Memories Of Avalon

It is possible to experience nostalgia within a future history. If we have read Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History in chronological order of fictitious events, then The Earth Book Of Stormgate and The People Of The Wind have preceded The Day Of Their Return. In Day, Erannath of Stormgate Choth on Avalon reminisces about Avalon and we know what he is talking about:

"'As a youth I wandered the whole of Avalon...hai-ha, storm-dawns over seas and snow peaks! Hunting a spathodont with spears! Wind across the plains, that smelled of sun and eternity!...'" (Captain Flandry, Riverdale, NY, 2010, p. 195)

Later, he became a spacehand and we have also read several stories about spacemen earlier in the History. So, quite unexpectedly, a lot that we have previously read gives meaning to this brief conversation between Erannath and Ivar but it is probably quickly forgotten when their conversations are interrupted by the important local figure, "'The High Commander!'" (p. 196) whom they are waiting to meet.

As I have advised before, read everything written by Poul Anderson at least twice. The second time, before turning the page to learn what happens next, pause to appreciate all the descriptive and background details on the current page.

Philosophy

While rereading Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return, I am approaching the exposition of the false philosophy imposed by Aycharaych on the mind of Jaan but, before engaging with a falsehood, it might be helpful to present some, hopefully honest, philosophical reflections based on what has already been said.

Ivar Frederiksen had reflected that:

"It's bleak, believin' in nothin' except accident." (Captain Flandry, Riverdale, NY, 2010, p. 148).

Why bleak? What are the alternatives? "Accident" here does not mean mere randomness which, as a Danellian remarks near the end of The Shield Of Time, would be incapable of generating or sustaining a stable environment. "Accident" means the absence of conscious design. Before the first conscious being capable of designing anything existed, there must have been some unconscious development that generated such beings. Natural selection is an unconscious process although its outcomes can be misunderstood as instances of design. (I have just read some Jehovah's Witness propaganda.)

Organisms were naturally selected for sensitivity to environmental alterations. Again, mere sensitivity, e. g., a plant responding to water and sunlight, is unconscious. However, beyond a certain level of organismic complexity, sensitivity becomes conscious. Thus, organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation. Being became conscious. It follows from this that consciousness is indeed an accidental (unintended, unplanned) side-effect or byproduct of the unconscious process of natural selection but it does not follow from that that consciousness is meaningless in the sense of valueless. We are conscious beings and we value our existence. Indeed, only conscious beings are capable of valuing anything. No value judgement preceded or informed our genesis but none was needed.

Being can be analyzed as an interaction between change and resistance to change, or energy and inertia. The most inert level of interaction is inanimate matter. Life is more dynamic. It resists change (preserves self and propagates species) by change (transformation of inanimate into animate etc). The most dynamic level is human (or superhuman?) consciousness in which qualitatively new aspects of being are continually perceived or created. (I mean that this is what happens when human life is freest and at its most creative.) But, even at that most dynamic of levels, it remains necessary to maintain a material and cultural environment. Thus, resistance to change remains present but is most fully subordinated to novelty and creativity.

Thus, I suggest that the most basic, pre-conscious, cosmic forces are energy and inertia and that fully liberated consciousness is the peak of their spiral development.

Continuing To Reread The Day Of Their Return

Throughout The Day Of Their Return, Poul Anderson consistently maintains the diverse speech patterns of the different Aenean communities. Jao tells Ivar that a long wooden box found floating on the river "'...was one coffin...,'" not "a coffin." (Captain Flandry, Riverdale NY, 2010, p. 169) Gabriel Stewart remembers Tatiana Thane "'...as bold lass...,'" not "as a bold lass." (p. 171) These minute details contribute in small ways to the author's presentation of authentic characters whose multifarious social backgrounds affect their use of Anglic. Tinerans also speak Haisun and the Kuang Shi, riverfolk, speak something else - Chinese?

