Organized Crime On And Off Earth

(Yakuza funeral.)

See:

Organized Crime In Sicily And Russia And On Merseia, 16 February 2020

Organized Crime, 28 January 2018

Organized Crime, 18 March 2016

Respectable societies illegalize different activities at different times and places, yet prominent members of such societies continue to want such activities so organized crime flourishes.

Poul Anderson imagined the Gethfennu on Merseia;

Stieg Larsson wrote about judges and policemen using prostitutes;

in "The Children's Hour," Japanese organized crime has flourished under feudal lords and great corporations on Earth, then on the colony planet, Wonderland, both before and after kzinti occupation, but is unsure of survival in the future after the kzinti households have completely displaced human social organization - maybe it will be better to cooperate with the UN.

Organized Crime In Sicily And Russia And On Merseia

The meaning of a word may be either specific or generic. Thus, a Sikh man confused me by using the word, "Bible," in a generic sense to refer to the Sikh scripture, the Granth. I advised him that "Bible," "Koran," "Granth" etc are specific scriptural names whereas "scripture" is the appropriate generic term.

Similarly, "Mafia," having meant specifically "Sicilian organized crime," has come to be used more generically at least to include "Russian organized crime" - although perhaps not also Japanese organized crime, the Yakuza.

In any case, organized crime has existed in Russia since Tsarist times and flourished since the collapse of the Soviet Union (see here), becoming a new collective villain in Western spy fiction. My relevant point finally is that organized crime, the Gethfennu, had existed on Merseia since before the intervention of the Polesotechnic League and might be expected to flourish again after the collapse of the Roidhunate?

I suggest that:

the Sicilian Mafia was a survival of feudal relationships (loyalty to the capu/boss, exaction of tribute and violent enforcement combined with overt religiosity) into modern times;

the Gethfennu was the Merseian equivalent - "...the baronial tradition survived, in a distorted form...," (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 244);

the conditions following the collapse of the Roidhunate would parallel those after the collapse of the USSR.

Thus, we might read a Long Night story about a revived Gethfennu?

Organized Crime

The Polesotechnic League protects Merseia from the effects of a nearby supernova. Merseia is not yet politically united so the League deals with the Merseians' only international organization, the Gethfennu, organized crime. Thus, humanity earns the enduring enmity of the Merseian aristocratic party.

Flandry enriches a vice boss on Irumclaw but only so that the vice boss will then pressurize the Empire to continue defending that Imperial frontier - against the Merseians.

In Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Children's Hour," the Yakuza, Japanese organized crime, still operate in the Solar System and have also moved to the Alpha Centaurian colony where they will help UN agents against the kzinti occupation without charge. Kzinti estates are squeezing out human society. Yakuza can try to deal with either but are safer with the latter.

I think that the Mafia is a survival of feudal social relationships (tradition, protection, violence, personal loyalty, religious observance) into capitalist society. A survival and an adaptation: organized criminals want either to transfer into legitimate businesses or to continue to prey on legitimate society. Either way, they need to protect that society against any invader (Nazi, Draka, kzin) that would really try to change the rules of the game.

The Polesotechnic League And A Criminal Organization

Because the Polesotechnic League is not an Intelligence service but a mercantile mutual support organization, it did not feature in the previous post, Intelligence Services And Criminal Organizations. Nevertheless, on Merseia, the League has occasion to do business with organized crime, the Gethfennu, because the latter is the only international network capable of a coordinated response to the planet-wide threat of radiation from the supernova, Valenderay. This plus the fact the Gethfennu is not an alien influence inserted into Merseian society but rather is the ancient baronial tradition in a distorted form bears out the suggestion that organized crime is an integral part of organized society. So, whether on Earth or on Merseia, how far does its influence extend?  

Fourteen Comparisons

James Bond is often hospitalized after a mission. Dominic Flandry is not.

Bond has a Scottish housekeeper, May, who is mentioned several times but appears only twice. Flandry acquires Chives who accompanies him on missions.

Bond drives fast cars. Flandry has an interstellar speedster.

Bond operates while the British Empire is being dismantled whereas Flandry operates while the Terran Empire is in long term decline.

Bond's conflict with Blofeld becomes a personal vendetta. Flandry regrets his conflict with Aycharaych.

