, kzin) that would really try to change the rules of the game.

Teleportation/Transportation/Transference

While we are paralleling future histories, we should include Star Trek. Merseians, kzinti and Klingons are obvious parallels. However, Star Trek has transporters and Known Space has transfer booths whereas the Technic History does not have teleportation.

An alien interstellar empire does have teleportation in Poul Anderson's "Interloper." However, the human societies in his Technic History do not develop such a mode of travel. But this makes the Technic History more plausible. How could a physical object or a human being be transported from one place to another without traversing the intervening space? Is it destroyed at the first place and reconstructed at the second? In that case, it is not transported - and could surely be duplicated at several places?

A civilization with sufficient knowledge and energy to practice teleportation would surely be capable of feats for beyond those that are otherwise displayed in either Star Trek or the Known Space History? In Clifford Simak's City, men in a dome on Jupiter can transform one of their number into an organism that can survive on the Jovian surface, then return him to human form. With that much knowledge and power, why do they huddle (Simak's own word) in a dome?

I think that Anderson's limited use of teleportation as an sf prop is a sign of his carefulness as an sf writer.

Species With A Subordinate Sex

Merseian females are subordinate and confined to domestic roles, several wives to one male. Kzinti females are not intelligent, each successful male owning a harem! And -

"...the Sterile Ones...non-bearing females were kept as a rare privilege for Heroes whose accomplishments were not quite deserving of a mate of their own."
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, "The Children's Hour" IN Larry Niven, Ed., Man-Kzin Wars II (London, 1991), p. 206.

Kzinti are like Merseians but more so. They not only enslave other rational species but also eat them.

Niven's Pierson's Puppeteers have three sexes of which one is not intelligent and is really of a different species.

Merseian and kzinti females sound like how some male human beings think of women. A kzinti visitor to the inhabited Map of Kzin on the Ringworld is interested to find females who are intelligent.

A Multiversal Wavefront

Poul Anderson refers to Old Wilwidh on Merseia. Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling refer to Old Kzin. We think of Old England. Evocative language. The use of this adjective with a capital initial conveys that its hearers or readers are aware of history, time and change.

One pocket universe comprises the Old Phoenix. Another might be a control room where an observer monitoring screens and instruments detects a multiversal wavefront with details manifesting alternately as Martians, Merseians, Moties, kzinti etc. Multi-dimensional patterns emerge. A Solar Commonwealth morphs into a CoDominium, each succeeded by a different First Empire:

"'Those two worlds - and many more, for all I know - are in some way the same. The same fight was being waged, here the Nazis and there the Middle World, but in both places, Chaos against Law, something old and wild and blind at war with man and the works of man. In both worlds it was the time of need for Denmark and France. So Ogier came forth in both of them, as he must.'"
-Poul Anderson, Three Hearts And Three Lions (London, 1977), p. 155.

The observer in my hypothetical control room must dispatch agents to crucial moments where they intervene to prevent inter-cosmic chaos. Although the observer knows of a single timeline protected by a Time Patrol, he oversees multiple timelines.

"'Once the crisis was past in both worlds, the job done...well, equilibrium had been re-established. There was no unbalanced force to send me across space-time. So I stayed.'" (ibid.)

Our history does not record Ogier opposing the Nazis - or the Merseians, kzinti etc - but what might occur without our knowledge?

Parallel Histories

Future histories were not written to be read in parallel but can be. Larry Niven's kzinti are, under different aspects, comparable to:

Wells' Martians;

Anderson's Merseians, Ythrians and Imperial Terrans;

Stirling's Draka.

Slavery in different forms is common to these six cultures. Kzinti and Ythrians are intelligent carnivorous hunters, motivated by blood odors in their warships. Kzinti enslave human beings and eat some whereas the Martians would have enslaved human beings and drained the blood from some. Kzinti and Draka plan to spend generations taming enslaved populations. Merseians and kzinti are aggressive interstellar imperialists.

We can imagine a narrative in which these timelines are discussed in the Old Phoenix and another in which characters in a quantum ship jump between timelines trying to influence the outcomes of space battles described in the various future histories.

A Bar With Food

A Bar With Food

Harold's Terran Bar. A World On Its Own. humans only -

- is in Munchen on the human colony planet of Wunderland in the Alpha Centauri System during the kzinti occupation of that system. It is a known underworld hangout with strictly human service. Human labor, displaced from kzinti estates, is cheap.

Food served includes dark green, many-eyed, translucent-shelled, grilled grumblies. You break off the head with your fingers and dip it in sauce.

We have documented hostelries and meals and might hear more from Harald's.

Hands Or Tails

The Technic History And Potential Histories
Aliens In Anderson And Niven
Faces

We discussed alien bodily forms in the above articles but may not have mentioned tails:

Merseians
Shalmuans
Wodenites
Cynthians
Susaians
Gargantuans
kzinti -

- and no doubt many other intelligent species are tailed so why aren't Terrans? A tail can be used as an extra limb. Karl the Gargantuan points with his. Merseians sit on theirs and touch them for greeting. Susaians cling with their tails in free fall:

"'...tell them to link hands or tails or whatever...'" (FLAG, p. 153)

In Kilgore Trout/Philip Jose Farmer's Venus On The Half-Shell, when a man visits a planet of tailed humanoids, they assume that he will want one surgically implanted. So why did Terrestrial human beings evolutionarily lose their tails?