Favourite Chapters And Stories

My favourite chapters in Poul Anderson's Technic History include The Day Of Their Return, 3, and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, III.

In the former, Chunderban Desai converses with:

Uldwyr of the Vach Hallen;

Aycharaych, supposedly of "Jean-Baptiste";

Peter Jowett of the industrial Web in Nova Roma on Aeneas.

In the latter, Dominic Flandry converses with:

the Duke of Mars;

Emperor Hans Molitor;

Chunderban Desai. 

A spectacular cast of characters. I agree with Sean Brooks that A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows could also have included a conversation with an ennobled Leon Ammon, the man whom Flandry had met when he, Ammon, was still a gangster on an Imperial border planet. Future histories include fictional biographies, like those of Falkayn and Flandry, and Ammon would have been a sound addition. 

My favourite Technic History short stories are "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" and "Lodestar" for reasons previously stated. The Technic History is better than good both as a series and as a (large) number of individual narratives.

Present And Future Cities

As mentioned recently, I will be in London from Thursday to Monday otherwise engaged and without a computer. At least, than is the plan. Two recent one-day trips to London had to be cancelled because of ill health and tiredness. Arriving in London, I feel like Miriam Abrams arriving in Archopolis. The diversity of Birmingham feels like a precursor to the diversity of the Terran Empire - although some of us now see multi-species/FTL futures as old-style sf and more akin to fantasy. A friend said that he preferred the old-style stuff like Poul Anderson's Technic History with its hyperspace and multiple aliens to, e.g., Anderson's later Genesis with STL interstellar travel by post-organic intelligences and no aliens but I have to ask which is now more plausible? The number of exoplanets is a hopeful sign: plenty of life in favourable conditions, at least unicellular? Much more can be learned in our lifetimes, provided that we survive, of course.

Connections

We are reconsidering the first five of the fifteen instalments in the Flandry period of Poul Anderson's Technic History and asking which persons or planets introduced in these instalments either reappear or are referenced later in the series. These five instalments are:

Ensign Flandry

A Circus Of Hells

The Rebel Worlds

"Outpost of Empire"

The Day Of Their Return

Ensign Flandry introduces:

Dominic Flandry, series character

Crown Prince Josip

Miriam Abrams, a child in a picture seen by her father but later Flandry's wife

Max Abrams, later remembered by his daughter

the land Starkadians, including Dragoika who reappears in "The Game of Empire"

John Ridenour who reappears in "Outpost of Empire"

Persis d'Io whose son by Flandry appears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows -

- but does not introduce Merseia or the Merseians because:

Falkayn's team had been on Merseia in "Day of Burning";

Merseians had joined the Baburite Space Navy in Mirkheim;

the Merseian Roidhunate is a distant but growing threat in The People Of The Wind -

- or the Terran Empire which:

had been announced in "The Star Plunderer";

is expanding in "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

adjusts its frontier with the Domain of Ythri in The People Of The Wind.

A Circus Of Hells introduces:

the planet Talwin which is mentioned in The Day Of Their Return and reappears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows;

Aycharaych of Chereion although only as mentioned by a Merseian;

D'jana whose psychic power will possibly influence Flandry in The Rebel Worlds and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

The Rebel Worlds introduces:

the planet Dido in the Virgilian System;

Josip now as Emperor although this time off-stage;

Vice Admiral Kheraskov, later mentioned in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows -

- but does not introduce:

The planet Aeneas which had been mentioned in "The Problem of Pain";

the planet Shalmu which had been mentioned in "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

the Ferrans, one of whom had appeared in Satan's World.

"Outpost of Empire" introduces:

the planet Freehold which is later referenced in "The Sharing of Flesh."

The Day Of Their Return, set on Aeneas, introduces:

Chunderban Desai who reappears in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows;

Aycharaych in person, destined to become Flandry's adversary in "Honorable Enemies," "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and to be referenced again in The Game Of Empire;

the Aenean rebels some of whose descendants rejoin interstellar civilization in "Starfog."