Bond has a more powerful ally, the CIA. Flandry does not.

Bond blows up the Castle of Death. Flandry bombards Chereion.

We see more of Bond in his office than of Flandry in his.

Bond remains a Commander throughout his series whereas Flandry advances from Ensign to Fleet Admiral.

Bond dreads aging and is not seen to age, indeed is kept young, even in the books, whereas Flandry does age and interacts with a grown-up son and daughter.

Bond refuses a knighthood. Flandry accepts his.

In Japan, Bond prays at Shinto shrines. On Dennitza, Flandry addresses Kossara, martyred though not yet canonized, in a Cathedral.

Bond senses a response from a Jizo guardian whereas Flandry does not feel that he receives any answer in the Cathedral.

Bond works with the Union Corse, French organized crime, against SPECTRE. David Falkayn works with the Gethfennu, Merseian organized crime, against Valenderay.

Addendum: Maybe there is covert sf in Moonraker? - an impossible-seeming burst of speed from a Russian submarine before it is destroyed by a nuclear explosion. Maybe the Russians were experimenting with a superfast sub?

The Underworld

In Poul Anderson's The Byworlder (London, 1974), early twenty first century society has divided into Orthos, Byworlders and Underworlders. To us, "organized crime" means illegal activities like protection and prostitution run by large criminal organizations sometimes, especially in the Italian tradition, controlled by powerful families. Anderson's "Underworld" seems to take organized crime to a new level, an entire social subculture, although we are not told many of the details.

When the heroine of the novel is professionally kidnapped by a man with faked Secret Service ID, the hero, putting his personal knowledge of the local Underworld to good use, tortures a knowledgeable consultant clairvoyant, thus learning some addresses to which he directs the FBI, who indeed then rescue the kidnap victim from an address on the list. Too easy? Implausible?

This part of the novel contains little science fiction except that:

the success of the hero's ploy seems to depend on a greater degree of "Underworld" cohesion than existed in the period when the novel was written;

a technological innovation enables him to smuggle a weapon into the clairvoyant's presence despite being searched by a bodyguard.

The kidnapping, and before that a murder attempt, make sense, in terms of the plot of the novel, because the heroine has made a breakthrough in communicating with the orbiting alien whose technology had better not be acquired by any one Terrestrial nation. The Chinese are clearly bad news although the heroine's opposite number among their scientists is a good guy. The Americans are also trying to get a monopoly on alien knowledge so is their government acting for the best?

In a Poul Anderson novel, we can depend on individuals to make the right decisions.

Snelund's Understanding Of The Civil Service

Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), pp. 468-469.

The foundation of any government is an army of bureaucrats and functionaries who, every day:

operate spaceports and traffic lanes;
deliver mail;
maintain electronic communication channels;
collect and supply data;
oversee public health;
curtail crime;
arbitrate disputes;
allocate scarce resources.

Why "scarce," in the Terran Empire where it is said elsewhere that technology could make every being rich?

Snelund does not mention education. An advanced society needs a literate, numerate, healthy population. Hence, the public health which Snelund does mention. Even when crime is part of the economy, its curtailment is necessary, as crime bosses agree. Organized crime can operate only within an ordered society.

Fleet Admiral Hugh McCormac, self-proclaimed Terran Emperor, has seized control of several planets in Sector Alpha Crucis. Sector Governor Aaron Snelund plans to:

avoid direct space naval combat with the tactically superior McCormac;
but reject his Admiral's advice to wait for Terran support;
hit-and-run and harass commerce and industry in the rebel-held volume of space;
plant agents throughout McCormac's realm before it is strongly guarded;
persuade functionaries not to serve the rebellion enthusiastically;
exploit their timidity and conservatism;
bribe, threaten, assassinate or terrorize;
slow down McCormac's civil service, thus starving his navy.

It works. Flandry, spying, learns that:

"Manufacture, logistics, and communications were falling apart beneath Hugh McCormac. He had given up trying to govern any substantial volume of space. Instead, he had assigned forces to defend individually the worlds which had declared for him. They were minimal, those forces. They hampered but could not prevent badgering attacks by Snelund's squadrons. Any proper flotilla could annihilate them in detail." (pp. 492-493)

Snelund, able to outwork twenty demons, has deliberately provoked the revolt, seeking only his own glory and enrichment. How would a rational society be able to get such a man to work not against but with and for others?

