The Expansion Of The Terran Empire Since Manuel I

(i) Partnership, e.g., the Cynthians found it advantageous to join.
(ii) Purchase.
(iii) Exchange.
(iv) Conquest of primitives or of weaker powers.

The Empire controls a sphere 400 light-years across and has contact with several thousand systems whereas the Domain of Ythri is about 80 light-years across and has contact with just 250. This makes the Domain more compact and a worthy opponent of Greater Terra, Tabitha thinks.

Hasty breakfast post. Unfortunately, I must go out to participate in a conflict local to these islands.

Fair winds forever.

Choths And Change

In "Wingless," the Weathermaker Choth is a single extended household but that is at a time when only the Hesperian Islands have been settled. Weathermaker is on Trauvay/Wingland.

Centuries later, mainland choths number their members in at least the thousands. Only the Oronesian archipelago, stretching from above the Tropic of Spears to near the Antarctic Circle and supporting a distinct ecology, has choths comprising single households whose younger children are expected to found new and independent societies. Just as eccentrics became extrasolar colonists, Avalonian eccentrics can go to Oronesia.

We are not told what became of Weathermaker. Maybe it is still on Trauvay? - although most of its descendants will have moved to the mainland of the Coronan continent.

Tabitha Falkayn/Hrill is a third generation human member of Highsky Choth which is large, occupying several Oronesian islands.

I went looking for the earlier meeting between Arinnian and Hrill and was struck by the difference in scale between Weathermaker and the typical choths of the later period. It is impossible to browse through The People Of The Wind without finding something to post about but it is getting late here and tomorrow will be busy with other matters.

Planha Greetings And Birds

We are not told the sounds in Planha but a polite greeting and the response are:

"'Good flight to you...'"

- and:

"'And to you, good landing...'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT VI, p. 505.

Do we hear a few syllables of Planha when Arinnian says:

"'Hoy-ah! Voda, ekh-hirr.'" (ibid.)?

A film sound track would have to present Planha dialogue with English sub-titles. Also Eriau etc. A film would also have to show Ythrians communicating with their bodies and feathers, not just with sounds. Hrill makes a point, obvious when pointed out, about human members of choths:

"'...we birds have gotten pretty good at picking up face and body cues.'" (p. 510)

Chapter VII begins with Admiral Cajal. I want more of Arinnian and Hrill.

Insectoids, Fluoroglobes And Narcobraziers

Arinnian and Hrill travel by taxibug, then gravshaft, to the rooftop of the Nest:

"Unwalled, the tavern was protected from rain by a vitryl canopy through which, at this height, stars could be seen regardless of the electric lunacy below."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT VI, p. 505.

We read the "lunacy" on p. 500:

"(GROG HARBOR, DANCE, EAT, GENUINE TERRAN SENSIES, FUN HOUSE, SWITCH TO MARIA JUANAS, GAMBLING, NAKED GIRLS, LOANS, BUY...BUY...BUY...)"

Avalonians are either human or Ythrian. Human Avalonians will be attracted by anything that is genuinely Terran.

"Thunderheads piled in the east, and a rank breeze carried the mutter of the lightning that shivered in them." (p. 505)

Thunderheads and lightning are seen. The breeze is felt and smelled. The mutter is heard. Thus, four senses in one sentence.

"Insectoids circled the dim fluoroglobe set on every table." (ibid.)

We are grateful that the narrator refers to "insectoids," not to "insects," on an extrasolar planet.

"Business was sparse..." (ibid.)

War is imminent.

"...a few shadowy forms perched on stools..." (ibid.)

"...forms..." because the clientele may be human or Ythrian. The latter perch.

"...before glasses or narcobraziers..." (ibid.)

I googled "narcobraziers" and found this passage on-line. Braziers emitting narcotic fumes?

"...a service robot trundling about, the recorded twangs of a steel harp." (ibid.)

Robots, standard sf props, remind us which genre we are reading.

