Intergalactic Travel

Earth, which mankind has left behind, was on:

"...the outer fringe where the stars thinned away toward hideous immensity."

-Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson, Star Ship (New York, 1982), pp. 253-281 AT p. 257.

In Anderson's Technic History, the humanly colonized planet Serieve is even further out on the northern edge of another spiral arm with only the galactic halo and ancient globular clusters beyond. We naturally wonder whether anyone has ventured beyond.

In Anderson's World Without Stars, the instantaneous space jump does enable immortal spacemen to visit Yonderfolk in a planetary system between galaxies and also in other galaxies although unfortunately we are not shown the latter.

In Anderson's Tau Zero, a relativistic spaceship accelerates between groups of groups of galaxies but does not make planetfall until after the universe has collapsed and re-expanded.

In Anderson's The Avatar, a technologically advanced race, the Others, influences the monobloc of a newly forming universe.

Again, a towering and comprehensive imagination.

Details And Connections

In a future history series, we can focus on details in a particular story or on the relationships between stories. Thus, "The Saturn Game," about exploration of a Saturnian moon in the twenty first century, is the first instalment in Poul Anderson's Technic History whereas "Starfog," about exploration of a globular cluster on the fringe of another spiral arm of the galaxy several millennia in the future, is the last instalment of the Technic History. These two stories are only indirectly connected:

a character in "The Saturn Game" was brought up as a Jerusalem Catholic;

Dominic Flandry meets a Wodenite Jerusalem Catholic priest in The Game of Empire;

descendants of rebels exiled by Flandry in The Rebel Worlds return in "Starfog";

Flandry was on a planet called Vixen in "Hunters of the Sky Cave";

in "Starfog," Daven Laure is from New Vixen.

Here is a visual detail that should be included in any screen adaptation. Liaw of the Tarns, Wyvan of the High Khruath, participates in a teleconference:

"Liaw sat silent for a space, during which the rest of them heard wind whistle behind him and saw a pair of his grandsons fly past. One bore the naked sword which went from house to house as a summons to war, the other a blast rifle."

-The People of the Wind, V, p. 494.

It would be valid to add a scene to explain the symbolism of the naked sword.

Technic Civilization In Its Galactic Context

"Hiding Place."

"'Our intelligence reports, interrogation of prisoners, evaluation of explorers' observations, and so on, all indicate that three or four different species in this region possess the hyperdrive. The Adderkops themselves aren't certain about all of them. Space is so damned huge.'" (p. 567)

OK. We get it that space is big. But three or four species with hyperdrive? On "'...the very fringe of human civilization...'"? (p. 564) Then how many in the galaxy? Why do they not overlap and interact like the civilization-clusters in Poul Anderson's After Doomsday?

The Aenean rebels exiled by Dominic Flandry flee into another spiral arm. Do they enter another civilization-cluster? Why do exiles or explorers not arrive in known space from further away? Why not some very occasional intergalactic travel?

Intergalactic travel occurs:

in Anderson's Tau Zero, with relativistic acceleration;

in Anderson's World Without Stars, with instantaneous spatial jumps;

in James Blish's Cities In Flight, with spindizzies moving the mass of a planet.

 

It would be a very long journey requiring many stops for refueling and repairs with the quantum hyperdrive but it could be done.

Thin Fringe Of Spiral Arm

The Day Of Their Return.

Ivar writes to Tatiana:

"'We're way out on thin fringe of spiral arm, you remember.'" (18, p. 212)

How could we forget? Here, Ivar contrasts human space with the galactic center where the Elders supposedly originated. Again he uses phraseology that is familiar to us both from several other characters in Poul Anderson's Technic History and also from that History's occasional omniscient narrator. See here.

Only in the concluding forty-third installment of the Technic History have human beings and their diverse civilizations spread through several spiral arms of the galaxy. Even later, apparently, a single civilization operates on a "Galactic" scale and looks back on more than one interstellar Empire.

The Fringe Of A Galaxy

See The Narrator And The Spiral Arm.

