Old Wilwidh

A while ago, I suggested a possible screen adaptation of the opening section of Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry story, "The Game of Glory." A shorter passage in the novel, Ensign Flandry, has also made an impression. I imagine this single paragraph read aloud as part of an audio or audiovisual presentation of extracts from Anderson's works.

Castle Afon in the old Merseian capital, Ardaig, is the Roidhun's official primary residence. Brechdan Ironrede, Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, i.e., Prime Minister of a unified Merseia, receives representatives of the Terran Empire in the audience chamber of Castle Afon:

"Entering the audience chamber, a human was at first dazed, as if he had walked into a dream. He needed a moment to make sense of what he saw. The proportions of long, flagged floor, high walls, narrow windows arched at both top and bottom, sawtoothed vaulting overhead, were wrong by every Terran canon and nonetheless had a rightness of their own. The mask helmets on suits of armor grinned like demons. The patterns of faded tapestries and rustling battle banners held no human symbology. For this was Old Wilwidh, before the machine came to impose universal sameness. It was the wellspring of Merseia. You had to see a place like this if you would understand, in your bones, that Merseians would never be kin to you."
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 141.

The omniscient narrator concludes this paragraph with a forceful assertion of the kind that would normally be expressed as an opinion by one of the characters: "...Merseians would never be kin to you." No? Human colonists and Merseian immigrants are well integrated on the planet Dennitza, a human mother even singing a Merseian lullaby.

The green-skinned Brechdan, who is also the Hand of the Vach Invory, stands in a black robe "...beneath a dragon carved in black wood..." (ibid.) (Try to picture the scene.)

Each Merseian, at least in the dominant Wilwidh culture, is identified by a personal name, by Vach membership, by military or civil rank and also by a nickname, like "Ironrede." Brechdan's bailiff, Chwioch, in his red tunic, green trousers and high-collared cape, is "...called the Dandy..." (p. 23). A dying cyborg spy says:

"'Will you remember my name? I was Dwyr of Tanis, once called the Merry. They made me into this...Remember Dwyr...Now let me die. If you open the main plate you can turn off my heart.'" (p. 132)

There is something irreconcilable in the Wilwidh culture. Brechdan says to a human Intelligence officer:

"'Commander...your young man makes me proud to be a sentient creature. What might our united races not accomplish? Hunt well.'" (p. 145)

- but Brechdan and his ilk can conceive of only one kind of inter-racial union. Speaking to a fellow Merseian, he acknowledges that he likes the Terrans, adding:

"'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 may be forced to exterminate.'" (p. 92)

Be forced to! (Like Doctor Who's opponents, the Daleks, who say "Exter-minate!" as often as Nazis said "Seig Heil!")

Later, approaching the "farce" of a welcoming festival for a Terran delegation, Brechdan, even more callously, thinks:

"If we must exterminate the Terrans, we will at least have rid the universe of much empty chatter." (p. 93)

Chatter is preferable to war and enslavement, Hand.

Ridenour And Quarles

"Ridenour sighed. 'I still have some hopes of arranging for a two-sided phaseout, but they've grown pretty dim.'
"'We can't go back to killing the People again!' Flandry protested.
"'Can't we just?' Quarles said.
"'After what we've seen, what they've done for us -'
"'Grow up. We belong to the Empire, not some barnacle-bitten gang of xenos.'
"'You may be out of the matter anyhow, Flandry,' Ridenour said. 'Your orders came through several hours ago.'
"'Orders?'
"'You report to Commander Abrams at Highport...Special duty, I don't know what.'"
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 79.

Three Points of Interest
(i) How many Naval personnel would agree with Flandry and how many with Quarles? The latter makes the Empire sound like conquering sf villains rather than defenders of civilization.

(ii) In this novel, Ridenour, the preoccupied and rather impatient xenologist, is seen only from the outside but he becomes a viewpoint character in a later installment set on a different planet. (Any future history needs many-sidedness.)

(iii) Flandry's career continues to advance. He has already:

survived being shot down;
fought the sea people and captured one;
arranged preliminary negotiations with them;
defended a land dweller seaport against them.

Now, he will become Abrams' aide on a trip to Merseia! Fortunately, it is Flandry, not Quarles, that advances in the service of the Empire.

