Time Lag

Poul Anderson, "Time Lag" IN The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson (Framingham, MA, 2009), pp. 241-265.

Traditionally, Rome was founded in 753 BC. Some Roman historians counted years AUC, Ab Urbe Condita, "From the Founding of the City." Poul Anderson's "Time Lag" is divided into five sections headed:

522 Anno Coloniae Conditae 
538 A.C.C.
553 A.C.C.
569 A.C.C.
584 A.C.C.

Thus, the narrative covers sixty two years of the human colony on the extra-solar planet Vaynamo which has thirty hour days and natural equivalents of elves.

The Alfavala:

live in nests;
are "...wild little folk...," flitting and twittering, with glowing eyes (p. 241);
have "...long ears, flat nostrils, feathery antennae...green hair..." (p. 242);
either keep to the forests or serve men like dogs;
can speak a few words and use simple tools;
are more animal than rational;
are safe to be with because sensitive to danger;
but not essential to the story -

- and, although I have read "Time Lag" at least twice, I had completely forgotten these Vaynamoan natives until I reread the opening passage in The Collected Short Works.

Dare And "Time Lag"

Sleeping brains process data. I awoke aptly associating Anderson's "Time Lag" and another sf work. In Dan Dare's first interstellar story, the war-like Phants periodically attacked the peaceful Crypts who appealed to Earth for help. During Dare's ten year absence, his old enemy, the Mekon, conquered the Solar System with "The Reign of the Robots" but kept Dare's colleagues in suspended animation although not, as I assumed at the time, for Dare's benefit!

In "Time Lag," the humanly colonized planets, Chertkoi and Vaynamo, are fifteen light years apart but the Chertkoians, able to accelerate spaceships instantly to near light speed, attack Vaynamo three times at thirty year intervals. However, unlike the Crypts, the Vaynamoans know how to fight back. With three decades to prepare, they annihilate the Third Expedition.

"Time Lag"

Poul Anderson, "Time Lag" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories (London, 1977), pp. 112-144.

"The Faun" does not refer to the Terrestrial Directorate but does not contradict it either. It and the two stories that do refer to the Directorate are set in periods when people from Earth make round trips to nearby extra-solar planets whereas "Time Lag" is set in a period when planets much farther away have been colonized for centuries.

The opening section is set on the planet Vaynamo in the year 522 Anno Coloniae Conditae.

Comments
Googling "Vaynamo," I find references only to this text.

The ACC calendar is named after AUC.

We do not (yet) know how long a Vaynamoan year is but we may infer that 522 years is a long time.

The viewpoint character has married into a family that has held a Freehold for nearly two hundred years.

Whereas Rustum has a Swift and a Smoky River, Vaynamo has a Swiftsmoke River.

Old Sol is said to be a thousand parsecs away.

The Directorate will not still exist even if we are still in that timeline.

"Time Lag": Conclusion

Having reread to the end of "Time Lag," we have to check how much we have already posted about it. Quite a lot:

Resistance

The Decisive Battle

Dare And "Time Lag"

Interstellar Diversity

This single story is a miniature future history in its own right whether or not we think that we can connect it with other interstellar stories by Poul Anderson.

Anderson imagines humanity out in the universe and we want to read more. Future history will not all be as violent as this conflict between Vaynamo and Chertkoi but Anderson wrote good military sf and this story is one example.

Where to next?

Time And Poul Anderson

I said here that time is important in Poul Anderson's works but that is an understatement.

Time Travel

We need hardly list these titles yet again: six volumes, including an omnibus collection.

Time Dilation

Tau Zero

Starfarers

The Kith short stories

The Rustum History

"Time Lag" (and here)

The Boat Of A Million Years

We hardly notice the time dilation in Boat because the characters are immortal and do not return home. Nevertheless, time dilation as well as immortality helps them on their slower than light interstellar journeys.

History

historical fiction

historical science fiction (time travel; immortality)

future histories

lessons from history applied in individual stories

alternative histories

Immortality

World Without Stars

Boat (as above)

Anderson covers the past as much as the future.

A.C.C.

See "Time Lag."

"Time Lag" is divided into five sections with the headings -

522 Anno Coloniae Conditae:
538 A.C.C.:
553 A.C.C.:
569 A.C.C.:
583 A.C.C.:

Thus:

sixty one years elapse;

our time dilated heroine begins the story as a young mother but concludes her interstellar adventures as a great-grandmother;

this installment of a future history, if that is what it is, is also a miniature history in itself.

