The Pathetic Fallacy On Earth And Harbor

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

In a Seladorian ritual, the leader chants, "'...oneness.'" (p. 461) Then:

"The voice grew shrill. '...bring down the falsehoods of the Biosophists...'
"A carnivore screamed, somewhere off in the dark. Zeyd wondered how serene Earth really was and how long its peace could endure." (ibid.)

A carnivore screaming in darkness is a perfect counterpoint to, and comment on, someone chanting "oneness," then denouncing falsehoods. Are the the carnivore and the darkness within the Seladorian?

Nansen the starfarer visits an empty Kith Town. History, indeed. We saw this place bustling with life millennia earlier and, even then, were given a brief history of how a city had grown up around the Town, then the surrounding City district had economically declined. Five years after visiting Earth and its empty Kith Town, Nansen leads the new Venture League on Harbor at Tau Ceti:

"Though it was summer in this hemisphere, to Earthside eyes the sunshine spilling from the blue would have had a mellow, autumnal quality." (p. 464)

Nansen has returned from far space to the autumn of interstellar travel but hopes that it will have a new spring and summer. Another perfect pathetic fallacy. Mirkheim ends with a sunrise (a beginning) that is red (the color associated with sunsets, an end). Anderson's prose affects his readers whether or not they analyze it.

Three Thousand Years Of Peace

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Nansen's Terrestrial hostess says that the planet has had "'Three thousand years of peace.'" (p. 459)

Nansen replies, "'Thanks to...Selador.'" (ibid.)

- and thinks: Who seems to have done better than the Christ they seem to have forgotten. (ibid.)

Selador has not done better than Christ. Nanotechnology has abolished want and therefore also conflict for material resources. Result: peace. Selador happens to be the religious founder whose name is still quoted.

Zeyd witnesses a ritual in a clearing in a rain forest:

"'In the name of Selador...oneness.'" (pp. 460-461)

Oneness, yes. "In the name of..." is a formula in which any name could have filled in the blank. I hardly need list some of the obvious alternatives. The voices grow shrill as the congregation chants, "'...bring down the falsehoods of the Biosophists...'" (p. 461) I think that that is unlikely. A philosophy that has been global for three millennia will not still chant the names of its defeated opponents. The Anglican Communion does not ritually denounce the falsehoods of the Mithraists or the Manichaeans.

On the other hand, if such conflicts really are still so close to the surface, then Zeyd was right when he "...wondered how serene Earth really was and how long its peace could endure." (ibid.)

Today, I have done other reading and this evening have attended our small sf group. Nevertheless, when I return home and read a few pages of Anderson, I find plenty to post about so it seems that there will a few more posts this month. Anderson always addresses key questions like:

What do people believe?
How does it affect their behavior?
How is society held together?
How long can stability - or apparent stability - last?
How do people respond to change, especially if it has long been delayed?
What should the minority who value change do in any situation? (The situations change with history.)

Cautious Communication

Poul  Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

(I might stop at 100 posts for May, an average of 104 per month so far this year, but thinking about Poul Anderson's works never ceases.)

How can half a dozen individuals assess an entire society that is new to them? Some well-meaning visitors were completely misled by Stalinist Russia. The Envoy crew are cautious with the future Earth. Only two of them descend to the surface and they refuse "'...a mnemonic in a modern language-'" (p. 456). They do not want to risk mental alteration along with linguistic knowledge.

"The mansion stood on the far edge of town, not very big though ornamented with pilasters, changing iridescences, and a winged cupola." (pp. 457-458)

Inside the mansion, a translating device is required which, Nansen concedes, "...didn't make for intimate conversation, but it served well enough here." (p. 458)

I have attended meetings where an interpreter was needed both for the talk and for the questions and answers. This slowed down everyone's thought processes. Responses that were usually immediate were delayed and thus perhaps more considered.

Now, speaking of other languages, I have some Virgil to prepare for next Tuesday...

Causes Of Conflict

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

A returned Envoy crew member asks his Terrestrial guide:

"'I gather that religions, customs, even laws vary from group to group, and each develops as it chooses, or splits off to start something new. Doesn't that lead to conflict?'" (p. 454)

Why should it? I think that social conflicts are caused only by contradictory material interests. Northern Irish Catholics demonstrated and rioted because of their social and political disadvantages, not because of their doctrinal disagreements with Presbyterians.

The guide replies:

"'All are Seladorian...Different deity or none, different usage, yes, but all accept the oneness of life. That means, too, the oneness of humans.'" (pp. 454-455)

I agree. There are at least three ways in which people of different faiths can live harmoniously, by accepting:

social customs and the secular laws of the land;
scientific procedures;
the rules of philosophical debate and civilized discourse.

We need and can have: difference without division; unity without uniformity. I don't know whether I heard or read that somewhere or invented it but I think it makes sense.

The Envoy man remains skeptical:

"Zeyd knew of no faith that had ever brought universal harmony. He wondered how meaningful these cultural uniquenesses were, and what measures were now and then necessary to maintain the global peace." (p. 455)

Why should any measures be necessary? Previous faiths existed in and reflected periods of economic and military conflict. Zeyd applies out-moded assumptions.

The Two Kith Future Histories

The Original History
The Kith trade between stars at sub-light speeds.
They maintain Kith Town on Earth, where they are increasingly oppressed.
One banished Kith ship, returning from an exploratory mission to the galactic center, finds descendants of human colonists who have become aquatic.

