One Man And His Reardonite

"The Pirate."

On the surface of Good Luck, Trevelyan Micah alone faces Murdoch Juan and his armed crew. He demands that they let him return to his spaceship and leave the planet. Apart from Faustina's snicker, they do not reply, although a breeze whispers. In Anderson's works, the wind often underlines significant silences and seems to comment. Murdoch and crew are now guilty of an arrestable offense, interfering with a Stellar Union officer performing his duty. By refusing to be arrested, they justify Trevelyan's use of force. Only now does he reveal that his partner, Smokesmith the Reardonite, is concealed nearby with nukes and has been listening. Smokesmith demonstrates. Trevelyan notes that his own physical reaction to the explosion overhead is unintegrate and that he needs further training. Murdoch surrenders. Nice one, Trevelyan. This narrative does not require any more violence. The unseen narrator spells out the reasons for Trevelyan's intervention and the moral of the story.

Rax's Face

 

A Circus Of Hells.

"Rax placed itself before [Djana]. She had no way of reading expressions on that face."

-CHAPTER THREE, p. 215.

Nor have we since the face has not been described to us! All we have been told is that Rax's "...lumpy gray body..." walks on "...four thin legs..." (p. 213), that it has two tentacles and that the head at the middle of this body is about level with Djana's waist. Rax sounds like a Reardonite in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History although the latter has four tentacles and petals for a head. The only Reardonite that we see is called Smokesmith and he is completely different in character from Rax - opposite, in fact.

My points here are:

imagine the confrontation between Djana and Rax on screen;

film-makers would have carte blanche to give Rax any kind of face that they could imagine.

We would want a film to be both faithful and imaginative.

Imaginative Aliens

Which of the future histories in the American sequence that we have been discussing presents the most imaginative aliens? It was clever of Niven and Pournelle to make their Moties asymmetrical. However, apart from that single important difference, a Motie's body is recognizably a humanoid form with two right arms and one right ear.

Niven's three-legged Puppeteers with their brains inside their bodies are definitely not humanoid. Nor are Poul Anderson's less well known Smokesmith the Reardonite or Rax.

One of Anderson's Didonians comprises three temporarily linked bodies. Although each of these bodies is comparable to a Terrestrial animal - rhino, goose and ape - their transient tripartite consciousnesses are entirely alien. See here.

Thus, here are five interesting alien intelligences appearing respectively in four future histories:

Pournelle's CoDominium series;
Niven's Known Space series;
Anderson's Psychotechnic History;
Anderson's Technic History.

Emotions

"The Pirate."

"Smokesmith...appeared to have no trouble maintaining detachment. But then, he did not feel humanlike emotions..."  (p. 152)

So, in this respect, he resembles a Vulcan. "The Pirate" is one of many sf stories that could be adapted as a Star Trek episode, in this case with Kirk and Spock replacing Trevelyan and Smokesmith and the United Federation of Planets. replacing the Stellar Union.

Star Trek simplifies. Vulcans are both emotionless and logical and these two adjectives are identified. Logic is simply consistency between propositions which is necessary for everyone whether emotional or not. Also, the emotion of fear is an appropriate and consistent response to perception of danger. However, having introduced Smokesmith, Anderson does not embark on a Star Trek process of oversimplification. Unfortunately, Smokesmith the Reardonite appears only as a supporting character in this single late instalment of the Psychotechnic History. The story shows that, if this future history series had been extended further, then it would have been able to transcend its beginnings as the Technic History did.

Poul Anderson's Non-Humanoid Aliens

The Reardonite in "the Pirate" in the Psychotechnic History.

Rax in A Circus Of Hells in the Technic History.

The Baburites in "Esau" and Mirkheim in the Technic History.

The Dreamer in "Flight to Forever."

The Sigman in The Byworlder.

