Falkayn On Merseia

How does a single planet appear to its diverse inhabitants or even, hypothetically, to an extraplanetary visitor? A native and a visitor are bound to perceive a planetary environment differently but then so do different inhabitants, e.g., Donald Trump and me on Earth. We might as well be on different planets or at least on different parallel Earths. His is better than mine because it has no climate crisis.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, our first sight of the planet Merseia is through the eyes of David Falkayn. This Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League had appeared in three earlier stories and Merseians had appeared in a few earlier-written Dominic Flandry stories so "Day of Burning," whose action begins with Falkayn confronting Morruchan Long-Ax, Hand of the Vach Dathyr, interconnects originally separate narrative strands, thus making a pivotal contribution to a complex future history series.

Falkayn, like Abrams centuries later, sees the audience chamber of Castle Afon. In both cases, we see Merseian symbols and ceremonial but through the eyes of a human being.

Another One For The Old Phoenix

Poul Anderson's Valeria Matuchek becomes adept at quizzing someone from an alternative history and thus identifying when that history diverged from hers. Thus, she meets a Prince Rupert from a timeline where Shakespeare was the Great Historian, not the Great Dramatist.

"No Reformation" is an obvious potential alternative. In Anderson's Genesis, an AI emulates (consciously simulates) a timeline where the conciliar movement successfully reorganized the Church, thus preventing the Protestant Reformation.

In two sentences, Phillip Pullman makes his contribution to this genre:

"Ever since Pope John Calvin had moved the seat of the Papacy to Geneva and set up the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the Church's power over every aspect of life had been absolute. The Papacy itself had been abolished after Calvin's death, and a tangle of courts, colleges, and councils, collectively known as the Magisterium, had grown up in its place."
-Phillip Pullman, Northern Lights (London, 1996), 2, p. 31.

Naming a great Reformer as Pope is shorthand for: "There was no Reformation in this timeline." The result is theocracy.

Also relevant here, of course, is Part Six of Anderson's The Shield Of Time about two alternative outcomes of the medieval church-state conflict: theocracy or autocracy.

Chereion, The Spiral Arm And A Mistaken Realization (A Bargain Post)

A Circus Of Hells.

Ydwyr confirms that the Chereionites were the Ancients and also uses a familiar phrase:

"'They had a civilization a million years ago that may have reached beyond this galaxy, where we have barely started to burrow about at the end of one spiral arm.'"
-CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 300.

This is the only hint of intergalactic civilization anywhere in the Technic History.

Later, Dominic Flandry has a moment of realization:

"The thought slashed through him. He sat straight with a muttered exclamation. Why didn't that occur to me before?"
-CHAPTER TWENTY, p. 364.

Usually this means that an Andersonian hero is about to solve a problem. Just this once, he creates a problem for himself instead. He has realized that Djana would make an excellent Intelligence agent and suggests this to her. Resenting his attempt to use her, Djana pronounces a curse which, because of her psychic potency, will afflict Flandry in the following volume and again in a later one.

Biblical Language

Poul Anderson not only frequently quotes from the Bible but also sometimes creates Biblically influenced prose passages like:

"He on the throne: 'For that they have sinned beyond redemption, the sin that may not be forgiven, which is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, no more are they My people.
"'Behold, I cast them from me; and I will raise against them a new people under a new sun; and their name shall be Strength.
"'Open now the book of the seven thunders.'"
-A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 304.

Someone might tell us how many and which Biblical quotations are reworked here? These phrases are obviously relevant:

He on the throne;
the sin against the Holy Spirit;
not My people;
cast them from Me;
seven thunders.

In fact, the seven thunders are mentioned but not revealed in Revelation 10.

The occasion of this passage is that Djana, brought up as a Catholic, has been influenced by a Merseian so she imagines a new scriptural passage with the science fictional aspect incorporated in the phrase, "...a new people under a new sun..." 

More Merseians

A Circus Of Hells.

Another maybe disconcerting feature of the Merseians is that their personal pictures and souvenirs:

"...showed a taste more austere and abstract than was likely in a human spacehand."
-CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 268.

Think of human sea hands, then think "...austere and abstract..." Merseians do not just look different.

On board the ship, Flandry thanks Broch (Second Mate) Tryntaf the Tall with the salute of gratitude. On Talwin, he thanks Datholch Ydwyr the Seeker with the salute of honor, insofar as a human being is capable of this. Morioch addresses Ydwyr in the aristocratic-deferential form whereas Ydwyr replies:

"...with the merely polite verbal construction."
-CHAPTER TWELVE, p. 276.

Ydwyr terminates an argument with Morioch by exercising his hereditary right to raise a hand with palm down and strike it on his chest. This suffices to make Morioch bend his head, fold his hands and beg forgiveness, which is usually very unMerseian-like.