The Solar Union And Latin America

Here, I compared the Solar Union in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History to Latin America but there are differences. In Latin America:

"...the major source of threat and conflict is securocratic, stemming from social unrest and crime linked to poverty, and the operations of major crime organizations, drug cartels in particular."
-Jeff Halper, War Against The People (New York, 2015), p. 220.

In the Solar Union, there is no poverty. Instead, there is a comfortable life for all. Further, it is difficult to see how there could be organized crime in that society. In any case, it is not mentioned. There is social unrest because the majority who had been accustomed to working for their livings can no longer do so. But they no longer need to do so. Many would regard this as a release. And the next generation would not grow up with any expectation that they should work for their living. Instead, they could be offered cultural activities to address every taste: every kind of sport and art; travel; study etc.

Those who remained dissatisfied would hardly constitute a force capable of waging global war as described in "Cold Victory." Thus, I find the historical transition from "Quixote and the Windmill" to "Cold Victory" implausible. If the psychotechnicians could allow, or even inadvertently cause, that to happen, then their science did indeed count for nothing. I think that there is another timeline in which the Humanists were an ineffectual sect while the utopian economy went from strength to strength.

From Feudalism To Roidhunate

"Day of Burning."

As I understand it, Europe progressed from feudalism to mercantile capitalism to industrial capitalism whereas Merseia combined ancient feudalism with emerging industrialism. In Falkayn's time, there are still castles surrounded by villages and those workers who have been urbanized have preserved the baronial tradition by accepting and participating in the protection rackets of organized crime. That much had happened without any extra-planetary intervention. 

Because the single visit by a Grand Survey expedition made the Merseians aware of their galactic inferiority, racial advancement superseded both curiosity and profit as a motive for scientific enquiry. The Vachs formed a loose confederation while many Merseians joined new pro- or anti-galactic sects/cults. By Falkayn's time, the Vachs, still not fully united, avoid nuclear war on their planet but sometimes clash in space while the Gethfennu crime syndicate runs a vice city on the next planet out in the Korych System.

The Polesotechnic League protects Merseia from supernova radiation on its own terms - i.e., makes a profit - and refuses to share the hyperdrive. Hence, the resentment that motivates the Roidhunate which is what the confederation of Vachs becomes.

In The People Of The Wind, the Roidhunate is a distant but growing threat.

Throughout the Flandry period, the Roidunate is a major and powerful threat.

Post-Empire, it is gone.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

A Cosmos Of Enemies

Mirkheim, VI. 

Sheldon Wyler, a human being, works for the Baburites because he has no loyalty either to the Solar Commonwealth or to the Polesotechnic League. We, the readers, know that Wyler previously worked for Stellar Metals, a member company of the Seven In Space cartel. However, Falkayn and his companions, who might have found this fact significant, do not know it.

Several Merseians, like Blyndwyr of the Vach Ruethen, have enlisted in the new Baburite space navy. Wyler comments:

"'Mostly they belong to the aristocratic party at home and have no love for the League, considering how it shunted their kind aside and dealt instead with the Gethfennu group. You know, not many League people seem to understand what a cosmos of enemies it's made for itself over the years.'" (p. 96)

In the trader team story, "Day of Burning," the Gethfennu, organized crime, were the only international network on Merseia capable of a coordinated response to the imminent threat of radiation from the supernova, Valenderay.

If this were an ERB novel, then the Good Guys would have many enemies, all of whom would be personally despicable and morally reprehensible: cowardly, spiteful, dishonorable etc. (In one of ERB's Land That Time Forgot novels, an IWW member works for the Germans during WWI and hates all Americans.) Poul Anderson shows us good and bad on both sides when the League encounters its "...cosmos of enemies..." 

Interactions

The Merseians were introduced in the Dominic Flandry series, then, in a later written story, Master Merchant David Falkayn interacts with Morruchan Long-Ax, the Hand of the Vach Dahyr. In fact, Falkayn's trader team has a crucial mission to Merseia. Adzel interacts with Star Believers, Chee Lan with the Hand of another Vach, a Republican Warmaster and organized crime. See here.