That is one massive collection of connections and I have probably missed some.

Galactic Civilizations And Global Conflicts

No posts today until now because we (editorially speaking) have been with Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop. 

 Andrea usually says something blog-relevant. He knows of an sf TV series with the premise that there is about one technological civilization in every twenty or so galaxies but some of them have FTL (faster-than-light space travel). 

Observations:

the FTL must be very F if there is regular intergalactic travel;

are they taking any steps to populate the galaxies?;

Poul Anderson would be able to take that premise and write prose fiction set in that universe;

I am inclined to accept the scarcity of technological civilizations but not FTL.

Andrea's other contribution today: although nothing much is changing internationally right now, we are heading for a major conflict and indeed are already in the first stage of World War III although it is not yet recognized as such - it took a while for 1939-'45 to become a global conflict.

Are we the only intelligences in a vast volume of space and also about to destroy ourselves? 

Poul Anderson wrote a few short dystopias.

Aycharaych Before Or After

Years ago, second-hand bookseller Pete Pinto suggested to Poul Anderson that Dominic Flandry's main adversary, the universal telepath and last surviving Chereionite, Aycharaych, should return but in an Aycharaych novel, not in a Flandry novel. I agreed. Such a novel could have been about Aycharaych's earlier life and, in that case, would not have needed to tell us whether he had survived the Flandry-ordered bombardment of Chereion. But suppose he did survive. What would have happened then? Although he would no longer be motivated to work for Merseia, I accept the combox argument that the bombardment of his home planet would have demotivated him from offering his services instead to Merseia's enemy, the Terran Empire.

Aycharaych's subsequent life would have had to involve some reflection on his earlier career and on the history of Chereion. I still think that a meeting with that student of Ancient artefacts, Axor, would be one possibility although not through the agency of Terran Intelligence.

I cannot imagine sequels. My brain conjures only absurdities, e.g., Aycharaych fleeing outside known space and finding Nicholas van Rijn in suspended animation, which Anderson definitely would not have written. Poul Anderson combined creative imagination with historical plausibility. Although he never showed us the death of any major character, it is a given that such characters are long dead in later periods when others come forward:

van Rijn and Falkayn

Argos

Christopher Holm and Philippe Rochefort

Flandry and Aycharaych

Roan Tom

Daven Laure

(Not a complete list.)

I have stopped writing about Aycharaych because inspiration has dried up.

Emperors And Philosophy

We have discussed Roman Emperors in connection with fiction by Poul Anderson, SM Stirling and others. Julius Caesar had been made a dictator for life and had accepted the titles, "Imperator" and "Father of his Country," and referred to the republic as something that might be restored so why is he not counted as the first Emperor? He is the first of Suetonius' "twelve Caesars." Is it just because his position was not supposed to be hereditary? - which ironically it became precisely because of his assassination.

Fiction dramatizes the philosophical mind-body question although usually we do not notice this because usually we do not philosophize. In Poul Anderson's "The Problem of Pain," the first person narrator informs us that the planet Lucifer has long days - an objective fact - and also that he and his colleague had toiled, sweated, itched, stunk and become grimy and weary through one of those days - a subjective experience.

One objective condition, e.g., the application of heat to a liquid, causes another objective condition, the boiling of the liquid into steam. We observe both conditions. Another objective condition, a neural interaction, causes a subjective event, a sensation. In this case, we can observe the objective condition but not the subjective event. We know of the subjective event because we experience sensations and detect them in others. Someone winces when pricked with a pin. But we do not observe his sensation because that is subjective, not objective. 

Philosophers enquire about the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, two aspects of reality.

What Happens Next?

The Day Of Their Return.