When Flandry struggles to address the datholch correctly, Ydwyr reiterates that simple forms of respect will usually suffice in the base on Talwin. A datholch is an aristocratic head of an enterprise to expand the Race's frontiers. Ydwyr's own frontiers are xenological but other datholchs might expand trade, influence, territory etc. When asked to explain his own standing, Ydwyr reverts to the utmost formality. He stands, touches his brow and says, first, that he is of the Vach Urdiolch and, secondly, that:

"'...it is my high honor that a brother of my late noble father is, in the glory of the God, Almighty Roidhun of Merseia, the Race, and all holdings, dominions, and subordinates of the Race.'" (pp. 281-282)

Although Flandry and Djana are seated on the floor, Flandry knows that they should leap to their feet and salute, Djana following Flandry's example. The salutes will have to be devised if and when the series is filmed.

Hands of Vachs and heads of other Merseian states elect the Roidhun from the one landless Vach. He alone stands for the God and the unity of the Race. The Wilwidh Merseians have spared themselves any church-state conflict.

Dominic Flandry: Some Miscellaneous Points

A sword fight between Flandry and Aycharaych:

"The Totentanz went on."
-"Honorable Enemies," p. 297.

On the approach to Talwin:

"And the ship was back under the hidden sun..."
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 273.

Four senses on Talwin:

"He was instantly covered, permeated, not with honest sweat but with the sliminess that comes when humidity reaches an ultimate. Breathing was like drowning.
"Noises came loud to his ears through that dense air: wind, voices, clatter of machines. Odors borne from the jungle were pungent and musky, with traces of sulfurous reek. He saw a building blocky against the clouds, and on its roof a gong to call for prayers to the God of a world two and and half light-centuries hence. The shadowless illumination made distances hard to guage; was that air-conditioned interior as remote as he dreaded?"
- A Circus Of Hells, p. 275.

A shifting pov:

In the opening paragraph of A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER TWELVE, Djana senses anger whereas, in the second paragraph, Flandry, listening to an exchange between two Merseians, does not know what the Eriau title, datholch, signifies. Thus, the point of view has shifted.

Pathetic fallacy:

When the base commandant, Morioch Sun-in-eye, tells the datholch, Ydwyr the Seeker:

"'Let the datholch know this is Junior Lieutenant Dominic Flandry.'
"Silence fell, except for the wind whose rising skirl began to pierce the heavily insulated walls. Ydwyr's gaze probed and probed. Djana whispered frantic, repeated prayers. Flandry felt the sweat slide down his ribs. He needed all his will to hold steady.
"'Yes,' Ydwyr said at last, 'I have heard somewhat about him.'" (p. 278)

So far, Flandry has only the Starkad affair on his record but that is major.

Djana's whispered prayers are audible to Flandry so this time the pov remains his.

As often elsewhere in Anderson's works, the wind seems to comment. Rising wind piercing heavy walls threatens.

The Approach To Talwin

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When traveling through space, the inside of a spaceship becomes very much a "cosmic environment," albeit an artificial one. If, like Dominic Flandry in A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER ELEVEN, you are a human prisoner/passenger in a Merseian destroyer, then the crew themselves become the most obtrusive part of your environment:

larger than human
green
hairless
spined
tailed
in foreign-cut black uniforms
with belted war knives
sharp, dry body odors
and dark whiteless eyes
practicing centuries-old ritual deferences

Pretty frightening to anyone without Flandry's training and experience? He converses politely in Eriau with appropriate salutes.

Approaching Talwin, he sees peaks that dwarf the Himalayas but are naked rock. An extensive swamp informs him that, in winter, the icecap extends to 45 degrees latitude and the glaciers flatten everything whereas, at midsummer, lakes and rivers boil. He travels with aliens towards a frightening environment.

More On Planets

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The previous post lists twelve planets visited in four novels. Also, Therayn is mentioned but not visited in A Circus Of Hells.

Lists of planets might become a feature of these blogs. See:

Planets Of The Long Night
Fully Realized Planets
Fully Realized Planets II

Point of view makes a difference to how any planet is perceived:

in Ensign Flandry, Terra is perceived not by the title character but by Lord Markus Hauksberg when he attends the Emperor's birthday celebration at the Coral Palace;

however, in The Rebel Worlds, young Flandry visits Admiralty Center in the Rocky Mountains;

in Ensign Flandry, Brechdan Ironrede, Hand of the Vach Ynvory, surveys his ancestral domain on Merseia (see Merseian Customs) but that planet is also, very differently, perceived by the young Flandry who has become aide to Commander Abrams of Intelligence. See Merseian Scenery.

There is much scope here for rereading and the studying of details. I had completely forgotten Ysabeau and the unnamed planet in A Circus Of Hells.

Planets In The Young Flandry Trilogy

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Ensign Flandry
Terra
Starkad
Merseia

A Circus Of Hells
Irumclaw
Wayland
Talwin
an unnamed planet
Ysabeau

The Rebel Worlds
Terra
Shalmu
Llynathawr
Aeneas
Dido 

Happy New Year

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We are just back from a party. (The time on this lap top is out of sync with the time here.) Thank you for your attention.

Yesterday, the Poul Anderson Appreciation blog recorded 297 page views although it had no new posts whereas this blog received 33 page views although it had 3 new posts. Later today, I will copy this post and the three from yesterday onto PAA.

This is sheer self-indulgence. I am wallowing in Poul Anderson's Technic History for as long as possible. However, Anderson's texts make it possible to focus on the many details of their narratives and descriptions for a very long time. There is a lot more to post about Dominic Flandry but not right now.