Anderson makes much more out of Ivar's river journey in this novel than he does of Diana Crowfeather's comparable journey in The Game Of Empire:

"Herding on the Flone was an ideal task...Exertion and alertness kept a person fully alive, while nevertheless letting him enter into that peace, beauty, majesty which was the river." (p. 168)

"'All our dead go down the river...to...the Sea of Orcus.'" (p. 169)

When, after flowing through the lake of the Green Bowl, the stream narrows between cliffs and boulders:

"Water brawled, foamed, spouted off rocks, filled air with an ongoing cannonade..." (p. 177)

The river ends in:

"...its final incredible plunge off the continental rim..." (ibid.)

Two other points to note:

First, events central to an earlier novel are tangential to this one. Gabriel informs Tatiana that some Terran agent had rescued Admiral McCormac's wife and stolen the rebels' codes... Regular readers know who the Terran agent was.

Secondly, the expressions of Aenean religiousness continue to proliferate. Earlier, we saw that one Aenean had rejected heathen talk of Oneness under the Morning Star but then had wondered whether the Aeneans might be God's chosen instrument for cleansing the Empire. Next, another churchgoer combines "Ancients" eschatology with Biblical language when he, with many others, hopes "'...that Elders will come back soon, bearin' Word of God.'" (p. 107)

He asks:

"'Can so many people be entirely wrong? They are many, I'll tell you.'" (ibid.)

Yes, they can be wrong if the cause of their hope is irrational though powerful. Here, the suggestion is that the belief continues to spread because it has already been spreading.

A tineran woman attempts a simple apologetic:

"'...there's got to be High Ones. This much joy can't just have happened.'" (p. 148)

But Ivar has the answer for that:

"Non sequitur, my dear. To us this is beautiful because certain apes were adapted to same kind of weather, long ago on Terra." (ibid.)

- although even he adds: "It's bleak, believin' in nothin' except accident." (ibid.)

There is another tineran non sequitur:

"'Whatever the High Ones are, they're as near godhood as makes no difference.'" (p. 141)

Ivar thinks that that does not follow but also wonders why the belief is almost universal on Aeneas.

The Kuang Shi seek allness, unity and harmony through rites and symbols. Thus:

the River = fate;
the Sun = life;
Moons and Stars = the transhuman;
Ivar Frederiksen = the Aenean leader who will cast out the Terrans and prepare for the promised Advent.

Gabriel Stewart goes further. Ivar is the Aenean leader and Tatiana is his bride who will bear his son that the coming Builders will make more than human. Thus, according to Gabriel (a relevant name), the political and spiritual leaderships of the movement will converge. It feels as though we are in the opening chapters of Luke's Gospel, with the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary.

Who The Ancients Were

Almost everything fits:

the Ancients disappeared;
every planet with Ancient ruins has slinkers;
slinkers are telepathic;
Aycharaych is telepathic;
he is also the last Chereoinite;
he confirms that the Chereionites were the Ancients;
he does not say what made them withdraw.

Well, he would not want to admit that his people had created telepathic pets that were their downfall. (See previous post.) So the questions, "Where did the Ancients go?" and "Where did the Chereoinites go?" have the same answer. And apocalyptic hopes placed in the return of the Ancients are futile. But Axor might nevertheless learn something important by studying their ruins.

What does not fit, as correspondent Sean M. Brooks has pointed out, is this. It was learned on Aeneas that, at close range, Aycharaych can read the mind of any being irrespective of species or language. (Is this even theoretically possible? We must accept it for current story purposes.) Despite this, Dominic Flandry is surprised later in the series to discover the extent of Aycharaych's mental powers. Of course, some explanation of this discrepancy could have been written into the series. Like Shakespeare's scripts, the stories and novels of the Technic Civilization History must ultimately be regarded as unfinished works in progress.

What Happened To The Ancients

We know what happened to the Ancients. At least we know a theory that is sufficient to explain why they disappeared and that will suffice in the absence of any alternative.

The small animals called "lucks" by Aenean tinerans but "slinkers" by the Ythrians are always found on planets where there are Ancient ruins. The Ythrians know that the slinker nervous system is a very well-developed telepathic transceiver, amplifying emotions, thus addicting human beings who, when addicted, can no longer control their emotions. Hence, the psychopathic behavior of the tinerans who keep a "luck" in every wagon. Tinerans know that their volatile temperament differs from that of the sedentary population but do not realize that they are addicted, let alone that their lucks are the cause.

