Heritage

"Under an ogive arch, one stopped, turned, beckoned, and waited."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT Chapter XX, p. 596.

An sf fan reading the build-up to Dominic Flandry's climactic confrontation with Aycharaych does not pause to wonder what "ogive" means. In fact, I have only just paused on that word now after how many rereadings?

The hologram of a Chereionite speaks as if the few remaining members of that ancient race have stayed to help others but, of course, that contradicts what Aycharaych has been doing. When Flandry has seem past the holograms and speaks to Aycharaych himself, albeit that the latter also appears as a hologram and therefore cannot be attacked physically, the last surviving Chereionite claims that he can meet whenever he wants his planet's equivalents of:

Gautama Buddha;
Kung Fu-Tse;
Rabbi Hillel;
Jesus the Christ;
Rumi;
Socrates;
Newton;
Hokusai;
Jefferson;
Gauss;
Beethoven;
Einstein;
Ulfgeir;
Manuel the Great;
Manuel the Wise.

(We have met Manuel the Great in an earlier story.)

This makes me wish that there had been some way to preserve Chereion - although not on Aycharaych's terms. Flandry would have had to betray the Dennitzans.

A Few More Details During The Ice Age

Poul Anderson, The Winter Of The World, VI - VII.

I am pleased to read that coffee is still drunk during the Ice Age (see Morning In Arvanneth) even though it is Terrestrial tea that spreads through the Merseian Roidhunate in Poul Anderson's Technic History.

We find yet another ogive window (scroll down):

""A sunbeam from an ogive window..." (p. 72)

Captain General Sidir describes the Rogaviki woman, Donya, as a "'...brach...'" (p. 67)

Rahidian soldiers had been lower than "sidewinders." (p. 72)

Donya denies that she is a leader but then qualifies it: "'...not the way you mean.'" (p. 74)

She is a leader of a household but not a ruler of her people.

Weekdays include Kingsday, months include Dou and the year, in the Imperial calendar, is 83 of the Thirty-First Renewal of the Divine Mandate. Maybe the Empire keeps longer term historical records but it does not divide history up into a straightforward equivalent of our B.C./A.D.

The invasion of the Northlands begins.

Eleven Millennia Later

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

Earth when Envoy returns after an absence of eleven millennia:

"Down from tundra and taiga swept wind-bellowing steppes; boreal forest yielded to broadleaf woods and these to jungle..." (p. 445)

"The groundside scene was of graceful columns and ogive windows open on a garden." (p. 446)

Of course, there is more going on than this but I found these five words worth googling on just two pages. I previously discussed this future Earth in "Starfarers And Seladorians."

Addendum: And, a few pages later, "'...no matter how much internal variegation it enjoys, it is now the only civilization on Earth.'" (p. 451)

The speaker means "variation." "Variegation," apparently, is a botanical term.

Places of business include "...ateliers..." (p. 453)

Inside Perun II

Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 52.

See Inside Perun.

Some details missed earlier:

"Perun" is the highest Slavic deity (see image and here);
the glass-smooth passage has an "ogive" vault and inset panels of differently colored minerals;
there is barely audible flute and violin music;
there are bittersweet odors;
doors open onto a cafe, a foodstore and workshops;
the population, not yet large enough to fill these carved caverns, is colorfully dressed.

I had missed the usual Andersonian appeal to at least three of the senses.

Gothic Arches But Russko Spires

The Day Of Their Return.

Inside the University of Virgil, which is named after neither the city, Nova Roma, nor the planet, Aeneas, but their star, Virgil, Chunderban Desai traverses a maze of:

courts
lanes
stairs
small gardens
trees
memorial plaques
statues
ogive windows
porticos
Gothic arches
Russko spires
soaring vaultings
bulging domes

On Aeneas, ancient Terrestrial architectural styles have not only blended over the centuries but also soared and bulged in the low gravity: a challenge but also a clear direction for both graphic artists and film set designers.

See also Physical Environments.