Conquerors

Dominic Flandry led the Intelligence operation when the Terran Empire annexed the planet Brae.

John Carter led the green hordes that sacked Zodanga, a city of the red men but also the main adversary of Helium. Carter married the Princess of Helium. The sack of Zodanga involved a unique and temporary alliance between Thark, Warhoon and lesser hordes.

Our heroes are someone else's villains. ERB always portrayed enemies of Helium as discreditable and reprehensible but they must also have included decent people with genuine grievances.

We have compared Dominic Flandry with James Bond and also with John Carter. Can anyone give us a three way comparison? (Britain was no longer conquering in Bond's period.)

On Flandry's first command, his executive officer, Rovian of Ferra, resembles an ERBian green Martian in several respects:

he is naked except for weapons and insignia;
the lower of his two pairs of arms can be used as legs, increasing his speed;
he does not understand human morality, e.g., sees nothing wrong with repression unless it provokes revolt;
he is amused by human formalities - and Flandry and he avoid formalisms when alone.

However, Rovian has dark fur and a large tail so he is not exactly like a Thark or Warhoon.

Tharks, Treens, Martians, Merseians, Vulcanians, Chereionites And Ferrans

I said three posts back (here) that hostile green aliens were a Golden Age sf cliche and, in fact, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Green Martians of the Thark, Warhoon and lesser hordes are both green-skinned and warlike. (The one good thing about the John Carter film is its accurate depiction of ERBian Green Martians. Computer-aided graphics get that much right.) Further, Dan Dare's Venus-based Treens were also green and warlike. Thus, Poul Anderson's green, warlike, extra-solar Merseians are part of a grand tradition.

Anderson's The Rebel Worlds parallels other sf works. When Dominic Flandry commands the escort destroyer, HMS Asieneuve, his executive officer is a Ferran who does not share human morality just as, when James T Kirk commands the starship, USS Enterprise, his exec is a Vulcan who does not share human emotions. However, Rovian of Ferra is fanged, has four arms of which the lower pair can double as legs and goes naked except for weapons and insignia. In all of this, he resembles the ERBian Greens although his black fur and tail differentiate him from them. Tharks etc are bald.

Kirk's friend, a Vulcan, has pointed ears and can telepathically "mind-meld." Flandry's opponent, a Chereionite, has pointed ears and is a universal telepath. But lastly, of course, Poul Anderson's sf is of a far higher imaginative and literary quality than that of ERB, Dan Dare or Star Trek.

"Why Bad?"

The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER THREE.

Having just witnessed the appalling oppression on Shalmu, Flandry telegramically describes it as "'Bad...'" (p. 398), then elaborates. Rovian of Ferra asks:

"'Why bad?'...Unless it provokes revolt.'" (ibid.)

Flandry does not attempt to explain:

"'Never mind the morals of it. You wouldn't understand.'" (ibid.)

But can a rational, capable, likeable citizen like Rovian really not understand that it is bad to force a father to watch his young daughter being crucified? The Ferrans must have some morality or they would not have survived as a social species.

This reminds me of a question that I asked about the Time Patrol. The Patrol agents that we see are what we would call moral but the organization guards over a million years of history. Who else might they recruit? Do they care what means are used? Since the Patrol guards the history that includes the Holocaust, do some of its agents implement the Final Solution? Back to the Terran Empire: would Rovian commit genocide if ordered to?

Kraich

The Rebel Worlds, IV.

I said here that governor Aaron Snelund's apparent concern was a dramatic performance. Sure enough, when Snelund, smiting his chair arm, declaims:

"'No negotiation with a traitor!'" (p. 35)

- Flandry reflects, "How dramatic..." (ibid.)

After Flandry's interview with Snelund, the company of two xenos is very welcome. In a rooming house in Catawrayannis, Flandry's executive officer, Rovian of Ferra:

"...shared his kennel with a betentacled hulk from an unpronounceable planet. The hulk reeked of exuded hydrogen sulfide but was personally decent enough; among other sterling qualities, it did not know the Eriau language. It rippled on its bunk when Flandry entered, mushed an Anglic greeting, and returned to contemplation of whatever it contemplated.

