Alori Houses

Alori tree houses are like incomparably more advanced versions of the naturally hollow trees used as dwellings by the Nerthusian natives. This tells me something. I have yet to read the Psychotechnic History installment about the human colonization of Nerthus.

Nevertheless, later installments make clear that human beings had been living on that planet for a while before they realized that it was already inhabited. No wonder, if the aborigines were sheltering or even hiding inside trees on a planetary surface where there were no artificial structures like houses or villages. Indeed, the Nerthusians living in the native quarter of Stellamont themselves resemble trees: tall, green and four-armed with no machine technology.

An Alori house has:

a large, light, airy, cylindrical room;
hard, beautiful wood;
windows closable with transparent flaps;
a heavy curtain for a door;
a warm, springy, moss-like carpet and bed on the floor;
extruded shelves;
flowering vines;
bladders that are luminous at night but can be covered;
an inward-growing branch yielding clear water with a drain beneath;
a nearby bush growing a soap surrogate.

The Alori have developed the biological sciences as far as the Stellar Union has developed the physical sciences. However, mutually incompatible world-views underlie the scientific and social differences.

The Ancient War

"'If you were killed,' she said, 'I'd steal a ship and go hunting for the killer till I found him.'
"'You'd do better to help correct the conditions that led to my being killed.'
"'You're too civilized,' she said bitterly.
"The ancient war, he thought, the immemorial struggle of intelligence to master itself. Nicki could never stay on Earth."
(The Peregrine, Chapter XIV, pp. 127-128)

Over a thousand years previously, an Un-man had identified the old enemy as:

"...man himself...the revolt of a primitive against the unnatural state called civilization and freedom." ("Un-Man" IN The Psychotechnic League, pp. 31-129 AT pp. 125-126)

So has nothing been gained in a millennium? Yes, the ancient war has been won on Earth - and, millennia later, will be won in the rest of the Galaxy.

Trevelyan and Nicki discuss options:

he could join her Nomad ship (this is what later happens);
he might need an assistant on one of his jobs?

Answering that second suggestion, he says that, when he needs an assistant, he gets another Coordinator, usually an otherling. That is the basis on which "The Pirate," written later but set earlier, was built. Reading the Psychotechnic History in chronological order of fictitious events, we find in The Peregrine references to three earlier installments:

the origin of the Nomads;
the colonization of Nerthus;
a mission by Trevelyan and the Reardonite, Smokesmith.

Hyperdrive Fields

Does Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History present any rationale for the sf cliche of "hyperspace"? His later Technic History presents a beautiful rationale: a ship in hyperspace is not in another space or another dimension but is making many instantaneous quantum jumps through normal space. Thus, it has a "pseudo-velocity" in a very real sense:

it disappears at point A and appears at point B without having traversed the space between them;
however, points A and B are very close so that many such jumps must be made.

Hyperspace in the Psychotechnic History has the following features, some of them familiar from other works -

(i) A spaceship generates "hyperdrive fields."
(ii) While building up, the fields cause a twisting sensation in human bodies.
(iii) The ship then moves at a pseudo-velocity.
(iv) It is safer to go hyper in a weak gravitational field.
(v) Too close to a star and planet, the drive builds up "...with distressing irregularity." (The Peregrine, Chapter XIV, p. 126)
(vi) Any hyperdrive ship is elongated because "...field generators must be mounted fore and aft." (p. 123)

I am reminded of a humorous sf novel by Bob Shaw. An interstellar spaceship, shaped like a long trailer or a railway carriage, has a teleportation transmitter at one end and a receiver at the other. Thus it is seen continually turning around in space as it repeatedly transmits itself to itself.

Advanced Technology

I suggest that a rich text is one in which it is possible to discuss almost every sentence.

"'...when a technology has advanced to the point of interstellar drive, it doesn't need an empire.'" (The Peregrine, Chapter XIV, p. 124)

Right on. Intelligent beings capable of crossing an interstellar distance would have to carry their environment with them and therefore would not be dependent on finding such an environment on arrival - and how likely would that be in any case?

"'...green vegetables from an E-planet would help morale...'" (p. 119)

No doubt they would but is the universe full of Earth-like planets growing humanly edible green vegetables? Human beings have evolved in, and are adapted to, the ecology on only one planetary surface.

A technology capable of regular, faster than light interstellar travel implies an immense amount of both knowledge and energy. Beings capable of applying such knowledge and deploying such energy would hardly need to find other intelligent beings to conquer and exploit? They would already control more than enough wealth for their own needs and purposes.

As Alan Moore’s extraterrestrial character, Zhcchz (“Skizz”), says:

“You…refuse to…understand. When technology…has reached…a certain level…weapons…are redundant. When you already have…all that you need, then…why fight? We…have devices…that you would call weapons. To us…they…are tools.”<sup>21

-copied from here.</sup>

Conflicting Cultures

Over two years ago, I discussed four conflicting cultures in Poul Anderson's The Peregrine here.

On Erulan, there is slavery and cruelty. Three bodies hang from a gallows in a market square. Ilaloa of the Alori comments:

"'There is no need for this endless strife and suffering. But it is still more - right - than that which is in the city Stellamont.'" (The Peregrine, Chapter X, p. 89)

Stellamont is on a human colony planet and thus represents a fifth culture distinct from Sol, Nomads, Erulan and Alori:

Sol, Nomads and Stellamont are human;
Alori are humanoid (see image);
Erulan is human beings enslaving (other) humanoids.

I can only remark that I disagree with Ilaloa. Technology-using urbanites are indeed "...shut away..." (p. 88) from nature but that does not make a slave-owning society better than they are!