The Starfarers History
The zero-zero drive makes relativistic interstellar travel possible.
Envoy embarks on a long exploratory mission.
The Kith trade between stars at sub-light speeds.
They maintain Kith Town on Earth, where they are increasingly oppressed.
Selador, the son of a Kithman, founds a Terrestrial religion that opposes space travel.
The Seladorians become a persecuted but growing minority.
Kith trade declines.
Kith visiting Earth find Seladorians everywhere.
Envoy returns to an Earth that has been united by Seladorianism for three thousand years.
The Envoy crew and the Kith remnant begin to build an interstellar civilization in cooperation with quantum intelligences encountered during Envoy's exploratory mission. 

Eleven Millennia Later

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Earth when Envoy returns after an absence of eleven millennia:

"Down from tundra and taiga swept wind-bellowing steppes; boreal forest yielded to broadleaf woods and these to jungle..." (p. 445)

"The groundside scene was of graceful columns and ogive windows open on a garden." (p. 446)

Of course, there is more going on than this but I found these five words worth googling on just two pages. I previously discussed this future Earth in "Starfarers And Seladorians."

Addendum: And, a few pages later, "'...no matter how much internal variegation it enjoys, it is now the only civilization on Earth.'" (p. 451)

The speaker means "variation." "Variegation," apparently, is a botanical term.

Places of business include "...ateliers..." (p. 453)

Seladorianism

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

All existence is one;
the Ultimate realizes itself through life;
life, the meaning of existence, evolves toward identity with the Ultimate;
however, humanity has taken a wrong turn;
having technology is part of being intelligent but human beings have taken technology too far and in wrong directions;
they have adapted to technology instead of it to the Meaning and have cut themselves off from their living environment;
they must restore destroyed forests and prairies and stop using bioengineering to adapt individuals for specialized, e.g. military, purposes;
they have learned from space travel but must now withdraw to Earth;
if they continue in the wrong direction, then they will become extinct.

The Seladorians cultivate oases, are acquiring new land at the expense of the former occupants and want "...to abolish the machines on whose productivity depended the subsidies that kept poor folk alive." (p. 418) We might agree with some Seladorian tenets but not others. In this novel, there is a strong tendency among technological races for spacefaring to decline and Seladorianism is part of this tendency on Earth. That alone shows us that Anderson regards this religion as a mostly negative force.

A Rich Text

I am able to post frequently and the subject matters of the posts vary because Poul Anderson's texts are rich, the current text addressing physics, cosmogony, alien biology, hypothetical nonchemical life, technology, society, history and religions both real and projected. Starfarers belongs both to the sub-genre of future history and to the class of works that deal with the concept and implications of time travel.

Still to come in Starfarers are:

Chapter 46, the last Kith installment;
Chapters 47-52, the immediate and ultimate outcomes of Envoy's return to Earth.

After finishing Starfarers, there will be other Poul Anderson works to return to.

What Endures?

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

As Envoy returns to Earth, its crew detect that interstellar travel from Earth is sharply declining. Captain Nansen, "...nominally a Reform Catholic..." (p. 58), remarks:

"'...the Church taught that someday time also will have a stop.'" (p. 428)

By speaking in the past tense, he seems to assume that, after so many millennia, the Church will no longer exist. This assumption turns out to be correct. The six surviving Envoy crew members include the last Jew, Christian and Muslim.

I was taught that the Catholic Church would last until the end of time. This was contradicted by sf stories in which mankind survives into the remote future when, although there are diverse sects, none of them are descended from any religions known to us. St Paul's teaching was not that the Church would survive through all those millennia but that Christ would return when he, Paul, had completed his mission to the Gentiles. When some converts had died and others then asked Paul why the return had been delayed, he replied that Christ would indeed return soon at which point dead believers would be raised and those who were still alive, possibly including himself and his correspondents, would meet with them in the air, thus writing the passage that generated the Rapture idea.

The idea that the Church as an institution would endure through many future millennia must have arisen after the first generation of Christians had died - although some then expected Christ's return at the end of the first millennium.

Service To The Coordinator

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

In Chapter 21, Earth is ruled by the Dominacy. In Chapter 44, it is ruled by the Governance. Anderson is telling us that there are changes of regime but not of fundamental social relationships. (Someone once joked that, in America, man exploited man whereas, in Russia, it was the other way around.)

In the Terran Empire of Flandry's time, they say, "Glory to the Emperor!" In the Governance, they say, "Service to the Coordinator." (p. 413) In both cases, the head of state does not necessarily measure up. Terra suffers under Josip and, in the Governance, the Executive of North Meric responds without enthusiasm:

"Perhaps he was thinking of that painted giggler who sat in the Uldan Palace." (p. 413)

In the Governance, the Seladorians, who will rule Earth when the Envoy returns, are still a persecuted minority. Anderson uses Chapter 44 to add to the Kith History. Selador's "'...father was a Kithman who left his ship to marry an Arodish woman.'" (p. 413) Seladorianism is a split from Arodism. We meet a Kith convert to Seladorianism. Anderson surprises us by introducing a young viewpoint character, Panthos, who serves the Coordinator, protects some Seladorians from Arods and is killed with a slug through the skull.

However, in any case, Panthos' role was only to appear in this single chapter which shows us that Earth will not have made itself fit to receive the new knowledge and perspectives brought by the Envoy.