The Ythrians were introduced in a story unto themselves, then, not as long afterwards in publication terms, Nicholas van Rijn interacts with Hirharouk of the Wryfields Choth, captain of the chartered ranger, Gaiian.

Notice two alien forms of social organization, Vachs and choths, also a republic on Merseia.

It is good to read about by now familiar characters and beings in new combinations.

Trade Routes And Vachs

Although the Cynthian, Chee Lan, resembles a squirrel, she is also like a Narnian Talking Beast, i.e., larger than her dumb equivalents and also, I think, with a proportionately larger head. Nevertheless, she remains much smaller than a human being and therefore is dwarfed by a Merseian or a Wodenite.

On Cynthia, there are trade routes but no tribes, clans, nations, states, choths or Vachs. Trade routes that have joined interstellar Technic civilization feel no obligation to help those that have not.

When, flying above Merseia, Chee Lan sees a cultivated plain with villages surrounding castles, she wonders whether the Merseians have combined feudalism with industrialism. The set-up sounds feudal, Vachs sound like feudal realms and also:

in the social dislocation following the industrial revolution, the baronial tradition survives as the Gethfennu, organized crime;
-copied from Merseia.

I think of the Mafia as a survival of feudal relationships.

Thus, a Cynthian applies a Terrestrial concept to Merseian society.

Places Not Visited In The Patrician System

See Places Visited...

Not Visited 

seven other planets (also here)

moons

asteroids

the Seas of Yin and Yang on Imhotep

Ghundrung, the Donarrian community on Daedalus

 

Members of several races colonized Daedalus. Their communities have local autonomy and "baronies" are mentioned on p. 258. Clearly, Daedalus was conceived as a planet where different intelligent species of the Technic History could be encountered, like Mosaic in the DC Universe.

 

A long time ago, I imagined a single "Planet of Adventure" where, after arriving in a spaceport in a futuristic city, it would be possible to travel by plane, train or other conveyance to areas reproducing the Wild West, World War II, knights in armor, South Seas pirates, a modern city with organized crime and a Police Department etc.

Imhotep has human beings, Tigeries and Seafolk. Daedalus has human beings, Cynthians, Donarrians and by implication others. Although it appears just once in this single novel, the Patrician System could have become a spin-off series.

Surnames

A Stone In Heaven, XI.

Around Dukeston on Ramnu, clans do not share a territory. Instead, a single family owns a small patch of land and passes a surname down the generations. Thus, Yewwl of the Kulembarach clan meets a fellow Ramnuan called Ayon Oressa'ul.

In the dominant Wilwidh Ocean culture on Merseia, an individual is known by his personal name, his (changeable) nickname and his Vach. However, other laws and customs survive. Thus, in Ensign Flandry, Dominic Flandry meets Tachwyr the Dark but also Lannawar Belgis whose full name sounds like a personal name and a surname. Lannawar mentions his old friend, Ralgo Tamuar. Centuries before, in "Day of Burning," Chee Lan had met Dagla Quick-to-Anger, Hand of the Vach Hallen, but also Olgor hu Freylin, Warmaster in the Republic of Lafdigu. Again, Lafdiguans seem to use surnames. David Falkayn dealt with Morruchan Long-Ax, Hand of the Vach Dathyr, but also with the disreputable (black, not green) Haguan Eluatz, head of the Gethfennu, organized crime. 

So how many intelligent species in the galaxy use surnames? We know of at least one other...

Byworlders

In the early twenty first century -

Byworlders:
leave "Ortho" society not to join the organized crime of the Underworld but to found diverse sub-cultures like -

Theontologists:
an eclectic religious community.

Sigaroons:
drifters, migratory workers;
do odd jobs and provide personal services or entertainment;
ostracize any of their number who beg, bully or steal;
can exercise a right to a public works billet, doing, e. g., clean-up work.

Skip, a sigaroon (interior decorator, carpenter, mechanic, repairman, singer and story-teller) spends time with Theontologists and sea gypsies.

Sea Gypsies:
sail international waters indefinitely in nuclear-powered ships;
re-use equipment developed for the Moon and Mars;
fish;
harvest plankton;
process water for minerals;
process sea weed for food and fabrics;
prospect for ore or oil;
carry cargo;
employ land-based brokers.

