Stellamont

Staying with the theme of Nerthus, let us skip ahead to The Peregrine. The two short stories showed rural Nerthus, a farm and a wood. The novel shows urban Nerthus, Stellamont. So did Virgin Planet but only the Coordination Service building. 

From Sol to Carsten's Star III (Nerthus) on the Sagittarian frontier of the Stellar Union is a two month voyage in the fastest hyperdrive ship. So much for human beings having explored all around the Galaxy even before Nerthus was settled just over a hundred years earlier. What is consistent with the earlier stories is the statement that the settlers have scattered across the planet but communicate easily with telescreens and gravity fliers. The frontier has revived cities but only one per planet or planetary system. Such cities, like Stellamont on Nerthus, comprise:

spaceport

warehouses

depots

services

repair shops

shops

robot factories

places of entertainment

admin

The Nomad Thorkild Sean leaves the spaceport and the busy wide avenues near it, walks through the old section, including the native quarter, and drinks in the Comet Bar. It is also possible to travel outside the city in an automatic public aircar.

Conflicting Cultures

Over two years ago, I discussed four conflicting cultures in Poul Anderson's The Peregrine here.

On Erulan, there is slavery and cruelty. Three bodies hang from a gallows in a market square. Ilaloa of the Alori comments:

"'There is no need for this endless strife and suffering. But it is still more - right - than that which is in the city Stellamont.'" (The Peregrine, Chapter X, p. 89)

Stellamont is on a human colony planet and thus represents a fifth culture distinct from Sol, Nomads, Erulan and Alori:

Sol, Nomads and Stellamont are human;
Alori are humanoid (see image);
Erulan is human beings enslaving (other) humanoids.

I can only remark that I disagree with Ilaloa. Technology-using urbanites are indeed "...shut away..." (p. 88) from nature but that does not make a slave-owning society better than they are!

Versions III

See Versions II.

A future history, or any fictitious series, gains substance when it presents a single event from different points of view.

Poul Anderson's "Virgin Planet" presents a diary entry by Yamagata Tetsuo, Chief of Coordination Service, Argus 293 Region, Stellamont, Nerthus. There is quite a lot of information to absorb here before comparing this passage with the corresponding one in the expanded version, Virgin Planet.

Stellamont is the single city on Nerthus, a colonized terrestroid planet about a thousand light years from the Solar System in the direction of Argus. This explains why, when the Author's Note to Virgin Planet identifies a star in a Nerthusian constellation, the star is named not just "Delta Capitis Lupi" but, more specifically, "(Ar 293) Delta Capitis Lupi." This means "the fourth brightest star in the Wolf's Head as seen from the base planet (Nerthus) of Argus 293 Region." The same star will have other designations if it is visible from other base planets.

But, to return to the content of Tetsuo's diary entry, the Chief writes notes and makes comments after his interview with Davis Bertram, a stellagraphic survey man. One of the comments is, "So much for Man's Starward Yearning..." (Starship, New York, 1982, p. 89)

Here, the Chief seems to parody the title of Enrico Yamatsu's "...classic history Starward!..." (p. 9)

Virgin Planet presents not Tetsuo's diary entry but a lengthier account of Tetsuo's interview with Davis from Davis' point of view. We even get a third character, the interplanetary freightman, Smith Hilary, who converses separately with both the others. Thus, reading both versions in tandem enriches our perception of the characters and their setting.

Tetsuo, conversing with Smith, confirms what we also glean from The Peregrine, that cities, redundant on Earth, have re-emerged on the frontier. This passage also confirms that men have been in this region of space for about six decades which fits with the Chronology at the end of Starship.

The First Four FTL Stories In The Psychotechnic History II

How do these four stories connect with later installments of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History?

"Gypsy" introduces the Nomads who are important later.

"Star Ship" introduces the planet Khazak, which is never mentioned again, and also refers to Galactic Coordinators who schedule expansion into particular regions of space centuries in advance.

"The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb" introduce the planet Nerthus with its single city, Stellamont, both important later.