Baburites and Sigmans chew food with their claws. Baburites dissolve it in a pouch and suck it through a snout whereas Sigmans ingest it up an arm. Sigmans face both ways and have no front or back. Poul Anderson designed them to be physically disgusting to human beings. Read his description and see what I mean.

Communication with the Sigman failed for three years but then Yvonne made a breakthrough because she realized that human scientists had been synthesizing sounds that were unpleasant or even painful for the Sigman.

Five Small Spaceship Crews In Two Future Histories

(i) Two Stellar Union Coordinators in the Psychotechnic History.

(ii) The first trade pioneer crew in the Polesotechnic League period of the Technic History.

(iii) A Terran Naval Lieutenant and his crew of two in the early Imperial period.

(iv) A Terran Intelligence agent and his two companions in the late Imperial period.

(v) A Ranger of the Commonalty and his ship's computer in a post-Technic period.

These accounts include two Wodenites, two Cynthians, two other aliens, two conscious computer systems and six human beings.

(ii) Nicholas van Rijn, founding the first trade pioneer crew, tells David Falkayn that the crew should be three because he cannot afford any more and that they should be of different species because:

"'Different talents, you see, also not so much nerve-scratching when cooped together.'"

-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, The Trouble Twisters (New York, June 1967), pp. 99-190 AT p. 112.

(i) These same two reasons are cited for mixed-species crews in the Stellar Coordination Service, with the second point expressed as follows:

"Homo sapiens is a wolfish creature; two of him can end with ripping each other apart, on an indefinitely long voyage in as cramped a shell as this."

-"The Pirate," p. 100.

Wolfish? Surely not when they are "integrate"? Trevelyan and the Reardonite, Smokesmith, have just finished saying that Murdoch's crew, which they are following, are:

"'...quite unintegrate...'" (ibid.);

"'...hard cases...'" (ibid.);

"'...several nonhumans from raptor cultures...'" (ibid.)

But human beings like Trevelyan himself are "wolfish"? There does not seem to be much difference between "integrate" and "unintegrate." This idea is not thought out well enough.

Five Teams

Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew was a human being, a Wodenite and a Cynthian.

One Terran Meteor crew in The People Of The Wind was two human beings and a Cynthian.

The new team in The Game Of Empire is a human being, a Wodenite and a Tigery.

A Ranger team in "Starfog," is one human being and his conscious ship-computer.

A Coordination Service crew in "The Pirate," in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, is one human being and a Reardonite.

Lessons (if any):

each of these teams has at least one human being;

it is good to mix species in teams in sf stories;

fictional species can be re-deployed to good effect.  

The Ancient War

"'If you were killed,' she said, 'I'd steal a ship and go hunting for the killer till I found him.'
"'You'd do better to help correct the conditions that led to my being killed.'
"'You're too civilized,' she said bitterly.
"The ancient war, he thought, the immemorial struggle of intelligence to master itself. Nicki could never stay on Earth."
(The Peregrine, Chapter XIV, pp. 127-128)

Over a thousand years previously, an Un-man had identified the old enemy as:

"...man himself...the revolt of a primitive against the unnatural state called civilization and freedom." ("Un-Man" IN The Psychotechnic League, pp. 31-129 AT pp. 125-126)

So has nothing been gained in a millennium? Yes, the ancient war has been won on Earth - and, millennia later, will be won in the rest of the Galaxy.

Trevelyan and Nicki discuss options:

he could join her Nomad ship (this is what later happens);
he might need an assistant on one of his jobs?

Answering that second suggestion, he says that, when he needs an assistant, he gets another Coordinator, usually an otherling. That is the basis on which "The Pirate," written later but set earlier, was built. Reading the Psychotechnic History in chronological order of fictitious events, we find in The Peregrine references to three earlier installments:

the origin of the Nomads;
the colonization of Nerthus;
a mission by Trevelyan and the Reardonite, Smokesmith.

Nerthus And New Mars

"The Pirate."