Again, there is a hint of fantasy when the human viewpoint character, Elva, stays overnight in a nest of the small, long-eared, native Vaynamon "Alfavala." But the story is relativistic hard sf. 

The Ultrawave Series

If a series is more than one work, thus at least two works, then maybe I have found an "ultrawave series" by Poul Anderson. "Earthmen, Beware!" and "The Star Beast" depend on different applications, mental and technological, of an "ultrawave," which is very similarly described in both stories although I have found one difference:

"'The important thing is that these effects are transmitted with no measurable time lag...'"

("Earthman, Beware!" IN Anderson, Alight In The Void, 1993, pp. 29-60, AT p. 46)

"The transmitter field was generated. At the speed of light, Harol flashed around the world..."

("The Star Beast" IN Alight In The Void, pp. 61-102, AT p. 66)

However, maybe the superhuman Joel Weatherfield detected a deeper level of the ultrawave? According to his account, which mostly matches "The Star Beast":

ultrawave radiation is unrelated to electromagnetism;

vibrating energy fields produce detectable effects without time lag in similar apparatuses elsewhere (this sounds like James Blish's instantaneous Dirac transmitter);

in order to attract his people to Earth, the stranded alien Joel broadcasts pulses representing stars, with intensity standing for absolute brightness and time separation standing for distance;

however, receiving no reply, he realizes that he must instead use his telepathy which turns out to be another part of the ultrawave spectrum.

There is more but it is proving difficult to unravel at nearly midnight so further discussion of the ultrawave will have to be postponed till a later post.

Planets And Timelines

Poul Anderson, "The Queen of Air and Darkness" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness and other stories (New York, December 1973), pp. 3-49.

Poul Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness" is definitely the ninth and last instalment in his Rustum future history series whereas the same author's "Time Lag" is much more tentatively and speculatively - although I might be alone in suggesting this - the concluding instalment of a considerably shorter and diffuser "Directorate" future history series. What these two stories have in common is that each is set in a future period when enough time has elapsed that human beings, travelling in slower-than-light spaceships, have colonized several extra-solar planets and there is also some travel between the colonies although there is no longer any contact with Earth. In "Time Lag," at least in the volume of space where the action occurs, Earth is simply too far, a thousand parsecs, away whereas, in "The Queen...":

"Earth has long ago sunk into alien concerns." (p. 10)

That fits with what we are told in the Rustum stories. 

One of the reasons why people had left Earth was to preserve:

"...constitutional government..." (p. 6)

We remember the Constitutionalists on Rustum.

Eric Sherrinford says that birds big enough to carry a small child a short distance:

"'...do exist on Beowulf - and on Rustum, I've read.'" (p. 15)

This confirms that Roland and Rustum exist in the same timeline although, having said that, a fictional planet can, like Earth, Mars etc, exist in alternative timelines:

in James Blish's "A Case of Conscience," later adapted and expanded as A Case Of Conscience, Book One, the planet Lithia exists in 2049;

in Blish's "Seeding Program," near future events on Earth differ from those recounted in "A Case of Conscience" and Lithia is not mentioned;

in Blish's "Watershed," set millennia after "Seeding Program," Lithia exists;

in A Case Of Conscience, Book Two, Lithia is destroyed in 2050.

I think that this makes sense. Lithia plays a major role in A Case... and a minor role in "Watershed" and, in each case, its fate, whether imminent destruction or longer term survival, is appropriate to that narrative.

In any case, Rustum and Roland exist in a single timeline.  

Dirzh In 538 A.C.C.

See "Time Lag."

Poul Anderson's "Time Lag" is divided into five sections:

522 Anno Coloniae Conditae: is set on the planet Vaynamo and in space;

538 A.C.C.: is set in the city of Dirzh on the planet Chektoi;

553 A.C.C.: is set on Vaynamo;

569 A.C.C.: is set in Dirzh;

583 A.C.C.: is set in space near Vaynamo.

In 538
Bors Golyev and Elva have an apartment with three cramped rooms and a balcony, considered luxurious;

their single domestic servant can at any time be returned to, and replaced from, street level;

when Bors has company, Elva is confined to the sleeping cubicle;

Dirzh stretches toward the horizon in every direction;

it is mostly "...immense gray blocks..." (p. 121) although with a few shining steel and glass spires;

to the east, there are mines, chimneys and desert;

elevated roads carry robo-freight or client pedestrians wearing gray;

aircars carry patrons;

dust, smoke, fumes and vapors hide the streets;

an odor of acid and rotten eggs rises through thick air to the balcony;

in underground caves and tunnels, workers tend machines and criminal packs carry weapons;

Chertkoians who can afford to chain-smoke do;

their entertainment includes multi-sensory films and live combat;

the single large moon is visible but neon and thick air hide most of the stars.

