The Second Empire II

"Flight to Forever."

See:

The Second Empire

Five First Empires

The New Empire

The Dreamer, a member of the Vro-Hi species:

"'...was working further on the philosophical basis which the Second Empire must have.'" (pp. 211-212)

In our history, no one worked out the philosophical basis for a civilization, then built the civilization! Plato and Hegel understandably but mistakenly thought that ideas preceded realities. In reality, people worked to survive, then produced a surplus which supported more complex societies in which a minority had the leisure to philosophize. Thales and the other pre-Socratics theorized about the constituents of matter and nature but Socrates preferred to analyze concepts and his disciple, Plato, made the mistake of thinking that concepts or "Ideas" were primary whereas the manual labour of slaves which fed Greek aristocrats and philosophers was secondary.

Later theorists analyzed, rationalized and criticized the material/economic basis of their society, e.g., Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Maybe a Vro-Hi philosopher can conceptualize in advance of the building of a new society but, if so, he can do this only on the basis of all that has gone before on Earth and elsewhere.

The Time Traveller And Martin Saunders

HG Wells' Time Traveller spends time with Eloi and Morlocks in 802,701 AD, then embarks on the Further Vision before returning to the nineteenth century.

Poul Anderson's Martin Saunders spends time with Taury the Red and the Galactic Empire in 50,000 AD, then is sent on the Flight without End before returning to the twentieth century. 

The two narratives have structural similarities. Anderson is a Wellsian sf writer and acknowledges Wells in There Will Be Time.

This was a last minute thought before setting off for routine Saturday afternoon city centre activities.

Ad futurum.

Self Mastery

"Flight to Forever."

In 4300 AD, Martin Saunders contemplates:

"...the far suns that man had conquered without mastering himself." (p. 189)

"...without mastering himself..." reads like an unexamined cliche. Is it just a given that man can master his environment but not himself? In Anderson's own Psychotechnic History, methods of self-knowledge and self-control are developed. In his Brain Wave, intelligence gains control of instinct. Moves in this direction have already been made in Saunders' timeline. In 4100 AD:

"'...the Council will probably order your temporal deportation as unintegrated individuals. The sanity of Sol will be in danger otherwise.'" (p. 186)

"They even pleaded Belgotai's case to the Solar Council, via telescreen. But the answer was inexorable: the Galaxy already had too many barbarians. The travelers would have to go." (p. 187)

In 50,000 AD, the Dreamer offers to remove the time travellers' neuroses but Belgotai declines.

Self mastery is possible.

3100-50,000 AD

"Flight to Forever."

In several periods, Saunders and Belgotai do not pause long enough to have any adventure.

3100 AD radioactivity.

3200 AD a vitrified, lifeless crater.

3500 AD, and centuries afterward, forest.

4100 AD a College with a psychophone (translator).

4300 AD merchants' children's playground.

4400 AD space barbarians sacking a villa.

5000 AD projector trapped inside a massive construction until -

25,296 AD Galactic Empire.

26,000 AD the pyramid has become a wooded hill.

27,000 AD agricultural village.

28,000 AD men quarrying the pyramid.

30,000 AD a stone city.

31,000 AD Solar Matriarchy.

34,000 AD devastated city.

35,000 AD peasants.

36,000 AD mercenaries hired to protect Earth.

50,000 AD when the time travellers do spend time and make a difference

- but, as I often wind up saying, no more tonight!

Linguistic And Other Changes

"Flight to Forever."

Would Saunders and Belgotai be mutually comprehensible with a gap of a thousand years between them? 

We are told how English has changed:

Belgotai has a slurring accent although it becomes easier to follow with practice;

vowels sound different;

consonants have been modified;

"r" is more like twentieth century French or Danish;

foreign words, especially Spanish, have been incorporated.

"Chronning," chronology, has also changed. Belgotai does not recognize "nineteen seventy-three." 

"...modern chronology dated from the ascension of John Mteza I." (p. 180)

- because the late twenty-seventh century Planetary League and African Dissenters had ended the earlier Armageddonist/Fanatic rule.

Some of this sounds like (a different version of) Poul Anderson's first future history series, the Psychotechnic History.

Onward.

