The New Mental Landscape

For Love And Glory, XXX.

After memory editing:

clarity;
emptinesses;
detachment;
the same person;
but with fog cleared away;
memory gaps that don't matter;
recorded experiences kept;
memories of blunders;
hopefully better thoughts and actions for the next few centuries.

News arrives of the black hole collision. How can Hebo profit from it?

"Though what I could actually do -
"It struck him like a fist. He stood amazed." (p. 163)

Another moment of realization. As ever, we have to wait to be told what it is:

"Avi cocked her head. 'Seems like you've suddenly had an idea.'
"'Uh-huh,' he mumbled. 'I, I'd rater not say anything. It's too vague yet. Probably too far-fetched.'" (ibid.)

It won't be.

Hebo In Nepal

For Love And Glory, XXX.

It is very difficult to choose between images of Nepal.

After violent natural events in interstellar space, Poul Anderson presents a peaceful natural scene "...in what was once Nepal." (p. 159)

We, in this generation, may still use the name, "Nepal."

After his memory editing, Hebo heals in a place prepared just for him:

he feels a mild breeze;
it bears "...a fragrance of jasmine..." (ibid.);
he sees brilliant rhododendrons, ascending woodland, mighty snow peaks and a cloudless sky;
he hears birdsong -

- an effortless description appealing to four of the senses.

The following paragraph describes Hebo's newly edited mental landscape but I am out of here until tomorrow or, as we call it in text talk, "tomoz."

Orichalc And The Ocean Of Stars

For Love And Glory.

The Milky Way is mentioned again but not really to describe it:

"Odd, she thought how familiar the Milky Way looks. Some differences, this bend, that bay, yonder silhouette of the Sagittarian dust clouds; but I expected it to be quite altered." (XV, p. 89)

Sagittarius (see also here) (scroll down) is big in the Psychotechnic History.

Here is another description of space as seen from a spaceship:

"She floated before the weapons console and the ocean of stars." (XVIII, p. 107)

See The Sea Of Space and The Sea Of Space.

Orichalc detects feelings, which reveal much. Thus:

joy, bitterness and prurience mean that two human beings have started to have sex;

pride followed by dread mean that Valen led a dangerous rescue mission for selfish reasons (read FLAG to find out why).

Cosmic Summary

For Love And Glory, XXIX.

"Stars, Milky Way, sister galaxies shone in majesty. The black hole was lost to naked-eye sight. Even the cloud from which Dagmar fled was now scarcely more than another gleam in the brightness-crowded dark." (p. 155)

This passage lists:

stars;
our galaxy;
other galaxies;
a black hole;
a gas cloud;
the universe as seen from space, here described by the paradox of "...brightness-crowded dark." (p. 155)

Paradoxically, apparently empty space is really full of invisible light which we perceive only as discrete points because it has to contact our retinas to be seen.

Here the Milky Way is described yet again, this time as shining in majesty. 

At The Moment Of Collision

For Love And Glory, XXVI.

When two black holes meet:

their event horizons are deformed;

light erupts, changing through every color of the spectrum;

gravitons surge;

there is a wave of force;

ejected fiery clouds exceed escape velocity from the ergosphere;

the black holes merge;

a gravitational vortex throws together and disables two observing spaceships which then enter a collision course with one of the ejected gaseous objects;

the human ship must help the formerly hostile Susaians.

We measure time in days, weeks, years and generations. Lissa thinks of days, tens of days, years and rejuvenations. A Time Lord would think: "regenerations." Rejuvenations and regenerations mean that individuals survive for what would previously have been generations.

Celestial Politics

In Poul Anderson's Technic History:

the Supermetals Company conceals the existence of its source of supermetals, Mirkheim;

the Merseians conceal the existence of a rogue planet that will destroy a star.

In For Love And Glory, the Dominance of the Great Confederacy tries to conceal an imminent collision between two black holes.

We have learned to anticipate that, during a dramatic confrontation in a Poul Anderson novel, background sounds, silences or sudden environmental alterations - like brightenings or darkenings - will punctuate and highlight the dialogue. Sure enough, when, during radio negotiations, a human captain suggests scientific cooperation with the Dominance:

"Silence seethed. Had the black holes moved perceptibly closer? Less than two days remained before the crash.
"'No...'" (XXIII, p. 130)

When a challenging question is not immediately answered, the ensuing silence seethes with significance. Converging black holes symbolize the inevitable negative response.

At a distance of just one light-hour, "...the incandescence around the black holes..." (XXI, p. 120) is bright enough to read by. There is indeed a lot to be learned from the black holes! And they grow visibly closer. 

Black Holes And Hegel

(This Hegel quote is applicable to Poul Anderson's major future history series, the History of Technic Civilization.)

For Love And Glory, XXI.

"In a black hole's own frame, the collapse to singularity was swift. To a safely distant observer, it took forever; what she saw was not a completed being but an eternal becoming." (p. 120)

Hegel argued that:

philosophers should begin by reasoning from the most general or abstract concept or category;

the opening thesis of the Hegelian System of Philosophy is being because everything is;

however, to say of anything only that it is is not to say what it is and thus is to say nothing about it;

therefore, the thesis, being, is identical with its antithesis, nothing;

these two contradictory yet identical categories are synthesized in the more concrete concept of becoming;

becoming generates being determinate, which is one thing and not another, as opposed to abstract being which is identical with nothing.

I think that:

being is not a property but the instantiation of properties;

thus, a large, red sphere is an instance of largeness, redness and sphericalness but not also of a fourth property, "being";

possibility or potentiality is more general than being;

thus, what is is a subset of what might have been;

physicists currently apply the concepts of potentiality, being, nothing and becoming.

Black Holes Collide II

For Love And Glory, XX.

Converging black holes resemble comets;

their tails, shading from intense gold to blood red, reach toward each other;

where they meet, atoms become plasma;

each black hole draws matter from the interstellar medium;

disappearing matter emits "...a blaze of radiation." (p. 117);

interacting black holes double the infall;

the accretion discs interact, generating visible light, then X-rays;

Dagmar hyperjumps closer.

Black Holes Collide

For Love And Glory, XIX.

The masses of two mutually approaching black holes are about nine and ten Sols;

therefore, their event horizons are about 60 kilometers in diameter;

their two eccentric galactic orbits converge;

the black holes will graze;

their event horizons will intersect;

computer predictions of the outcome are nonsensical;

initially, the encounter will release electromagnetic and other forces;

these forces will hurl matter outward;

the matter will recollapse over two or three days;

during this time, "'...radiation background and gas temperatures will be high and increasing.'" (p. 114)

recollapse will generate a lethal gamma burst detectable across the universe;

Dagmar's shields will enable her to remain nearby before and after the collision;

but she will be too deep in the gravity well for a hyperjump and it is not known what else will happen;

findings made so far are hyperbeamed to headquarters.

Of Or Pertaining To Planets II

See:

Of Or Pertaining To Planets

I should also have referred to the Order of Planetary Engineers in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. See:

The Institute And The Order
Inner And Outer
Brotherhood And Order
Coordinators
Explorers And Engineers
The Abbey
The Enemy

Searching the blog discloses one use in Anderson's works of the term, "planetarians."

And that might exhaust references to words or phrases derived from the noun, "planet."