Is Abrams right to be so suspicious of the Merseians? Yes, they are clearly stalling discussions with the Empire for some unstated purpose. Yet the Dennitzan Merseians are loyal to the Emperor, not to the Roidhun. Although we are not told, we can infer from this that Abrams would recognize that the problem is not with the entire Merseian species.

The Technic History And Some Of Its Details

We are still very much inside Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization:

"Starkad," a new article, has been published on the Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments Blog;

"The Widow of Georgios," also a new article, has been published on the Poul Anderson: Contributor Articles Blog;

I am still rereading Ensign Flandry and will post more about that novel here.

I find it easier to live imaginatively inside the Technic History than any other future history. In an earlier post, I speculated about living on Earth during the events of Mirkheim. For example, what kind of work would I do? (I would not be an Andersonian character striving to get into space at all costs.)

Right now, I have time to discuss just one aspect of Ensign Flandry:

"A philosopher with whom Flandry talked via Isinglass asserted that it was empirically meaningless to speak of a number above factorial N, where N was the total of distinguishable particles in the universe. What could a large number count?"
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 75.

("...large number..." should probably be "...larger number..."? That is how I read it until I had to read the passage more carefully to quote it.)

A larger number could count the particles in an imaginary or fictional universe. But, if it is illegitimate to go above N, then why speak of factorial N? And, if it is legitimate to speak of factorial N, then why not also higher multiples and powers of N?

The same philosopher says that, if you count to factorial N and keep going, then the numbers decrease! But surely N!+1 does not equal N!-1? He says that:

"The number axis was not linear but circular." (p. 76)

One of my school Maths teachers implied that our infinite number line is circular by stating that plus infinity and minus infinity are the same point but he never explained this.

There is more to say about Flandry's experiences with the sea people of Starkad but, unfortunately, I inhabit not Technic but Western civilization and here I have other duties and responsibilities!

Abrams And Flandry On Starkad

I hope that readers of this blog will also look at the two new linked Poul Anderson-related blogs? The new blogs began by copying selected posts already published on this, the original, Poul Anderson Appreciation Blog but they will shortly start to publish new posts.

Regarding "Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments," when I began to reread and copy posts on this theme from over two years ago, I was genuinely surprised and pleased to find so much information already there. If I have forgotten, I imagine that others have. I find it helpful to have "Merseia," "Avalon" etc listed together instead of having to scroll back through twenty seven months to find them - and I was thinking of posting about Wayland, forgetting that I had already done so.

Since I am rereading Ensign Flandry, I expect that some data about Starkad will appear on PACE. Meanwhile, there are other aspects of the novel. The mentor-cadet, father-son, relationship between Max Abrams and Dominic Flandry is excellent and it is unfortunate that it could not be continued - but Flandry's career had to advance. He has other superiors in later installments.

Abrams to Flandry:

"'They rammed you through your education. You were supposed to learn what civilization is about, but there wasn't really time, they get so damned few cadets with promise these days. So here you are, nineteen years old, loaded to the hatches with technical information and condemned to make for yourself every philosophical mistake recorded in history. I'd like you to read some books I pack around in micro. Ancient stuff mostly, a smidgin of Aristotle, Machiaveli, Jefferson, Clausewitz, Jouvenel, Michaelis.'"
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 50.

It is interesting to learn that Abrams has such a sound theoretical basis for his Intelligence activities and that it starts with Classical Greece. If I were to tutor the young Flandry, then I would advise him to read widely and would suggest certain authors, not the same list as Abrams', but also not "...a smidgin of..." anything. That sounds too prescriptive. If Flandry is to understand the relevance of Machiaveli, then he must grasp the essence of Machiavelli's thought and, to assure himself that he has done this, he cannot rely on extracts chosen by anyone else.

Abrams is talking about political understanding. In fact, in some passage that I cannot find right now, he tells Flandry that he is forgetting the political element of his training. Casting the net wider than politics, I would add that anyone educated in either Western or Technic civilization should be able to make an informed judgment as to the truth or falsity of the historical claims of Christianity. How can any of us commit either to Christianity or to an alternative world view except on the basis of information and understanding? Abrams is Jewish and Flandry later funds research to find evidence for a divine incarnation elsewhere in the galaxy, so we need first to be clear as to whether there is indeed evidence for a divine incarnation on Earth.