If Anderson had not used Nerthus and Stellamont in "Virgin Planet" and The Peregrine, then "The Acolyte" and "The Green Thumb" would not have seemed to connect in any other way with the Psychotechnic History.

Uncle Gunnar says:

"'In the early days, men did settle on planets with primitive native races. It only led to conflict in which man, though always the victor, often paid a heavy price.'"
-"The Green Thumb," p. 26.

But these are still the early days, according to the Chronology. The hyperdrive is invented in 2784. "The Acolyte" and "The Green Thumb" are set in 3000. And, even with faster than light travel, we are talking about colonizations and conflicts spread across interstellar distances.

Gunnar also says:

"'I've seen races like his - here and there in the Galaxy -...'" (p. 27)

How much of the Galaxy has he seen?

Interstellar travel is very easy in these two stories. When a woman joins her husband on an engineering assignment on Neptune (Sol VIII), they are able to send their ten-year old son on a space liner to stay with his uncle and aunt on their farm on Nerthus which, we learn from "Virgin Planet," is 300 parsecs away.

History And Yarns

Assuming for the sake of argument that "The Acolytes" does belong in the Psychotechnic History, we find that:

in "The Snows of Ganymede," Callisto and Ganymede are going to be terraformed;

in "Brake," Europa is going to be terraformed;

in "The Acolytes," Wilson Pete's father, an engineer, has:

"'...been assigned to a project on Sol VIII.'" (p. 6)

- i.e., on Neptune.

Thus, human activity expands out through the Solar System.

By the same token:

in "The Big Rain," Venus is being terraformed;

in "Cold Victory," Venus has been terraformed;

in "The Acolytes," Stellamont, the only city on Nerthus, is a few buildings on a broad plain;

in The Peregrine, Stellamont has grown much bigger and has even acquired a native section. See here.

History happens.

Wilson Pete is ten. His uncle, Thorleifsson Gunnar, has a blue, bald Javartenanian servant, Tobur, who tells Pete fine stories. Tobur has been with Gunnar since leaving Javartenan yet has been on many planets that Gunnar never mentions:

"...and he wouldn't lie to a fellow." (p. 11)

We return to the ambiguity of the yarn.

The Two Avalonian Cities

The People Of The Wind.

The two Avalonian cities, Gray on Falkayn Bay and Centauri on the Gulf of Centaurs, are very different from each other and are described in detail. Arinnian flies above then inland from Gray and spends time with Tabitha in Centauri where it is usually safer for him to be Christopher. We find that we have previously posted about both cities:

Gray

In Centauri

Livewell Street

In The Phoenix House

In The Phoenix House And The Nest

In The Nest

Gray and Centauri are more concretely realized than Stellamont on Nerthus in Poul Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic History. It is good to be able to compare them.

Details Of Interstellar Economics

The Peregrine, CHAPTER VI.

Solarians are economically self-sufficient and do not trade with the extra-solar colonies.

"A small but brisk trade went on between the stars of any given sector,..." (p. 38)

(Small, within each sector.)

"...carried by merchant ships or by such Nomads as weren't heading out into the depthless yonder." (ibid.)

(So some Nomads still do that.)

Despite the opening sentence of this post, some goods from Sol and other civilized systems reach the frontier where the need for spaceports, warehouses, depots, services, repairs, shops, factories, entertainment and administration means that there are cities although only one per planet or system: on Nerthus, Stellamont, the only physically realized extra-solar city in the Psychotechnic History.

Trevelyan Micah meets and (almost) "infiltrates" the Nomads of the Peregrine there. 

Nerthus

I read somewhere that part of the plan for Robert Heinlein's Future History was that place names would link otherwise autonomous stories: Luna City on the Moon, Drywater on Mars, Venusburg on Venus etc. Poul Anderson did this with the name of the planet, Nerthus, in his Psychotechnic History.

"Diary of Yamagata Tetsuo,

"Chief of Coordination Service,

"Argus 293, Stellamont, Nerthus"

-Poul Anderson, "Virgin Planet" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3 (New York, 2018), pp. 43-112 AT p. 47.