Dirzh reminds us of Niyorek. (See also Niyorek II and Down The Shaft.)

Next post: Dirzh in 569 A.C.C. (Expect deterioration and decay.)

A.U.C. And A.C.C.

Poul Anderson, "Time Lag" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness (London, 1977), pp. 112-144.

"522 Anno Coloniae Conditae:" (p. 112)

"538 A.C.C.:" (p. 121)

"553 A.C.C.;" (p. 126)

"569 A.C.C.:" (p. 132)

"583 A.C.C.:" (p. 135)

Two tall inscribed stones on the road to Ys were:

"'Raised DCLXXXVIII AVC obedient to orders of the SPOR, year XIII since the Sign came upon Brennilis, who with C. Julius Caesar did make the Oath.'"

-Poul Anderson, The King Of Ys: Roma Mater (London, 1989), VI, 2, p. 99.

 

AVC/AUC = Ab urbe condita, "from the founding of the city," or anno urbis conditae, "in the year since the city's founding."

 

ACC = Anno Coloniae Condita, "in the year since the founding of the colony."

 

While this Latin dating style links "Time Lag" to The King Of Ys, we notice again how often the wind intervenes in Poul Anderson's texts:

 

"The centurion did not argue, but rose and went forth on the deck, into the wind."

-Roma Mater, IV, 1, p. 66.

 

"Gratillonius felt the unknown touch him, cold as the wind."

-Roma Mater, VI, 3, p. 116.

Revisions

See:

Three Paperbacks I
Three Paperbacks II
Three Paperbacks III
Poul Anderson's Ninth Future History
A Future History Or Not?

Orbit Unlimited
"Robin Hood's Barn"
"The Burning Bridge"
"And Yet So Far"
"The Mills Of The Gods"

New America
"My Own, My Native Land"
"Passing The Love Of Women"
"A Fair Exchange"
"To Promote The General Welfare"
"The Queen Of Air And Darkness"

"Home"
"Our Many Roads To The Stars"

The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories
"The Queen Of Air And Darkness"
"Home"
"The Alien Enemy"
"The Faun"
"In The Shadow"
"Time Lag"

Revisions
(i) Remove "Home" from New America.

(ii) Put "Our Many Roads To The Stars" in a collection of non-fiction articles by Poul Anderson.

(iii) Remove "The Queen Of Air And Darkness" from The Queen Of Air

And Darkness And Other Stories which would therefore have to change its title.

(iv) Put "In The Shadow" in a multi-volume collection of non-series short stories by Anderson.

(v) Combine Orbit Unlimited and what is left of New America in one volume to be called The Rustum History.

(vi) Republish what is left of The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories as The Directorate History.

That would give us:

one volume of articles;
many volumes of non-series short stories;
two one-volume future histories -

- although whether we would have linked "The Faun" and "Time Lag" to "Home" and "The Alien Enemy" if they had not been collected in the same volume is another question.

Although the Directorate sequence is not prolonged, we recognize within it those elements of future historical writing that could have generated a framework for a longer series.

The Agoric Drive

"Time Lag."

Poul Anderson's Foreword to The Queen Of Air And Darkness... states that there is no faster than light space travel in this collection. In "Time Lag," the Chertkoians have an "agoric drive" which, like a hyperdrive, cannot be switched on too deep in a gravitational field. This drive apparently jumps to near light speed without having to accelerate. Thus, the fifteen light-years between Chertkoi and Vaynamo can be crossed in just over fifteen years which are only a few weeks aboard ship. 

The agoric drive accounts for both the title and the dates. (See the above link.) Thus, as in Poul Anderson's Starfarers, a faster means of interstellar travel is introduced without resorting to FTL and this in turn initiates an inter-generational narrative.

"Bid Time Return"

Years ago, a British astronomer told me that any time gained from time dilation on an outward journey would be repaid on the return journey so that there would be no difference at the end of a round trip. However:

How does the universe know the difference between an outward and a return journey?