Navigating

Imagine navigating across interstellar space on the basis of visual observations like the Kirkasanters in Poul Anderson's Technic History. Here is another example from the Psychotechnic History. Looking at a drawing, a Nomad captain says:

"'Let's see. The shiningness is a bright gaseous nebula, of course, and the remote spiral is probably the Andromeda galaxy. That very bright star can only be Canopus, if you're in the Cross region, and here's the same dent in the Milky Way you can see from here.' He gestured to a view-screen overhead, blackness and the ghostly bridge of stars." (The Peregrine, Chapter XII, p. 101)

So it is a bit like recognizing a landmark or a familiar mountain range.

(I must go to a party. The holiday season interrupts blogging.)

Later: The captain, giving the drawing to the astrogator, tells him to use all the star tables and computers to find that part of space as accurately as possible.

The Need For Coordination?

Trevelyan Micah, field agent of the Stellar Union Coordination Service, outlines the problem:

"'A dozen or more highly civilized races, scattering themselves over this part of the Galaxy, intercourse limited to spaceships that may need weeks to get from one sun to the next - and nothing else. Not even the strong economic ties which did, after all, bind Europe to its colonies. Cross-purposes are breeding which are someday going to clash - they've already done so in several cases, and it's meant annihilation." (The Peregrine, Chapter XII, p. 105)

By why? If there is no economic competition, then what is there to fight about? Can different racial spheres not interpenetrate neutrally or peacefully like those of oxygen-breathers and hydrogen-breathers in the Technic History? If there is no mutual comprehension, then a few scientifically inclined beings will try to observe and study the "otherlings" whereas most perhaps will continue with their version of "business as usual," so why should there be any cross-purposes or clashes? The Peregrine shows us one fundamental conflict but why should such conflicts be the norm?

When we read that some of the slave-owning Erulanites are selling spaceships to human beings "'...from somewhere in the Cross...'" who "'...don't wear clothes...'" and "'...have the ways of natives...'" (Chapter IX, p. 84), we might begin to suspect that the Lorinyans are the enemy and have already planted a spy on the Nomads.

In A Nomad Ship Library

Epics were composed to be recited and heard. Drama was written to be performed, seen and heard. Thus, Hamlet means whatever a theater company can make it mean. The text is merely their working document. However, libraries rightly contain translations of Homer and copies of Shakespeare.

The library of the Nomad ship, Peregrine, is a long, double-tiered room lined with shelves holding micro-books from civilized planets, not just from Earth, "...an incredible jackdaw's nest of anything and everything." (The Peregrine, Chapter XI, p. 92)

references
philosophies
poetry
fiction
belles-lettres
the history of the Nomads

The history "...began with the memoirs of Thorkild Erling, first captain of the Nomads." (p. 93)

Thus, it begins with the short story, "Gypsy," which is narrated by Thorkild.

"...reading Thorkild's words, Trevelyan caught something of the glamour which had been in those first years." (ibid.)

Having read "Gypsy," we remember that glamour. However, we learn more:

"There was a note of disappointment in Thorkild's later writings; his new society was evolving into something other than what he had imagined." (ibid.)

Thorkild and his crew had wanted endless wandering so I am not sure how he was disappointed.

"More Lasting Than Bronze"

If the two missing stories were to be included in a future edition of Poul Anderson's Starship, then the Psychotechnic History would be complete in five regular volumes: three collections and two novels. There are two ways to publish a future history series: either in single novels and standard-sized collections or in omnibus volumes.

In the thirty second century of this future history, the depopulated, forested Earth is the human center of scientific research, education, the arts and the Stellar Union Coordination Service. It follows that there are libraries of all surviving literature. A Nomad ship has a library and its captain's cabin has a shelf of well used micro-books in various languages. So what will still be read? I suggest at least:

Homer - epics, myths;
Shakespeare - drama (histories, comedies, tragedies), sonnets;
the Bible - many kinds of writing edited to present a continuous narrative from creation to new creation, albeit based in a prescientific cosmology.

Shakespeare was referenced and quoted earlier in this future history. When a Coordinator traveling with a Nomad sees the stars from space, he quotes:

"The heavens declare the glory of God...and the firmament showeth His handiwork."
-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine (New York, 1979), Chapter VII, p. 52.

The Nomad, puzzled, asks, "'What's that?'" and is told, "'An old Terrestrial book...Very old.'" (ibid.)

In fact, the Old Testament. The Nomad captain is familiar with the Bible. When reflecting that those who have enslaved a planet of barbarians are gradually becoming barbarized, he quotes:

"What shall it profit a man if he gaineth the whole world and loseth his own soul." (Chapter IX, p. 77)

Despite the change of cosmology, what could be more appropriate? They have gained a planet but are losing their identity.

Literature lasts. Horace (see image) wrote, "Exegi monumentum aere perennius," "I have erected a monument more lasting than bronze."

Nomads

Ship: Peregrine.
Family: Thorkild.
Personal name: Sean.
Rank: Ensign.
Service: Flier pilot and gunner.

He says not, "I am Ensign Sean Thorkild of the Peregrine," but "This one is called Peregrine Thorkild Sean." (The Peregrine, p. 43)

Nomads have not dispensed with the grammatical first person because he also says "my" and "we." Ship, family, rank and service can be read from his outfit.

Sean plays a stringed instrument called a "lorne" (p. 65) but what is it like? His song includes the word "dree," (p. 66) but apparently as an adjective, not as a verb.

In flight, the Nomads maintain their ship with minimal automatic or robotic machinery and make artifacts to trade either internally or externally. Floors are green and soft, not metallic. Walls have murals or carved panels. Apartments have plants. There is a park and three taverns. It does not sound like the inside of a spaceship.

Interstellar trade and travel is a big idea in American sf:

Heinlein's Free Traders;
Asimov's Foundation Traders;
Blish's Okies;
Anderson's Nomads, Kith and Polesotechnic League;
no doubt others.