"Rovian stretched all six limbs and yawned alarmingly. 'At last!' he said. 'I thought I would rot.'" (p. 38)

 

We are told that the rooming house's clientele are "...mostly nonhumans: unchoosy ones." (ibid.)

 

Mostly: it follows that a few very unchoosy human beings do share lodgings with beings like the hulk and the Ferran. Flandry, who has just come from the governor's palace with its live-fur carpet, moving sculptures, incense and music must sit on the floor because there are no chairs and must smoke a cigarette to cover the stench. However, this company is more acceptable than Snelund's. Rovian converses exactly like a man albeit while addressing Flandry in the principle Merseian language.

Because they are speaking Eriau, when the alert Ferran pounces on something that Flandry says, the latter responds, "'Kraich.'" (p. 39) OK, what does it mean?

"Faintly from outside came traffic rumble and an occasional raucous cry." (ibid.)

Plausible background details are always with us. There is a whole city out there.

Tails

"...[Cnif's] tail brushed Flandry's waist and he stroked it lightly across the man, Merseia's gesture of comfort."

-Poul Anderson, A Circus of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 315.

"The man held forth his hand in Terran wise. Tacheyr clasped it between warm dry fingers and leathery palm. They had no further amicable gesture to exchange, since Flandry lacked a tail."

-Poul Anderson, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT IX, p. 454.

"'Farewell, my lord.' The Shalmuan knelt, coiled his tail around Flandry's ankles, crawled out and was gone."

-The Rebel Worlds, CHAPTER THREE, p. 395.

"[Rovian of Ferra's] ponderous tail, the claws on his feet and fingers, the saber teeth in his jaws, could deal murderous blows; he was also an excellent marksman."

-ibid., p. 398.

There is no suggestion that the ferocious Rovian uses his formidable tail to express inter-species affection! But who knows what the Ferrans do among themselves?

A Multi-Species Civilization II

Captain Flandry's executive officer, Rovian of Ferra - larger than human, dark-furred, tailed, clawed, sabre-toothed, able to alternate between four-armed and quadrupedal, naked except for weapons and insignia, unambitious and amoral by human standards -, lodges in a rooming house for mostly non-human and unchoosy clients where he shares his grimy-windowed kennel with a contemplative, tentacled, hydrogen-oxide-exuding but personally decent rippling hulk. Flandry, visiting, must sit on the floor, smoke to counteract the headache-inducing rotten-egg gas and odor of decay and converse in Eriau instead of in Anglic in order not to be understood by the hulk.

I have compressed information about a Ferran and an (unknown) into a single sentence for brevity and amusement. We enjoy these colorful details in Poul Anderson's The Rebel Worlds but do we fully appreciate their implications? Flandry, an Intelligence Officer, must be prepared to spend time surrounded by and interacting with non-humanoid intelligences in their environments. Sitting on the floor and getting a headache are probably only the half of it.

Asieneuve

Dominic Flandry commands the escort destroyer, Asieneuve, named after a land mass on the human-colonized planet, Ardeche. Her crew numbers a mere fifty and we are told that:

"...the forecastle could be packed tighter only if the Pauli exclusion principle were repealed..."
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 367-520 AT Chapter Three, p. 397.

Needless to say, this made me google the Pauli exclusion principle. See here. This is the sort of "joke" that gets made in hard sf. In the '60s, I read a novel - title and author's name forgotten - that began by telling us that its hero's hair was receding so fast that you would think his nose was radioactive. Such a remark establishes that we are dealing with characters who are use to dealing with and thinking in terms of scientific processes like radioactivity. (How many novels did we read in early life and subsequently forget both title and author?)

Asieneuve is a Continent-class vessel whereas the scout ship flown by Flandry in the previous novel was Comet class. Have we listed the classes of Terran spacecraft somewhere? (Addendum: We have. See here.)

Flandry enters the bridge and takes over from his non-human executive officer, Rovian of Ferra. Nowadays, we cannot avoid making comparisons with Star Trek.