Ythrians theorize that the Ancients developed the slinkers as pets that enhanced pleasurable emotions but that the process caused the Ancients to degenerate and eventually to die, leaving many planets with ruined buildings and surviving slinkers.

This explanation is sufficient and there is no reason to doubt it but it is so understated that we can too easily dismiss it as a speculation and forget about it long before we come to read, in a later volume, of Fr Axor's search for a Christian message or meaning in Ancient inscriptions. Ironically, the tinerans revere Ancient ruins and share the common growing belief that They will return soon whereas a far more likely scenario is that the Ancients died from a cause that is slowly killing the tinerans also.

Later, this novel also answers the question: who (which race) were the Ancients?

Aeneans And The Ancients

The previous post mentioned the tineran shrine, public ceremonies and secret rites. Another aspect of tineran religion is shown when two tinerans pass an Ancient wall and columns, undimmed by age. First, they refer to that ancient star-faring race variously as the Builders, Elders, La-Sarzen or the High Ones. (Another name used on Aeneas is the Old Shen.) Next, the tinerans dismount, kneel, raise arms, chant, rise, cross themselves, spit and hail the ruins while riding away.

They derive the sign of the cross from Christianity although Anderson tells us in his Time Patrol series that it was originally a Mithraic solar symbol. Spitting is a sacrificial act on a dry planet, as in Frank Herbert's Dune. Earlier, one of the tinerans had expressed contempt by making a spitting sound but without wasting water.

Having previously argued that Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History is more convincing and imaginative and better written than Isaac Asimov's more widely known Foundation Trilogy, I will now make exactly the same comparison with Dune. To mention just one difference, both Asimov and Herbert describe powerful cliques cynically manipulating superstitious populations by constructing religions as instruments of social control whereas Anderson clearly understands the inner appeal of religious hope and belief. In the Roman Empire, Saul of Tarsus preached a message that many wanted to hear and Constantine adopted it as a state religion three centuries later. In the Terran Empire, Ancient ruins inspire awe which Aycharaych can then manipulate.

One Aenean tries to think himself towards Oneness - many meditators would comment that thinking is not the way but maybe he uses the word in a different sense? - whereas another denounces that as heathenish talk and trusts in God but then wonders whether the Aeneans are His chosen instruments to cleanse the Empire... The developing Aenean beliefs become more elaborate as the novel proceeds.

Tinerans

In Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return, Ivar Frederiksen spends time among "tinerans" who are like a combination of Gypsies and a traveling circus so we know what to expect from them:

an itinerant life-style;
painted wagons;
draught animals;
colorful clothing;
tricks of the trade;
peculiar customs and linguistic usages;
a particular attitude to outsiders.

Because the novel is set on another planet, the draught animals include stathas and the other domesticated animals include neomoas. Because the planet in question is the dehydrated Aeneas, the tinerans' dogs are skeletal with huge rib cages and water-storing humps. Each wagon has neither a cat nor a caged parrot but a "luck," a small imported organism with a leathery mantle over gray fur, curved pointed ears, needle fangs, three red eyes in a triangle and, it turns out, a parasitic telepathic relationship with its owners.

The tinerans provide yet another parallel with my recent experience of religious traditions. A Traveler woman, addressing a local moot (social gathering of Pagans), told us that she had been brought up in a then living polytheist tradition where men worshiped Herne the Hunter while women worshiped the Moon. I have also been told that, when Carina saw pictures of the Virgin Mary at primary school, she thought that this was just another manifestation of the Goddess. People, including neo-Pagans, with a scholarly knowledge of European Paganism have good reason to believe that no such tradition survived into modern times. So was Carina's childhood religion a rare or even unique case of an unknown unbroken tradition or had it started in modern times, then passed itself off as something older?

In any case, although Aenean city dwellers attend churches, the tinerans have a shrine in a small wagon. The king of a tineran band is its high priest presiding over public religious ceremonies and conducting secret rituals, including fertility rites, with fellow initiates. Anderson, as always, imagines religious divergences in future societies. 