Comrades And Companions

Although Poul Anderson's "Flight to Forever" is a pulp magazine story, it is peppered with some short but memorable reflective passages, e.g., a paragraph that begins:

"Men lived in their own times..." (p. 182)

- which we have previously quoted in full at least twice in:

Flight To Forever

A Brief Flash Of Light

In 3000 AD, it is known that time travel occurs at least futureward. There was even a Time War when an army defeated in the twenty-third century had attacked the twenty-fourth! Belgotai of Syrtis, an unemployed mercenary, has never time travelled but has developed a cavalier attitude to the concept. He asks "Mahtin Saundahs" to carry him forward to:

"'...some time when a free comrade can fight again.'" (p. 181)

Meanwhile, he will be a good companion:

"'...Ih'll help. Ih'm a good man wid a gun or vibrodagger. Yuh can't go batting alone into de future.'" (ibid.)

Does a time traveller need a companion? The Time Traveller finds Weena in 802,701 AD but she does not, and indeed would not have been able to, accompany him on the Time Machine. Saunders loses Sam but gains Belgotai but must brave the furthest future alone. The Doctor must have at least one companion, however implausible. They just have to entertain a TV audience. Let's leave it at that.

Prefigurement

"Flight to Forever."

Sometimes an early passage in a fictional narrative prefigures later developments although a first-time reader cannot be aware of this, e.g.:

"At that rate, they had enough energy to travel to the end of the world.

"Eve, Eve, I'll come back. I'll come back if I have to go ahead to Judgment Day...." (p. 172)

In fact, Saunders will return to Eve by travelling through "Judgment Day" and beyond.

Similarly:

"'Marlowe to the contrary, misery does not love company.'

"Baring his teeth, Baines said, 'We'll see about that.'"

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 336.

The first speaker is the black magician, Theron Ware. Later, Baines will commission Ware to release a host of major demons from Hell for an entire night, thus unleashing nothing less than Judgement Day. (The sequel is entitled The Day After Judgement...)

But only on rereading do we appreciate the significance of Saunders' and Baines' remarks.

Temporal Agents

Poul Anderson wrote a historical sf series about agents of the Time Patrol. Robert Heinlein wrote a single sf short story about a temporal agent of the Temporal Bureau.

Each of us is a temporal agent of the eternal. By the eternal, I mean that which is, the single mass-energy, spacetime totality which has at least four internal dimensions and is conscious of itself through us. A temporal agent is someone who acts in time. Time is the only medium in which anyone can act unless, maybe, the existence of everything is regarded as a single transtemporal act.

Temporal agents do not need to be time travellers although we sometimes imagine and read about them. We will probably return to Anderson's "Flight to Forever" later today.

The Other Time Travellers

"Flight to Forever."

"'Time travelers!' Vargor's intense blue eyes widened. 'I heard of such things once, but - time travelers!'" (p. 203)

So there have been others.

"'The Ixchulhi made such structures on planets they conquered, no one knows why. But then, no one knows where they went, or where they came from, or where they ultimately went. It is hoped that some of the answers may be found in the pyramids.'" (p. 194)

Maybe time travellers persuaded the conquerors to move ahead in time?

Earth in 50,000 AD is colder than geology can account for:

"There had been a weapon used which consumed atmospheric carbon dioxide." (p. 208)

Again, maybe time travellers were involved in that war. They might have saved Earth from being made completely uninhabitable.

Since they can travel pastward for a maximum of seventy years, they are bound to attempt causality violation but we do not know the results.

Disappearing Characters

"Flight to Forever."

The opening pages, set in 1973, introduce four characters but two, Eve and MacPherson, do not reappear until the concluding paragraph and one, Sam Hull, is killed very soon in 2500! Martin Saunders gains another time travelling companion, Belgotai of Syrtis, in 3000 AD but Belgotai is left behind in 50,000 AD. Saunders must proceed alone around the circle of time before he can rejoin Eve and MacPherson in 1973 right at the end. The other main characters that Saunders interacts with, principally Taury, he encounters in 50,000 AD.

Another time traveller with changing companions, although on a much larger scale, is the Doctor. Doctor Who fans should read The Time Machine and "Flight to Forever" just as Star Trek, Dune and Foundation fans should read Poul Anderson's Technic History. Everything that they like is done better here.