Internal Terminological Consistency

Sometimes, an sf story set in a future society introduces terminology specific to that society. For example, in Star Trek:

"transporter" means "teleporter";

"Star Date" means a way of avoiding saying when anything is happening.

The ground vehicles in Centauri are called "groundbugs." A few pages later, Arinnian and Hrill:

"...took a taxibug to the Nest..."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT p. 505.

We have become accustomed to flying taxis or "aircabs" in Poul Anderson's works and in other sf. In fact, sometimes we are surprised when a future vehicle stays on the ground. However, it becomes clear that this taxibug is also a groundbug when we read the whole sentence:

"They took a taxibug to the Nest, which was the tallest building in the city, and a gravshaft to its rooftop since neither had brought flying gear." (For the reference, see above.)

Thus, Anderson remains consistent first in calling the local vehicles "bugs" and secondly in keeping them grounded. This might be the only time these vehicles are mentioned. Nevertheless, we get the impression that Anderson has created a complete environment including details that we are not told in this narrative, such as the design of these particular vehicles.

And here is a sentence that concretizes Avalon as an inhabited environment:

"Morgana was sinking toward the western bottomlands, though it still silvered river and Gulf." (ibid.)

As with Poul and Karen Anderson's Ys, we feel that we have been there.

I am on a roll with the Technic History and with a particular period of it so I will see if we can stay with Avalon for a while longer.

After The Chaos

Futuristic fiction and concern about the real future are two sides of a single coin. I want this blog to last but it will not if our civilization goes under in this century.

Poul Anderson's Technic civilization comes after:

"The Chaos..."
-Poul Anderson, "The Saturn Game " IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 1-73 AT III, p. 26.

The new civilization arises because:

"...early industrial operations in space offered the hope of rescuing civilization, and Earth, from ruin..."
-ibid., II, p. 6.

This includes "...the burgeoning of wholly new industries..." within orbiting O'Neill colonies.
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT IX, p. 139.

Will this happen after our current Chaos?

Kilts In Future Histories

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, unaccountably, men wear kilts.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, when Arinnian and Hrill walk along Livewell Street:

"Both wore thin short-sleeved blouses, kilts, and sandals..."
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT VI, p. 501.

How many readers notice and remember this detail? We do not expect the hero and heroine of a novel to be dressed identically. I hope that, if and when the Technic History comes to be filmed, such details will be accurately reproduced on screen.

They are surrounded by oily canal, dingy facades, glaring signs, ground vehicles, diverse pedestrians and polluted air. Arinnian thinks that:

"'...this is the old way, that the pioneers wanted to escape.'" (ibid.)

- whereas Hrill replies that Falkayn and his followers wanted nothing but:

"'...unmolested elbow room.'" (ibid.)

A colloquial phrase for freedom.

Arinnian And Hrill

We left Arinnian and Hrill walking by the oily canal in Livewell Street. See here. Each is a human member of a different choth.

Star Trek at its best brings out the differences between human and Vulcan mentalities. Thus, a Vulcan appointed to a responsible post should have won the appointment on his merits and therefore should not need to thank anyone who had recommended him for it. Nevertheless, a particular Vulcan observes the human custom by thanking Admiral Kirk, especially since Spock has told him that this human being is particularly worthy of respect. See Admiralty.

Similarly, Poul Anderson differentiates between human and Ythrian mentalities. Arinnian reflects:

Hrill has just asked him a very personal question;
that is an insult;
alternatively, it is an endearment between the closest friends...;
but she is probably just thinking human again!

No surprise: they are both human. Hrill/Tabitha Falkayn suggests that they speak Anglic because they lack the feathers for the proper use of Planha.

Arinnian/Christopher Holm cannot relax around "bird" women because he expects them to emulate (what he sees as) the purity of Ythrian females who have to be on heat for sex. See Arinnian's Problem.

I like the Avalonian environment and might stay with it for a while.