Yet More Details

Slowly rereading a Poul Anderson novel in order to blog about it is an excellent opportunity to appreciate Anderson's attention to detail even more closely than usual. For instance, in The Day Of Their Return, we read that, on the dry planet, Aeneas, the Hedin Freehold is able to engage not only in ranching but also in agriculture because:

the Wildfoss river flows close enough to maintain a water table with a few wells;

wind-driven moisture from the canals, marshes and salt lakes of the Antonine Seabed brings rain two or three times a year.

Whitewashed rammed earth buildings decorated with stone or glass mosaics comprise manse, cottages, barns and workshops around a paved courtyard. Windbreak trees are:

native delphi and rahab;
Terrestrial oak and acacia;
Llynathawrian rasmin;
Ythrian hammerbranch.

The casual reference to Ythri is evocative for regular Anderson readers.

All flowers have had to be imported because Aenean plants never evolved blossoms, their closest approach being a few bright leaves or stalks. When it comes to describing the life and activity of the steading, Anderson presents one of his description-lists, including kinds of people, animals, vehicles, sounds and smells. The animals include stathas. It is explained in a later passage that these green, six-legged, domesticated animals were imported to Aeneas - as, in the previous installment of the Technic Civilization History, to Freehold - from elsewhere just as horses were imported from Earth.

I must have read all of these details before because I have read through the entire novel at least twice but over a long period. Details about the Hedin Freehold were not remembered but are worth recovering.

Introducing Ivar Frederiksen

If we have been reading Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History in chronological order of fictitious events, then we have become accustomed to a continuing character named Dominic Flandry defending the Terran Empire. However, between the Young Flandry Trilogy and the Captain Flandry series, we find two works, "Outpost of Empire" and The Day Of Their Return, featuring sympathetic characters resisting the Empire, although with different outcomes. Thus, this fictitious history begins to resemble real history in terms of ambiguity and complexity.

When we meet Ivar Frederiksen, he leads a group of young Aeneans waiting to ambush Imperial marines. In the generation before mine in these islands, young men waited to ambush Imperial troops. My parentage comes from both sides of that conflict. I was first uninformed, then misinformed, about it. (Truth is the first casualty of any war.) The issues of that war have been left behind to some extent. My present family unit is of mixed Catholic, Protestant and Jewish descent; our neighbors are Muslim; my practice is Buddhist; our meditation group hires a room from the Quakers, whose tradition originated in an earlier period of religious and political upheaval. As Flandry said, the Empire is a melting pot even if it is the pot that is melting.

Although Frederiksen leads his fellow guerrillas to their deaths hundreds of light years from Earth and a thousand years in our future, his struggle does not seem to be very far away. Also, although we have not been told this yet, Aeneas at that time is in a state not only of political turmoil but also of apocalyptic expectation - so, again, there are parallels with our recent and current experience.

Starting The Day Of Their Return

"On the third day he arose, and ascended again to the light."

(Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry, New York, 2010, p. 75)

That is the opening sentence of Anderson's novel, The Day Of Their Return, here collected in Volume V of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga. Anderson writes what reads like a passage of scripture. Over the page:

"'I will grow with you, and you with me, and they with us, until mankind is...received into Oneness...'" (p. 76)

- echoes the Last Supper discourse of John's Gospel.

It is painful to reread this passage, knowing what is to be disclosed about it later in the novel. Aycharaych's guilt is incalculable, Satanic in scope. What could possibly be more reprehensible than cynically to infest a man's mind with a false religion for the sole purpose of initiating a jihad in order to destroy a civilization? Aycharaych does not inflict the tortures of an Inquisitor but his task will be successful precisely to the extent that it does unleash such mayhem and murder across human space.

Aycharaych's noble end, the preservation of his own Chereionite culture, cannot possibly justify such means. His careful fomentation of discord is purely evil precisely because of the care and attention to detail that he invests in it. Originally introduced as a one-off villain merely to give Flandry the problem of how to lie to a telepath, Aycharaych became an infinitely more refined opponent as Anderson developed him further in the later written installments.

He has not yet come on stage in this novel. We are simply witnessing what we will later recognize as his carefully crafted handiwork.