I seem to have missed one of these passages. Flandry reflects:

"Because how can we remain forever the masters, even of our insignificant spatter of stars, on the fringe of a galaxy so big we'll never know a decent fraction of it? Probably never more than this sliver of one spiral arm that we've already seen. Why, better than half the suns, just in the micro-bubble of space we claim, have not been visited once!
"Our ancestors explored further than we in these years remember."
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 367-520 AT CHAPTER TWO, p. 381.

Similarly, characters in the later Star Trek series remember the early explorers of the Original Series. Van Rijn's trade pioneer crews focused on those planetary systems that had been passed by rather than on extending the outer frontiers of known space.

Flandry is wrong in one respect. By the time of the Commonalty, long after the Terran Empire, when even Anglic has become a dead language, human civilizations have spread through several spiral arms.

Curdled Silver II

"Sargasso of Lost Starships."

The colonized planet, Ansa, is fifty light years from Sol. The Imperial ship, Ganymede, departs from Ansa in the opposite direction toward:

"...Sagittari, Galactic center and the Black Nebula." (p. 381)

Sagittari = Sagittarius? Presumably the Black Nebula is much closer than galactic center?

Exactly one page of the text (pp. 381-382) is Andersonian description of the cosmos as seen from space followed by the viewpoint charater's reflection on the cosmic insignificance of man. This passage has seven familiar features.

(i) Sol is "...lost in the thronging glory of stars." (p. 381)

(ii) "The Milky Way foamed in curdled sliver around that enormous night, a shining girdle jeweled with the constellations." (ibid.)

This is the second time that we have found the Milky Way described as "curdled silver." See Curdled Silver, which also refers to Sagittarius. In the "Sargasso..." passage, the "curdled silver" is also "a shining girdle" and "jeweled with the constellations": three descriptions.

(iii) In "Sargasso...," after the Milky Way, Anderson next describes other galaxies. These have been mentioned a few times and maybe I should be listing the references to them as well? See here.

"Far and away wheeled the mysterious green and blue-white of the other galaxies, sparks of a guttering fire with a reeling immensity between." (ibid.)

(iv) "Looking toward the bows, one saw the great star-clusters of Sagittari, the thronging host of suns burning and thundering at the heart of the Galaxy." (ibid.)

Humanity migrates in that direction in Anderson's Psychotechnic History. See Sagittarius.

(v) Next, Donovan begins to reflect and thus touches on three more familiar themes. First:

"And what have we done? thought Basil Donovan. What is man and all his proud achievements?" (ibid.)

"What is man...?" is a Biblical quotation. See also A Note...

(vi) Donovan continues:

"Our home star is a dwarf on the lonely fringe of the Galaxy, out where the stars thin away toward the great emptiness." (ibid.)

Thus, he contradicts the earlier implication that mankind operates on a "Galactic" scale and also connects with the familiar theme of  "the edge of one spiral arm."

(vii) Finally, his continuing reflection reminds me of some short passages that I quoted here from Anderson's "Flight to Forever":

"We've ranged maybe two hundred light years from it and it's thirty thousand to the Center! Night and mysteries and nameless immensities around us, our day of glory the merest flicker on the edge of nowhere, then oblivion forever - and we won't be forgotten, because we'll never have been noticed." (ibid.)

Two hundred light years is supposed to be the radius of the Empire in Flandry's time but see:

"The Astronomy Of The Technic Civilization Saga" by Johan Ortiz, here.

The Narrator And The Spiral Arm

"The galaxy, even this tiny fragment of one spiral arm which we have somewhat explored, is inconceivably huge."
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT II, p. 98.

What does this single sentence tell us about the narrator of "The Trouble Twisters"? That one word, "...we...," reveals that s/he is not omniscient and is a contemporary of Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn. We also know that s/he is not Hloch or any other contributor to to The Earth Book Of Stormgate. That is all.

We should pull together our references to the "one spiral arm":

Van Rijn And The Spiral Arm
A Fringe Of The Galaxy
What We Know
Axor And The Spiral Arm
Dual Details On Diomedes (And The Spiral Arm)
Visible Stars And The Spiral Arm
Flandry, Kit, Svantozik And The Spiral Arm
Belated Blogging And The Spiral Arm
The Terran Empire And The Spiral Arm
Known Space And The Spiral Arm
Ivar And The Galaxy
On The Edge Of One Spiral Arm
Historical Descriptions
Curdled Silver II
Multi-Layered Consistencies 

Any more relevant posts will be linked from here.