If the equations entail his conclusion, then why does anyone think otherwise?

This is where Poul Anderson fans would benefit from a scientific education. But there must be blog readers out there with informed opinions on this matter? The astronomer's view would not affect works, like Tau Zero or The Boat Of A Million Years, in which there is no return journey but would invalidate the Rustum and Kith Histories and "Time Lag" - although, on the other hand, all hard sf reflects the scientific understanding of the time when it was written.

Regular readers might have noticed that this blog averaged eight posts per day for the first five days of May. This rate of productivity cannot possibly be sustained. I happened to be rereading The Boat Of A Million Years which is long and full of condensed information so that post followed post very easily. We have now returned to a more sedate pace.

Far Future Endings

Several future history series are rounded off with a single installment set much later in time and usually also much further away in space.

Poul Anderson
The Psychotechnic History: "The Chapter Ends."
The Technic History: "Starfog."
The Kith History: "The Horn of Time the Hunter."
The Rustum History: "The Queen of Air and Darkness."
The Directorate History: "Time Lag."

Other Authors
Robert Heinlein, The Future History: Orphans Of The Sky.
James Blish, The Seedling Stars: "Watershed."
Larry Niven, The Known Space History: "Safe At Any Speed."

Anderson excels at my three favorite kinds of sf:

future histories;
time travel;
cosmological sf.

Fictional Space Travel

Perhaps there are five categories.

(i) Orbital flight, which exists now. A novel in which a character spends time in the International Space Station would no longer be sf.

(ii) Regular interplanetary flight with currently conceivable technology. This could grow from (i).

(iii) Interstellar flight with currently conceivable technology. I do not know whether the Bussard ramjet is still considered feasible. (iii) could grow from (ii).

(iv) In "Time Lag" and a few other stories, Poul Anderson imagines a new kind of space drive. On the one hand, it does not break the relativistic light speed barrier. On the other hand, it instantly takes a ship to just under light speed and decelerates it equally quickly. Thus, an eight light year round trip becomes an eight year round trip and the space travelers benefit from time dilation. (iv) cannot grow directly out of (iii).

(v) Various imagined means of faster than light interstellar flight. This is a second qualitative leap.

Are we about to make the transition from (i) to (ii)?

Poul Anderson's Ninth Future History

Earlier, I listed seven series and one individual work by Poul Anderson that I classified as "future histories":

Psychotechnic;
Technic;
Maurai;
Flying Mountains;
Rustum;
Kith;
the Harvest Of Stars tetralogy;
Genesis.

It is appropriate to end with a Genesis, a new beginning, long after human extinction. With Anderson, there is always more to be said:

"Flight To Forever" and "In Memoriam" are miniature future histories;

the Time Patrol series and The Boat Of A Million Years are "past and future histories";

several works present past and alternative histories, as also does the Time Patrol;

 
four stories that I thought fitted into the Rustum History timeline instead form a loose "Directorate" future history.

"Home": population has grown so large and resources so low that the Terrestrial Directorate terminates all its extrasolar scientific bases, forcibly if necessary. Generations have grown on Mithras and do not leave willingly.

"The Alien Enemy": Policy has changed. The Directorate establishes extrasolar colonies. Sibylla fails but Zion, Atlas, Asgard and Lucifer survive. Returned Sibyllans, given the Sahara to develop, succeed and make a difference on Earth decades later.

"The Faun": colonists on Arcadia preserve ecological balance. A boy is trained to open his senses and comprehend his total environment.

"Time Lag" is a mini-history. The planet Chertkoi attacks the planet Vaynamo three times at sub-light speeds so that three generations of Vaynamoans grow up to resist. A woman taken captive to Chertkoi returns to meet her great-grandson.

Vaynamo is rural and peaceful, Chertkoi the opposite but both represent humanity spreading and diversifying on an interstellar scale with Old Sol's exact location forgotten a thousand parsecs away. This is an Anderson future.

Resistance

"Time Lag."

"More than one sentry had been found in the morning with his throat cut." (p. 128)

If every man, woman, child and dog set out to kill just one invader, then there would not be enough invaders to go round. Of course, every man, woman etc will not set out to do that but, if enough of them did, then there would not be enough invaders to go round.

By leaving thirty years between expeditions, the Chertkoians gave the Vaynamoans enough time to develop technologies to defeat the Third Expedition. When the victors ask Elva what should be done with Bors Golyev, she replies:

"'There's been too much suffering already...'" (p. 142)

So Bors is to be spared?