It is revealed that Jaan was a false prophet in a very real sense - technologically possessed by an agent of Merseia - and it is simultaneously announced that Ivar Frederiksen, heir to the Firstmanship of Ilion, who had tried to lead a rebellion, will now make his peace with the occupation forces of the Terran Empire. Will even these two devastating developments be enough to derail the movement for Aenean independence that we have seen gathering momentum throughout this novel? I would not think so. There will be further years of turmoil ahead and we need another novel especially Sector Alpha Crucis is close to the Domain of Ythri and we also want to know what has been happening on Avalon. Poul Anderson's Technic History needed to have been two or three times its finished length. JRR Tolkien said that The Lord Of The Rings was "too short" and I agree - although lengthy, it feels rushed - and the Technic History is definitely too short.

Spiritual Development II

The Day Of Their Return, 7.

Tatiana Thane, just before she mentions duty: 

"'...[Cosmenosists] think reality is always growin' toward what is greater than itself...'" (pp. 129-130)

"...greater..." is mystically vague but she means intensifications or refinements of consciousness. So is reality always growing towards this? Well, no. What has happened so far?

There was an earliest moment with no earlier moments just as there are no points further north than the North Pole. At that earliest moment, condensed energy was released with natural forces that allowed for the emergence of a complex ordered universe rather than a random chaos. Were the forces "fine tuned"? Not by any intelligent being because intelligence had not emerged yet. 

Energized complex molecules changed randomly until one became self-replicating, the first unicellular organism. Chemistry was not "growing toward" biology although presumably a random event would have happened some time. I understand that multicellular organisms are unlikely although they have evolved at least once. Consciousness was an accidental byproduct of natural selection. Organisms were selected for sensitivity. Pleasure and pain, if they were possible, would have survival value. Therefore, sensitivity quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into sensation. 

Now that we are not only conscious but also self-conscious and intelligent, we can decide to work towards the goal of self-development but reality had not been growing towards such an outcome. There might be universes where some of the earlier random events like the fusion of two simple cells into a single complex cell allowing for the emergence of multicellular organisms did not happen.

Now that we are here, we can do something about it but we should not think that preconscious reality had had any inbuilt tendency to work towards us.

Spiritual Development

The Day Of Their Return, 7.

The previous post was cut short by a Sunday walk. What else did Tatiana say? That:

"'...first duty of those who stand highest is to help those lower -'" (p. 130)

That makes sense in her universe where intelligent species are as numerous as snowflakes but not in ours as yet. Ivar Frederiksen later makes the point that the evidence from all those known species indicates that natural selection develops intelligence only so far - and that does seem reasonable. However, spirituality is not just intelligence. It involves psychological and moral development, self-knowledge, insight and wisdom. Surely some species will be further developed spiritually and therefore able to help or guide others? In fact, from his theological perspective, Axor to ask why all those known species are "Fallen." Surely some at least should not have Fallen? Or was there just one cosmic Original Sin for everyone? That seems unlikely but the question only arises from a particular theological perspective. To me, it makes sense that instincts for self-preservation and species-propagation had survival value for conscious species but then became obstacles to spiritual development in intelligent species. Pleasure, pain and consciousness became not "sin" (Biblical terminology) but "greed, hate and delusion" (Buddhist terminology) and can be transmuted into their opposites: nonattachment, compassion and wisdom.

But Tatiana unreasonably expects the Builders to return and liberate everyone. We liberate ourselves. 

Rumours On The Wind

The Day Of Their Return, 7.

Tatiana Thane looks to what she calls the transcendental, not the supernatural, and claims that her Cosmenosis is a philosophy, not a religion. These are words. In fact, with no evidence, she expects the Builders to return and heeds the rumours of a forerunner even though such rumours are, as she acknowledges:

"'...forever driftin' in on desert wind...'" (p. 130)

Of course that wind plays its role!

I would advise Tatiana: continue to practice science and meditation and don't listen to rumours! Consider what you know scientifically about the Builders/Elders/Ancients/Forerunners and their artefacts and go no further than that unless and until you find new evidence as Axor tries to do. He hopes to confirm an explicitly religious belief but Flandry is right to fund his research. Who knows what will turn up? I know the answer to that question: something completely unexpected.

Today is Sunday. Attend church and/or worship/contemplate in the temple of earth and sky.