The Fringe Of A Galaxy
Dust-Mote Galaxy
Narrators And Our Corner Of the Cosmos
Some Familiar Themes
Thin Fringe Of Spiral Arm
Chereion, The Spiral Arm And A Mistaken Realization (A Bargain Post)
Dustmote Of A Galaxy And One Spiral Arm
At The End Of The Rebel Worlds
Splinter Of The Galaxy
Brannock And Intelligence Prime
Galactic Vastness And The Milky Way

A Fringe Of The Galaxy

Erik Magnusson thinks that:

"United, the two civilizations would linger no more in this handful of stars on a fringe of the galaxy; they would fare forth to possess the cosmos."
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE, P. 435.

Magnusson does not think "spiral arm" but this is that same line of thought.

Explore the cosmos by all means but does anyone seriously think of conquering all of it? Billions of years hence, there will hopefully be intelligent beings but they will be so different from any currently existing organisms that it will not matter whether they are remote descendants of Terrans or of Merseians or are an entirely separate line of evolution. There is no knowing what their motivations will be and, even if they still entertained ideas of conquest, they would hardly be aiming at the entire cosmos. They would have to spread through it and would have to change themselves in the process so that whoever arrived in a remote cluster of galaxies would no longer be the original race.

On The Edge Of One Spiral Arm

"As far as we know - but how much do we really know, in this one corner of this one galaxy which we have somewhat explored? - Avalon was the first planet whereon two different intelligent species founded a joint colony."
-Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 293-323 AT p. 295.

"'So many, many stars...a hundred billion in this one lonely dust-mote of a galaxy...and we on the edge, remote in a spiral arm where they thin toward emptiness...what do we know, what can we master?'"
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT Chapter Three, p. 217.

"...what are we? What are four million stars, out on the fringe of one arm of the galaxy, among its hundred billion; and what is the one galaxy among so many?"
-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 7.

"Too big, too big. If a single planet overwhelms the intellect, what then of our entire microscopic chip of the galaxy, away off toward the edge of a spiral arm, which we imagine we have begun to be a little acquainted with?"
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Captain Flandry..., pp. 74-238 AT 3, p. 89.

"There are so many, many worlds, in this tiny segment of space we have somewhat explored."
-Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VI, p. 70.

"Space is that big, that full of worlds."
Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), pp. 368-408 AT p. 377.

How often does this thought, expressed in by now familiar words and phrases, recur in Poul Anderson's Technic History? I am sure that I have not quoted every example. Are there similar interstellar civilizations of oxygen- and hydrogen-breathers at the ends of other spiral arms and in other galaxies?

The Technic History also shows us earlier periods: interplanetary exploration in "The Saturn Game" and early interstellar exploration in "Wings of Victory":

"Our part in the Grand Survey had taken us out beyond the great suns Alpha and Beta Crucis. From Earth we would have been in the constellation Lupus. But Earth was 278 light-years remote, Sol itself long dwindled to invisibility, and stars drew strange pictures across the dark."
-Poul Anderson, "Wings of Victory" IN The Earth Book..., pp. 1-22 AT p. 3.

This opening paragraph is full of significance for the later History:

the rogue planet Satan will swing around Beta Crucis;

the Terran Empire will establish a Sector Alpha Crucis;

Christopher Holm/Arinnian of Stormgate Choth will remark that, from Terra, Quetlan and Laura are in Lupus, whereas, from Avalon, Sol, 205 light-years away, is in the Maukh.

The Grand Survey ship, the Olga, is about to discover Quetlan and its inhabited planet, Ythri, and, later, Avalon in the Lauran System will belong to the Domain of Ythri.

The Technic History also shows us a later period:

"They still named [Earth] Home, but she lay in the spiral arm behind this one, and Laure had never seen her. He had never met anyone who had. None of his ancestors had, for longer than their family chronicles ran. Home was a half-remembered myth; reality was here, these stars on the fringes of this civilization."
-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Flandry's Legacy, pp. 709-794 AT p. 713.

But there is still a "fringe" to the explored and civilized part of the universe.