"'Just take him out and shoot him.'" (ibid.)

Next, action must be taken against Chertkoi. But that planet sounded ripe for revolution. The pitched battles audible underground need only spread up the towers.

It has been only months for Elva but her young son is now a great-grandfather. Of course, we want to read more about this future history.

1000 Parsecs

Poul Anderson, "Time Lag" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness (New York, December 1973), pp. 115-149.

A constellation seen from a colonized extra-solar planet:

"Sedes Regis was an L scrawled across heaven. Tradition claimed Old Sol lay in that direction, a thousand parsecs away. But no one on Chertkoi was certain any longer. Golyev shrugged. Who cared?" (p. 119)

For other extra-solar constellations, see Armies Of Stars and links from it.

One parsec is about 3.26 light-years. People have travelled at sub-light speeds from Earth to Chertkoi and other extra-solar planets where they have built civilizations, which must have taken a long time. However, Golyev's only source for the figure of a thousand parsecs is tradition. A sequel could be written in which that tradition was shown to be inaccurate. Maybe "a thousand parsecs" was just someone's expression for a long distance? How much of the information in a work of fiction is in the minds of the characters and could be overturned in a sequel?

After Genius

I had definitely not read Poul Anderson's "Genius" before and it is an interesting story. After it in the NESFA Press The Collected Short Works Of Poul Anderson (Framingham MA, 2009), there are:

"The Live Coward"
"Time Lag"
"The Man Who Came Early"
"Turning Point"
"The Alien Enemy"
"Enough Rope"
"The Sharing of Flesh"
"Welcome"
"Flight to Forever"
"Barnacle Bull"
"Time Heals"
"The Martian Crown Jewels"
"Prophecy"
"Kings Who Die"
"Starfog"

I had already read all but three of these works and have quickly read the rather lackluster "The Martian Crown Jewels" since acquiring the book so there is not much left before Vol 2, which I have yet to order. However, the remaining stories will be read and commented on.

Despite their exotic interstellar settings, "The Helping Hand" and "Genius" are serious discussions of how societies develop. I thought that I had finished comparing Isaac Asimov unfavorably with Poul Anderson but here again Anderson presents a more interesting account of a ruling group applying to society a mathematically formulated, predictive science of society. Station Seventeen, secretly directing the Empire, is like a Second Foundation but based on intelligence, not on hypnosis.

The geniuses of Station Seventeen, which is an entire planet, are intelligent, perceptive and cooperative enough to share socially necessary menial tasks equally among their entire population rather than relegating a social majority to lifetimes of drudgery. Mass-production will have to wait until mechanical knowledge is sufficient to develop entirely automatic factories because "'...few if any geniuses could stand to work on an assembly line all day.'" (p. 212) However, they "'...are in no hurry to advance their standard of living.'" (ibid.)

Production has, perhaps, four stages:

hunting and gathering;
horticulture and agriculture;
manufacturing, eventually industrialized;
automation.

In our history, the second and third stages necessitated social stratification and competition whereas the eventual production of abundance should make stratification and competition redundant. The geniuses manage every stage of production without either stratification or competition.

A society of geniuses has super geniuses who are as far beyond the ordinary mind as logic is beyond instinct. The surprise ending is a real surprise but also logical. The geniuses have already outwitted the Imperial social experimenters.

Occasional raiders from the Magellanic Clouds are also a neat idea.

CONFLICT

After Conquests/Seven Conquests, we (might as well) turn to Conflict (not Conflicts!), a similarly themed Poul Anderson collection. Having recently reread:

"Time Lag"

"The Alien Enemy"

"Kings Who Die"

"Details"

- we are left with:

"High Treason"

"The Pugilist"

"I Tell you, It's True"

"A Man To My Wounding"

"Among Thieves"

"The Turning Point"

Sometimes the title of a short story evokes an inchoate memory not of any plot details but only of emotional tone and not necessarily a favourable memory. However, this is irrelevant. We have demonstrated that a Poul Anderson story reread analytically repays our analysis with a wealth of entirely forgotten details and nuances so we will start with "High Treason" the next time that we return to this blog although, since I now approach the end of a period of recuperation from a cold, I will be publishing considerably less than ten so or so posts per day! Other aspects of daily life in twenty-first century Lancaster will resume. Into the future.