"Ship Harpsong of Nerthus, out of Highsky for David's Landing, is long overdue..."

-Poul Anderson, "The Pirate" IN Anderson, op. cit., pp. 137-165 AT p. 137.

 

"'You will go to the Sagittarian frontier of the Stellar Union,' the machine had said. 'The planet Carsten's Star III, otherwise called Nerthus, is recommended as a starting point.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine, CHAPTER IV, p. 23.

 

Since Nerthus is introduced in the linked stories, "The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb," which I have read only once since they were collected in 2018, I will shortly reread them. 

On Nerthus

Poul Anderson, "The Acolytes" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3, pp. 3-19.

This story contributes minimally to Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. It discloses that human beings have colonized a frontier planet called Nerthus, where they have built the city of Stellamont, but does not mention the Stellar Union and implies that human beings and their allies have access to the entire Galaxy, not just to a spatial volume this side of Sagittarius.

Wilson Pete has had "...training in self-integration...," (p. 18) a reference to the Psychotechnic Institute techniques introduced in earlier installments of this future history series.

Nerthus is said to have grass although not quite like Terrestrial grass.

"The Acolytes" was published in "A magazine of science-fantasy fiction." The nighttime Nerthusian landscape is described as:

"...a fairyland of streaming moonlight and whispering trees..." (p. 9)

Elf-like "tinklers" lure young Pete into the woods where he is nearly eaten by a tentacled, lake-dwelling monster. The narrative reads like a Ray Bradbury story intended to express and evoke strong emotions - and nothing else.

On Nerthus

The Peregrine, CHAPTER VI.

On extra-solar colony planets like Nerthus, the settlers scatter and dwell apart but are not isolated because they have telescreens and gravity fliers. This fits with what we were told about Nerthus in "The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb." The Nerthusian natives, also described accurately, are no longer concealed in the forest but prefer to live in their own unmechanized quarter of Stellamont where green six-legged "ponies" pull carts.

The Comet bar on the edge of the quarter joins our list of Andersonian taverns. A Coordinator joins forces with Nomads who are on the same quest.

Stars And Cities

This is a recurrent theme that I am focusing on again. Stars and cities are important in sf, travel between stars and futuristic, technological cities, and they can be connected:

James Blish has cities flying between stars;

Arthur C. Clarke has a novel called The City And The Stars;

Brrian Aldiss' future history ends with the phrase, "...the old city and the stars";

Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn story, "The Master Key," ends with a reference to the city beneath the stars;

Michael Moorcock has a novel called The City In The Autumn Stars;

both Isaac Asimov and Poul Anderson have an interstellar empire ruled from a fully urbanized planet;

in Anderson's Psychotechnic History, interstellar spaceships arrive at and depart from one city on one planet in each planetary system, Stellamont on Nerthus and Port Nevada on Earth.

Lastly, for now, without any direct reference to stars:

there are large enclosed cities on the future Earth in A Torrent Of Faces by James Blish and Norman L. Knight and in The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov, in the latter work capitalized as "Cities";

Clifford Simak has a future history called City because it is about the dissolution of cities.

In Anderson's Psychotechnic History and in Simak's City, rapid transportation and communication make cities unnecessary but, in the Psychotechnic HIstory, interstellar travel revives them although only one per planet.

Nerthus

I have got interested in the planet Nerthus in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. I have deduced that Nerthus is colonized in "The Green Thumb," which I have yet to read. It then becomes part of the background of "Virgin Planet," "The Pirate" and Star Ways/The Peregrine.

Nerthus is Carsten's Star III on the Sagittarian frontier of the Stellar Union. Colonists, like Solarians, live far apart because they are easily connected by telescreens and gravity fliers. However, trade with nearby planetary systems necessitates spaceports, warehouses, depots, service and repair facilities, shops, robot factories, entertainment and administration, therefore cities, although usually only one per planet or planetary system.

The Nerthusian city, Stellamont, has a Coordination Service base and an old section including the native quarter which is inhabited by tall, green-furred, four-armed bipeds and their six-legged draft animals.