Nerthus is a much-mentioned planet. See Nerthus And Thunderhead. By contrast, we know very little of any other planets in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. We are told a few names:

Highsky
David's Landing
Oasis
New Mars
Vanaheim
Reardon's

Trevelyan works with a Reardonite (nonhuman) and meets a New Martian (human). Because there are not enough unclaimed humanly habitable planets, "...marginal ones get settled too." (p. 140) New Mars is one. Trevelyan imagines "...scarring poverty..." (ibid.) in the background of the New Martian woman, Faustina. And that is all that we learn about New Mars.

I have encountered the term "New Mars" before:

one DC superhero was a Martian who had teleported to Earth;

later, he rejoined his people who meanwhile had colonized an extra-solar planet, "New Mars," thus retroactively acknowledging and incorporating the fact that Mars is not inhabited;

later still, his origin story became that he not teleported from present Mars but time traveled from past Mars.

(Science fictional rationales can be ingenious.)

The (Stable) Stellar Union

The Peregrine.

"...the Solarian's own needs were adequately provided for at home; he had no particular reason to haul goods out to the stars. The interstellar colonists had to provide for themselves." (CHAPTER VI, p. 38)

So Earth would not be plunged into derivation and want if interstellar contacts were to be interrupted. And the same would apply to colonies like Nerthus, capable of growing their own food as well as any crops for export.

"A small but brisk trade went on between the stars of any given sector, carried by merchant ships or by such Nomads as weren't heading out into the depthless yonder.  A few goods from Sol itself, or other highly civilized systems, found their way out to the frontier, too." (pp. 38-39)

A small trade within each sector, some of it dependent on the wandering Nomads; a few goods from Sol etc. Again, it sounds as if the colonies would be able to survive any disruption to trade, unlike Isaac Asimov's entirely urbanized planet, Trantor, which consumes the produce of twenty agricultural planets per day.

Trevelyan Michah expounds further:

"'Well, what have we today? A dozen or more highly civilized races, scattering themselves over this part of the Galaxy, intercourse limited to spaceships that may need weeks to get from one sun to the next - and nothing else. Not even the strong economic ties which did, after all, bind Europe to its colonies.'" (CHAPTER XII, p. 105)

It is a pity that we see so little of those other races. We see one Reardonite. The Tiunran are mentioned. We see four planet-bound species affected by space travellers. That is all. What a contrast to the Technic History where some of the narratives are histories not of human beings but of Ythrians or Merseians. But, in any case, CHAPTER XII confirms that there are no strong economic ties between Earth and its colonies. Planets can exist for weeks without any extra-systemic contact and presumably would continue to cope self-sufficiently if the intervals between contacts were to be extended.

Why then does Trevelyan go on to say:

"'Cross-purposes are breeding which are someday going to clash - they've already done so in several cases, and it's meant annihilation.'" (ibid.)?

What cross-purposes? Why should the clashes be serious enough to mean annihilation? We need to be shown some examples. Economic competition, imperialism, exploitation etc can certainly cause destructive conflicts but we are specifically told that economics is not a major interstellar factor. Planetary populations with mutually incompatible or incomprehensible psychologies, ideologies etc can each go their own way. There is no reason for them to go to all the trouble of crossing an interstellar distance just to pick a fight with someone else.

Regular blog readers will know that a day, like today, when I have visited Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop is a day when there has been less time for blogging but that has been good for my soul. 

Spaceship Crews

Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew comprises:

one male human being;
one male Wodenite;
one female Cynthian.

The crew of the Meteor-class boat, Hooting Star, comprises:

two male human beings;
one male Cynthian.

Diana Crowfeather's team comprises:

one female human being;
one male Wodenite;
one male Tigery.

Van Rijn and Coya travel in a ship crewed by Ythrians. Flandry travels in a Betelgeusean merchant ship and earlier had commanded a Terran escort destroyer with a Ferran First Officer. He explores Talwin with Merseians.

In the Psychotechnic History, one male human being and one Reardonite comprise the crew of a Coordination Service ship.