Abrams again:

"'...you most definitely can't have a peace that isn't founded on a hard common interest, that doesn't pay off for everybody concerned.'" (p. 49)

In practice, "...everybody concerned..." means not every human (or non-human) being affected by a decision but every group economically or militarily strong enough to oppose a decision that they dislike. Thus, as Anderson shows in the history of the Polesotechnic League, oppression, deprivation and injustice are perpetuated until, at least in some cases, the recipients do arm themselves.

I would really enjoy some political discussions with Max Abrams.

Slowing Down

I am slowing down. Although I can still with pleasure reread passages from the Poul Anderson works in my possession, it is less easy to find new things to write about them - although the mere passage of time will allow a fresh approach. I have yet to acquire:

the NESFA Collection Volumes 2 to 5;
Multiverse;
any further collections or anthologies that may be planned (?)

- so there will be more to post although not immediately.

Meanwhile, I remain impressed by the fact, noted recently, that, whereas Robert Heinlein's original Future History comprises five, or just four and a half, volumes with no series characters to speak of, Anderson's Technic History, over three times as long, introduces one of its three main continuing characters with an entire trilogy of novels.

Further, the Young Flandry Trilogy is preceded by, and builds on, an already complete future history, mainly the Rise and Decline of the Polesotechnic League but, before that, interplanetary exploration and the Grand Survey and, after it, the joint human-Ythrian colonization of the planet Avalon, the Time of Troubles, the early Terran Empire and the Terran War on Avalon.

Also, Flandry himself does not come onstage until Chapter Four and is even believed to have died in action. Before his appearance:

the Terran Emperor Georgios has a Birthday, celebrated throughout his realm;

on Terra, Lord Markus Hauksberg, Viscount of Ny Kalmar, Second Minister of Extra-Imperial Affairs, and Lady Hauksberg attend a party at the Coral Palace, where they are received by Crown Prince Josip, the Imperial Heir;

Hauksberg plots beneath the Palace with Lord Advisors of the Policy Board;

on Starkad, Commander Max Abrams, Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, confers with the greenskin cinc, Fodaich Runei, and catches a Merseian spy;

on Merseia, Brechdan Ironrede, Hand of the Vach Ynvory and Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, confers with his Heir, Elwych, on a terrace of their hereditary seat, Castle Dhangodhan.

A rich text, indeed.

Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments

Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments now exists as a spin-off blog. Initially, it will be used to gather together posts originally published here on Poul Anderson Appreciation that summarize information about some of the many extra-solar environments vividly imagined by Poul Anderson.

So far, I have copied to the new blog "Who Knows of Avalon?" - a post summarizing all the information that I could find about the planet Gray/Avalon which was discovered by Captain Gray's crew during the Grand Survey, later explored by a team of Ythrians and human beings, later again jointly colonized by members of these two species led by David Falkayn, renamed "Avalon" by Falkayn's granddaughter and successfully resisted annexation by the Terran Empire, instead remaining within the interstellar realm known as the Domain of Ythri.

The post summarizes data about Avalonian flora, fauna, geography, imported species, society, politics and religion, all the background material that we appreciate but do not focus on when following the plot of a short story or novel.

Expanding Histories

Olaf Stapledon's one volume future history and one volume cosmic history cover immeasurably more space and time than HG Wells' one volume future history.

Similarly, Poul Anderson's main future history series covers more space and time than Robert Heinlein's seminal Future History. By Heinlein's Future History, I mean only the original five volume series - or should I say "four and a half volumes," because Orphans Of The Sky, collecting "Universe" and its sequel, "Common Sense," is short and is merely a sidebar to the linear history, which culminates with the Howard Families' triumphal return to the Solar System at the end of Methuselah's Children.

The Future History has scarcely any series characters. Two works star DD Harriman, "The Man Who Sold The Moon," and two feature the mathematical genius, Andy Libby, but Dahlquist, Rhysling and Long each appear only once and Scudder, although important, remains off-stage. Nehemiah Scudder does not appear yet founds a theocracy, later overthrown by the Cabal. In Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, Manuel Argos appears once and founds an empire, later defended by Naval Intelligence.