I used to think that Anderson overdid his "What do we know at the edge of this one spiral arm that we have begun to explore?" motif. It was as if too many of his characters were thinking the same thing. However, imagine how the knowledge of the smallness of the explored part of the universe would permeate everyone's consciousness.

See also What We Know.

What We Know

A first person plural narrator comes on stage in Chapter III of Satan's World. What had seemed to be an omniscient narrator suddenly becomes an inhabitant of known space acknowledging his own ignorance along with everyone else's:

"The universe is too big. This tiny segment of the fringe of one spiral arm of a single galaxy which we have somewhat explored and exploited...is too big. In going to thousands of suns that intrigue us, we have passed by literally millions of others. It will take centuries even to visit them, let alone begin to understand them a little. And meanwhile, and forever, beyond the outermost radius of our faring will lie nearly all the suns that exist." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 348)

Observations
(i) Certain phraseology recurs rather often. In A Circus Of Hells, Rax says:

"'So many, many stars...a hundred billion in this one lost lonely dust-mote of a galaxy...and we on the edge, remote in a spiral arm where they thin toward emptiness...what do we know, what can we master?'" (Young Flandry, p. 217)

(ii) The trade pioneer crew explores not "...beyond the outermost radius..." but among the millions of stars already passed.

(iii) Regarding "...the outermost radius...," if reality is an infinite plane, then human knowledge is a growing but finite circle somewhere on the plane. As a circle grows, its area, the number of things known, increases but so does its circumference, the point of contact with the unknown. Thus, the more we know, the more we realize how little we know. There is an appropriate verse in a Kurt Vonnegut novel but, by searching the blog, I find that I have quoted it three times already. See here.

7100

In "The Saturn Game," Minamoto's report is dated 2057. Thus, this opening installment of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization is definitely set in the mid-twenty first century. It is a safe bet that interstellar travel begins in the following century. In Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, 2150 makes sense as a round number date for the second installment, "Wings of Victory."

In the forty third and concluding installment, "Starfog," Daven Laure refers to:

"'...five thousand years of interstellar travel...'"
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 717.

Thus, it makes perfect sense that the Chronology gives the round number date of 7100 for this story. (I thought before that this was just an arbitrary date.)

A linguistic computer says that the speech of the Kirkasanters, who have been isolated for millennia:

"'...appears to have remote affinities with a few that we know, like ancient Anglic.'" (p. 715)

Thus, Anglic, still spoken even during the Long Night, in the fortieth installment, "A Tragedy of Errors," has become a dead language at last. Descended from English, it was for a long time the dominant language of Terra as Eriau was of Merseia and Planha was of Ythri. There was also a "League Latin" used by the Polesotechnic League.

The narrator of "Starfog" says:

"We know that other branches of humanity have their distinctive ways, and hear rumors of yet stranger ones." (p. 718)

and refers to "...our race..." (ibid.). Thus, this narrator is not omniscient but is part of the same civilization as the viewpoint character, Daven Laure. He or she, the narrator of "Starfog," is the last historical commentator of the series, which started with Minamoto, then Hloch.

"Starfog" expresses the richness of human life on the fringe of another spiral arm of the galaxy in a remote future. I will try to convey some of this feeling in the next post or two.

Freehold II

In Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire," the planet Freehold is bigger than Earth and very fertile but the human colony is small because:

"...the system lies on the very fringe of human-dominated space..." (Captain Flandry, Riverdale, NY, 2010, p. 11);

storms, diseases and nutritional deficiencies in local food caused early high mortality;

the system had formed in a metal-poor region before entering this spiral arm so that industrial development is impossible and extra-planetary trade essential;

staying in their cities, where they can better resist the hostile environment, but economically unable to expand the cities, the colonists have practiced a lot of birth control;

the cities should be able to export food to other colony planets like Bonedry or Disaster Landing but are now in conflict with non-human settlers, the Arulians, and with rural human beings...

There are only nine cities and we quickly learn most of their names:

Domkirk;
Sevenhouses;
Nordyke;
Oldenstead;
Waterfleet;
Startop;
?

Not all yet. Freehold is proving to be as fascinating and complicated as Aeneas, Daedalus and other colonized planets in Anderson's Technic Civilization History.