Slavery

"The Sharing of Flesh."

The Allied Planets spaceship, New Dawn, has found an isolated human colony planet where there is:

"...a large slave class." (p. 674)

However:

"...none of the space travelers was unduly shocked. They had seen worse elsewhere." (ibid.)

Furthermore, history might inform them that there had been slaves in two previous interstellar civilizations, the Merseian Roidhunate and the Terran Empire. The Domain of Ythri had phased out slavery with the help of technology from Terran Technic civilization.

The text continues:

"Historical data banks described places in olden times called Athens, India, America." (ibid.)

Thus, in this story by an American sf writer, America is remembered not as a land of the free but as a place where there had been slaves.

A local leader tries to convince a Krakener that his people are civilized. They eat only slaves. 

Concluding Phase

"The Sharing of Flesh."

In this concluding phase of Poul Anderson's Technic History, narrative continuity is provided not by continuing characters or even by surnames recognized across the generations but only by the names of planets that had appeared or in some cases just been mentioned in the background in earlier instalments:

Kraken

Atheia

Lochlann

Neuvameruica

Gwydion

Ifri

Freehold

- and by a few very basic future historical references:

ruins or wreck of empire

Long Night

the dead language, Anglic

However, all of these names and references are rich in connotations for consecutive readers. We are still in the same series as when we had been reading about van Rijn, Falkayn or Flandry.

The historical innovation is the Allied Planets which must have grown out of alliances forged in the two previous instalments.

Violence

In Poul Anderson's Technic History:

"Lodestar" begins as natives of the planet, Tametha, attack Polesotechnic League merchants, including the familiar trader team;

in "A Tragedy of Errors," Roan Tom's spaceship is almost immediately attacked when it arrives on the planet, Nike;

"The Sharing of Flesh" begins with the murder of an extra-planetary visitor by a dweller on the planet, Lokon.

Does Poul Anderson write about violence for the sake of violence? No, although we might get that impression if we read no further. In each case, the violence is an expression of a problem and the ensuing story is about finding the solution to that problem.

Fiction is easier to cope with than life. We are not attacked or killed while reading these stories...

Barriers To Understanding

"The Sharing of Flesh" is included in three Technic History collections:

The Long Night

The Night Face and other stories

Flandry's Legacy

Of these, I possess only The Long Night and Flandry's Legacy. This story has no introduction in Flandry's Legacy. The story is set long after Hloch - fictitiously - compiled The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Therefore, it not only does not have but also could not have had any introduction composed by Hloch.

Like Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, The Long Night includes italicized interstitial passages composed not by the author of the stories, Poul Anderson, but by Andersonian scholar, Sandra Miesel. The short paragraph that immediately precedes "The Sharing of Flesh" could serve as an introduction both to The Night Face and to "The Sharing of Flesh."

After referring to "...rediscovery expeditions during the next four centuries...," Miesel comments:

"Time and again, these contact teams would find that simple ignorance was the least of the barriers to mutual understanding."

-Sandra Miesel IN Poul Anderson, The Long Night (New York, 1983), p. 202.

Strangers And Moru

Poul Anderson, "The Sharing of Flesh" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 661-708.

"...the tall strangers..." (p. 663) have demonstrated guns although not audiovisual transmitters to their local guides which implies that the strangers are extra-planetarians and that the guides are either non-humans or inhabitants of a human colony planet cut off from interstellar contact during the Long Night. In fact, they turn out to be the latter. 

This story, like many others, opens with the point of view of a particular character, in this case an individual named "Moru," rather than an exposition by a distanced narrator, e.g.:

"As far as we know - but how much do we really know, in this one corner of this one galaxy which we have somewhat explored? - Avalon was the first planet whereon two different intelligent species founded a joint colony."

-Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 293-306 AT p. 295.

- which raises questions like "Who are 'we'?," "How much time has elapsed between the events narrated and their narration?" etc.

In each of these stories, something matters to someone.

Orion And Kraken

Real people and fictional characters see the stars. Science fictional characters sometimes travel between them. We inhabit the same universe but on different scales. James Bond saw the Milky Way and the North Star, here. Next, in Dr No, Chapter XIV, he sees Orion, a name to conjure with.