Further, the galaxy is mapped with reference to constellations as seen from various base planets which include Nerthus. This is a good example of a location in one installment of a future history series becoming part of the established background of later installments of that series. Anderson could have added a lot more stories in this setting but instead went on to write many other works including several other future history series.

Cultural Comparisons

The Night Face, III.

Raven discusses three cultures, Namerican, Lochlanna and Gwydiona. According to him:

a Namerican, given a job to do, just tries to get it done, whether or not it is really worth doing, then tries to get his recreation done, "'...both with maximum bustle.'" (p. 565);

a Lochlanna tries to work and play to some sort of ideal and tends to give up completely if he fails;

the Gwydiona do not separate work, play, art, private life or life in general but see everything as "'...one harmonious whole.'" (p. 566)

This third group combines food-gathering, pleasure and art as follows:

fishing boats have "'...elaborately carved figureheads and painted designs...'" (ibid.);

every detail is multiply symbolic;

fishers are accompanied by musicians!

For other Andersonian comparisons of fictional cultures, see:

Solarians, Nomads, Erulani and Alori in The Peregrine II;
a fifth culture, Stellamont, in Conflicting Cultures;
Solarian, Nomadic and Alorian arts in Arts.

Andersonian scholarship now includes future historical cultural studies. This post represents the Technic History whereas the three linked posts represent the earlier Psychotechnic History.

On Nerthus

"Virgin Planet" locates itself within the Psychotechnic History when a character swears by Cosmos. 

This story follows the two Wilson Pete instalments by divulging more information about the planet Nerthus which is about 300 parsecs from Sol and is a base planet for the Coordination Service. This is the first mention of that Service and we have not yet been told that it is a branch of the Stellar Union. 

"Gypsy" told us about the beginning of the Nomad culture although the interstellar rovers were not yet called "Nomads" then. "The Pirate" will introduce Trevelyan Micah of the Coordination Service and will refer to Nerthus. Finally, Trevelyan will meet Nomads in Stellamont on Nerthus in The Peregrine. Multiple narrative strands converge for a climax of the Stellar Union period of the Psychotechnic History.

Alori Houses

Alori tree houses are like incomparably more advanced versions of the naturally hollow trees used as dwellings by the Nerthusian natives. This tells me something. I have yet to read the Psychotechnic History installment about the human colonization of Nerthus.

Nevertheless, later installments make clear that human beings had been living on that planet for a while before they realized that it was already inhabited. No wonder, if the aborigines were sheltering or even hiding inside trees on a planetary surface where there were no artificial structures like houses or villages. Indeed, the Nerthusians living in the native quarter of Stellamont themselves resemble trees: tall, green and four-armed with no machine technology.

An Alori house has:

a large, light, airy, cylindrical room;
hard, beautiful wood;
windows closable with transparent flaps;
a heavy curtain for a door;
a warm, springy, moss-like carpet and bed on the floor;
extruded shelves;
flowering vines;
bladders that are luminous at night but can be covered;
an inward-growing branch yielding clear water with a drain beneath;
a nearby bush growing a soap surrogate.

The Alori have developed the biological sciences as far as the Stellar Union has developed the physical sciences. However, mutually incompatible world-views underlie the scientific and social differences.

Nerthus And Nomads

If the first eleven Psychotechnic History stories ending with "Brake" were to be collected in one volume and the remaining stories beginning with "Gypsy" were to be collected in a second volume, would a reader recognize these two volumes as covering successive periods of a single future history series or might he instead regard them as presenting two distinct series?

Although "Gypsy" presents a very different interstellar scenario from that shown in subsequent instalments, this story is clearly linked to those later instalments because it introduces the Nomads who reappear in The Peregrine. "The Green Thumb" introduces the native Nerthusians and ends ambiguously. Will the Nerthusians blackmail the Galaxy by threatening human settlers? If a story that is ambiguous when read in isolation is incorporated into a future history series, then the ambiguity can simply be left behind in subsequent episodes. In The Peregrine, a Nomad walks through the native quarter in Stellamont on Nerthus. He sees Nerthusians - tall, green and four-armed, like Joe - and their six-legged "ponies." The natives are friendly but live apart because they are uncomfortable in machine culture. In this context, the phrase, "native quarter," should not be taken to imply discrimination, inferiority etc.