Although Argos would not appreciate the comparison, he and Scudder play comparable pivotal roles in their respective histories. Each restores order after a social breakdown. However, Scudder's order is merely oppressive whereas Argos establishes a long-lasting Pax.

(Pax includes oppression:

("...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.

(Examples of oppression are Snelund in Sector Alpha Crucis and Flandry on Brae.)

Another difference is of spatiotemporal scale. The Angels of the Lord rule the United States for decades whereas the Terran Empire rules a four hundred light year diameter sphere of interstellar space for centuries.

And the Technic History has several series characters whose names need not be listed yet again. Young Flandry is an introductory trilogy of novels about a single character but is also one segment of a future history, building on earlier information about the Polesotechnic League and Merseia. The series is long enough to allow for a very leisurely approach to the development of its characters and their milieus.

Poul Anderson: contributor articles

The Poul Anderson: contributor articles blog now exists. To get this new blog off the ground, we have copied thirteen articles, one of them in both an original and a revised version, from earlier posts on Poul Anderson Appreciation.

The thirteen articles have in common that they are not written by me. They also have in common that all are written by one contributor, Sean M Brooks. However, the concept of the new blog is that any reader or fan of Poul Anderson is invited to email articles, essays or even brief remarks to be posted on it. Opinions contradicting mine are not merely tolerated but positively encouraged.

Anderson fans will by now be reading the new Anderson-themed anthology, Multiverse, and will be doing so before I do. Here is an excellent opportunity for new input from new contributors on new material that is also directly relevant to what this blog has been about all along - exploring the imaginary universes of Poul Anderson.

Commonalty Rangers

The post-human stage of evolution - in diverse sf works by Poul Anderson - is the Danellians, self-conscious computers or artificial neural systems, i.e., artificial brains. The phrase "self-conscious computers" raises philosophical questions discussed earlier. Computation will not become conscious merely by becoming faster or more efficient whereas an artificial brain, i.e., an artifact exactly duplicating the functions of an organic brain, will, by definition, be conscious.

In the Polesotechnic League and Terran Empire periods of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, consciousness-level computers can be constructed but it is considered more economical to keep organic intelligences in charge of unconscious computers. However, millennia later, in the Commonalty period, circumstances have changed. Rangers regularly facing cosmic unknowns need to travel in intelligent spaceships.

The computer in Daven Laure's ship, Jaccavrie, simultaneously displays a requested text on a screen, manages planetary approach, converses with Laure and awaits further instructions. It would be able to run the ship in his absence. Despite being served by such versatile ships:

"...every year, a certain number [of Rangers] did not come home from their missions."
- Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), pp. 711-794 AT p. 711.

Presumably, a Ranger would be safe if he were to remain inside his vessel but his work obliges him to leave it. Laure investigates element distribution on the surface of a planet in the central region of the Cloud Universe even though the planet's ionosphere prevents radio contact between his sled and the orbiting Jaccavrie. When wind smashes the sled into a mountain, Laure must shelter in a cave hoping that the zero visibility storm ends before his powerpack does.

Suddenly we understand why some Rangers do not return.

Some Projected Blogs

We have returned from the Isle of Wight to Lancaster. I am back online and intending to post about Daven Laure and the Commonalty Rangers.

The next idea is to generate some spin-off blogs, e.g., Poul Anderson's Cosmic Environments will start by copying posts from this blog that summarize information about Anderson's imaginary extra-solar environments:

Diomedes;
Merseia;
Avalon;
Aeneas;
Satan;
Mirkheim;
Vixen;
Ramnu;
Daedalus;
Nike;
the Cloud Universe;
etc.

The current blog, Poul Anderson Appreciation, has now been running for over two years. Posts linked by any common theme like "cosmic environments" or "time travel" are lost among the many others discussing diverse aspects of Anderson's works. Collecting themed posts will make it easier to read or reread these posts in sequence and might also inspire new contributions on the particular theme.

Another suggested spin-off blog is one that will publish posts about Poul Anderson written by anyone other than the originator of Poul Anderson Appreciation. There are so far about half a dozen articles by one other contributor. These can form the basis of a new blog but the idea will then be to invite anyone and everyone else also to submit articles for publication. I hope that the new Anderson-related anthology, Multiverse, will inspire some of our readers to write about what they have read.