Then, in Chapter XVIII, he fights and kills a giant squid which he identifies as:

"...the mythical kraken..."

Dr No, XVIII, p. 163. (See above link.)

See:

"The Giant Squid, The Mythical Kraken"

Kraken

Fighting The Kraken

The Sunken City Of Averorn

Looting Averorn

Thus, Bond connects with a work of fantasy by Poul Anderson.

The problem planet, Gwydion, is referred back to, in authentic future historical style, in the following Technic History instalment but not in any way that continues its history. Do other planets quarantine Gwydion or just avoid contact during Bale time?

THE NIGHT FACE Conclusion

The Night Face, XII.

This is the concluding chapter. When we know from previous readings how the story ends, we can reread more carefully to appreciate the build-up. There is dawning horror before the explanation.

Raven retells a myth about the Sunsmith as:

"'...a harbuck with silver horns.'" (p. 650)

I can find "Harbuck" only as a surname.

Mythic languages involves affirmation of identities:

"'Night Faces are Day Faces are God!'" (p. 649)

"'...a youth killed a bull, and the Bull was the Sun and the Man.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 55-112 AT 7, p. 92.

Does Raven distract the mob from Elfavy? Does he escape?

Next: the return of Orion. But first I have business in town.

Feeling It

The Night Face, X.

Elfavy, setting off to the Holy City for Bale time, stops to talk to Raven. When two people converse, three factors are involved, in this case:

Elfavy's perception of the world;

Raven's perception of the world;

the world.

Elfavy makes the common mistakes first of identifying her perception of the world with the world and, secondly, of thinking that Raven's perception must be identical to hers:

"'...it's impossible that you can't feel it! God is here already, everywhere. I see Vwi shining from you, Raven!'" (p. 637)

I have no doubt that Elfavy sees something beyond her usual perceptions shining from Raven. I do not visualize but, like many others, I have felt something. The immediate question is whether the word, "God," is appropriate. That word has many meanings. I knew someone who used it aggressively. Thus, "It's what God [shouted] wants!" (I think that that counts as taking the Name in vain.)

Decades ago, I was present went the guru, Sri Chinmoy, addressed a public meeting. Like, I think, most people present, I saw and heard an Indian man chanting, then speaking. A few saw other things. One saw a shimmering canopy above Chinmoy's head and - bright colours; I forget the details. If I were to encounter someone like Chinmoy now, then I might just possibly be open to seeing more than I did then. Such experiences need to be recorded, studied and interpreted. We are only just beginning. Poul Anderson imagines future seekers.

The Mystery On Gwydion

The Night Face, IX.

The Gwydiona have scientific research, artistic innovations, engineering projects and philosophers and are eager for interstellar contact yet they do not investigate legends of subterranean creatures or forest skulkers that might be evidence for the existence of hidden natives which in turn could explain damage done to towns during Bale time as well as the mystery of why some of the Gwydiona themselves do not return from the Holy City after Bale time. The damage to towns has significantly decreased in recent years and this is cited as a reason why there is little incentive to study the problem! But what of the Gwydiona who fail to return? That still happens.

Are no scientific researchers curious or concerned? What do the philosophers do? Read Plato and Aristotle or try to understand the world around them? Scientists and philosophers have served obscurantist regimes...

House Of Philosophers

The Night Face, IX.

On Gwydion, the grounds of the House of Philosophers include picnic grounds and a carousel because it is good for philosophers to have contact with children and also because the children might acquire some "'...respect for knowledge...'" (p. 627)

Should there be professional philosophers? If things had gone differently at an earlier stage and also if I had been ambitious in that direction, I would have become a full-time academic philosopher but would that have been a good move in terms of personal development or of anything else? The idea of sitting in an office and discussing not practical matters but conceptual questions strikes me as bizarre. There is too big a social chasm between between manual and intellectual work, as I know from having done both. 

I suggest that anyone who thinks that he will want to philosophize should study an introduction to that subject but should also train for some other kind of work and not necessarily just teaching. Philosophical reflection needs to be grounded in practical experience. Any gathering of philosophers needs to include individuals with knowledge of the sciences, industry, social professions, literature etc. A House of Philosophers should be a place where many people go at different times, not an ivory tower for an intellectual elite - what CS Lewis identified as "the intelligentsia."