Nerthus connects six instalments. Nomads connect two. The connections overlap. 

Nerthus And Other Places

Future history backgrounds include repeated references to fictional places. Robert Heinlein's Future History has Luna City on the Moon, Drywater on Mars and Venusburg on Venus. Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History has the colonized planet, Nerthus, which appears in four instalments and is referenced in a fifth. We see colonists on Nerthus, the Coordination Service has a base there and the Nomad ship, the Peregrine, visits there. Sandra Miesel tells us that:

"Nerthus grew into a prosperous hub of its galactic sector, attracting visitors from other worlds and cultures. It even hosted a regional base of the Stellar Union's peace-keeping Coordination Service."

-Sandra Miesel IN Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (Riverdale, NY, July 2018), p. 42.

Although Anderson's second future history series, the Technic History, features many fictional places, it does not focus on any particular locations - its equivalents of the city of Stellamont on Nerthus - but instead shows entire planets, notably Earth/Terra and Gray/Avalon, at successive stages of their future histories.

Bars And Stars

"If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he's a spaceman."

-Robert Heinlein, Double Stars (New York, 1957), 1, p. 5.

That is an opening sentence. The scene is a bar where a badly dressed but arrogant man has just walked in. When I read novels by Heinlein etc in the 1960s, they were an introduction not only to adult prose sf but also to adult life like bars. Poul Anderson's "The Pirate" was published in 1968 although I did not read it that far back. It assumes bars. Trevelyan Micah makes inquiries of chance-met drinking companions in dives where drug smoke stings his eyes and tracks his quarry, Murdoch Juan, to:

"...the discrete and expensive Altair House." (p. 139)

In Anderson's The Peregrine, published, like Double Star, in 1956, Trevelyan's garb immediately identifies him as a Solarian when he enters the Comet Bar in Stellamont on Nerthus and this time his intention is to make contact with some Nomads. Feigning drunkenness, Trevelyan works hard... How easily bars can really be used in this way in the real world is another matter.

Virgin Planet, Chapter II

Poul Anderson, Virgin Planet (London, 1966), Chapter II, pp. 15-19.

This chapter is rich in future historical background details:

Davis Bertram (surname first, given name second, see here);
the Coordination Service;
a facetious reference to "the Cosmic All" (there is a Cosmic religion);
the planet Nerthus, a thousand light years from Sol, on the edge of the known, recently colonized;
local Cordy headquarters in Stellamont on Nerthus;
city spires and plains beyond;
an "infomaster" (p. 16) instead of an infotrieve;
the (Stellar) Union dominated by Earth;
a dangerous "vortex" near Delta Wolf's Head;
cities, outgrown on Earth, have returned on the frontier;
colonists had disliked Terrestrial civilization (see here);
the local Cordy chief must approve stellagraphic voyages;
there are rules about how to handle primitives.

Thus, Davis Bertram flies towards the "Virgin Planet."

A Galactic Civilization

"The Green Thumb."

Joe is a spy not for another star-faring civilization but for the hidden native Nerthusians. They cannot make war against the whole Galaxy but they can blackmail concessions from the Galaxy by threatening its colonists on Nerthus. However, in the Psychotechnic History, Nerthus is a colony not of a Galaxy-wide civilization but of the human race which has only recently begun to explore nearby planetary systems.

Thus, "The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb," together with "Star Ship," really belong to an alternative "Galactic civilization" series.

"The whole future of the planet Khazak, perhaps of the fabulous Galactic civilization itself, was balanced on the edge of a sword."
-Poul Anderson, "Star Ship" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 2 (Riverdale, NY, 2018), pp. 273-306 AT p. 282.

Nerthus and Stellamont exist in two series.