Details And Connections

I have said this often before but it never fails to impress me that Poul Anderson's Technic History is rich in imaginative details and internal interconnections at every level both when its future historical narrative spans vast volumes of space and many millennia and when it is condensed into compact short stories that can be read and enjoyed without any reference to the rest of the series.

Vast Volumes And Many Millennia
There is interplanetary exploration in the opening installment, "The Saturn Game," which introduces the Jerusalem Catholic Church, significant later, and nebular exploration in the concluding forty third installment, "Starfog," which summarizes much of the intervening history in a few sentences. In that concluding story, the rebellion of The Rebel Worlds is long forgotten but some of its remote consequences are encountered. The planet, Vixen, colonized from Earth, has founded a colony, New Vixen. The human race, long confined to a spatial volume four hundred light-years in diameter, has now spread through several spiral arms of the galaxy although not yet operating on the Galactic scale implied by the introduction to "The Star Plunderer."

Compact Short Stories
The History is enriched by the inclusion of several juvenile short stories written for particular markets and not belonging to either of the two major sub-series. For example, the dinosaur-like Wodenite, Adzel, would have entertained us as an alien student on Earth in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" even if we knew nothing of his later contributions as a member of the trade pioneer crew founded by Nicholas van Rijn and led by David Falkayn.

I wrote here that The Earth Book Of Stormgate ends with two short stories about the colonization of the planet, Avalon, but this description does not do justice to these stories. Each dramatizes a moral without preaching or lecturing.

The first, "Wingless," set during the period when human beings and Ythrians had colonized the Avalonian islands and were beginning to plan the settlement of the Coronan continent, mentions David Falkayn and features both his son, Nicholas, and his grandson, Nathaniel - "Nat" being the juvenile hero of the story;

the second, "Rescue on Avalon," set during the inter-species division of Corona, introduces the Stormgate Choth and features an ancestor of Daniel and Christopher Holm.

You do not need me to tell you that Christopher Holm will marry a Falkayn and write parts of the Earth Book.

"When an Ythrian did, now and then, have business in Chartertown, it was apt to be with [Nat's] grandfather David, or, presently, his father Nicholas: certainly not with a little boy."
-Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), pp. 409-434 AT p.411.

Does this sentence imply that David is dead by now?

An Extended Earth Book

It is Sunday 1 December, 2019, which would have been a science fictional date when I started reading sf in the 1950s, and addressing a world-wide audience on a computer screen would have been a science fictional activity back then. I am drinking coffee after breakfast and will drive my daughter and granddaughter, Aileen and Yossi, to watch birds on Morecambe Bay.

Having been sideways in time with SM Stirling's Black Chamber, we may now, in the company of Poul Anderson, move either back through time to the Eastern Roman Empire or forward to the period of the Terran Empire. But, since space is big, we are able to visit the Domain of Ythri as well as the Empire. Of course, we will move both backward and forward in time over the next few days.

Three of Anderson's novels:

Conan The Rebel;
The Dancer From Atlantis;
The Golden Slave -

- are set BC whereas the rest are AD. At school, a Latin teacher told us that, between the years 1 BC and 1 AD in our calendar, there was a single unnumbered year, Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord, but the Wikipedia article states that this is not the case. See here. (This makes a year's difference to the life of anyone who was born BC but died AD.) Other calendars do have a year zero, which I think is illogical. We count distances from zero but items, including years, from one.

I regard Volumes I-III of The Technic Civilization Saga as an extended Earth Book. (Scroll down.) The Earth Book Of Stormgate ends with:

"Lodestar," about the planet Mirkheim;
Hloch's note about the war for Mirkheim and its aftermath;
two short stories about the colonization of Avalon.

Saga, Volume II ends with "Lodestar."

Volume III comprises:

Mirkheim, about the war for Mirkheim;
Hloch's note as above;
the two stories about Avalon as above;
two stories showing the founding and early period of the Terran Empire;
The People Of The Wind which describes the Terran War on Avalon and provides the background for the Earth Book.