The Viking fleet preserves Northern virtues.
The fleet flag ship carries four thousand people with command posts, offices, electronic communications, schools, hospital, culture, recreation and private enterprises.
The other ships include a service vessel with machine shops, a mineral-extractor craft, a trawler, a submarine and a factory ship processing harvested kelp.

I expect to learn about several more Byworlder cultures while rereading Poul Anderson's The Byworlder. So far, by page 79, of 190, we have met these three groups.

Social Upheaval

Earth has been undergoing the social upheaval of urban civilization for several thousand years. Merseia was starting a machine age when a ship of the Grand Survey arrived and departed.

"A fierce, proud people had their noses rubbed in their own insignificance. Chee guessed that here lay the root of most of the social upheaval which followed. And belike a more urgent motive than curiosity or profit began to drive the scientists: the desire, the need to catch up, to bring Merseia in one leap onto the galactic scene." (David Falkayn: Star Trader, p. 232)

This recalls Stalin, crushing any trace of workers' control or of popular resistance in order to enforce industrialization without delay - in order to compete militarily against the Western powers; also, Chinese and Japanese regimes modernizing as rapidly as possible.

Technic civilization continues to generate discontent:

David Falkayn secretly founds Supermetals to help the many planets that lack the resources to join interstellar civilization;

the Baburites militarize and conspire to seize Mirkheim, the source of Supermetals' wealth;

the Baburites' armed forces include disaffected human beings and also Merseian aristocrats outraged that the Polesotechnic League had bypassed them to deal with the Gethfennu (organized crime);

the Merseian Roidhunate later competes with the Terran Empire.

Re Stalin:

"Chee got a distinct impression that the Republic [of Lafdigu] was actually a hobnail-booted dictatorship. Its own imperial ambitions clashed with those of the Hands. Nuclear war was averted on the ground..." (p. 233)

When Chee learns about the dynastic and nationalistic rivalries on Merseia, Anderson is most open to the charge leveled by Brian Aldiss. See here. However, when Anderson presents Terretrial-style politics on other planets, he does it extremely well - and also conveys that these are indeed other planets.

Lost Narratives

Manson Everard of the Time Patrol reads:

"...the lost narratives of Dr. Watson."

-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 55-112 AT 1, p. 55.

Which lost narratives? Somewhere in the Canon, there is a reference to papers in a box in a bank in London and one Holmes film begins with that box being carried out and opened.

Every Holmes sequel by another author can claim to be a lost narrative. They do not fit into a single timeline but the Patrol might have access to narratives from deleted timelines. Holmes fights Wells' Martians, meets Dracula, Tarzan etc.

Moriarty leads several lives. In at least three versions, he returns from Reichenbach. In Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he becomes M of the British Secret Service, to be succeeded by Mycroft Holmes. In Anthony Horowitz's Moriarty, having been driven out of England, he sets out to take over organized crime in the US. Publication of Volume III of John Gardner's Moriarty Trilogy was delayed until after the author's death and I have yet to read it. In The Dagger Affair by David McDaniel, after the Professor's death, his lieutenants (not all having been rounded up by Scotland Yard after all) decide to aim for world power and reorganize accordingly.

Horowitz's Moriarty contains a genuine "lost narrative." After the end of the novel, an original Holmes and Watson short story by Horowitz is introduced by an internal title page designed to resemble a cover of The Strand Magazine advertising "The Three Monarchs" by Dr. John H. Watson. I took this page to be just an illustration but in fact it separates the Moriarty novel from the Holmes short story. Reading that story while rereading Time Patrol, I like to imagine that this is the lost narrative that Everard was reading when he was interrupted by the arrival of Cynthia Denison.

Addendum: Horowitz obligingly ends his short story by referring to papers in the vaults of Cox & Co. in Charing Cross and confirms that the story was deposited there.

Another Input To Mirkheim

Several Merseians work for the Baburites. Sheldon Wyler, a human being also in Baburite employment, tells Falkayn:

"'Mostly they belong to the aristocratic party at home and have no love for the League, considering how it shunted their kind aside and dealt instead with the Gethfennu group. You know, not many League people seem to understand what a cosmos of enemies it's made for itself over the years.'"
-Mirkheim, VI, p. 96.

It was Falkayn himself that had negotiated with the Merseians and in particular with their organized crime group, the Gethfennu. This means that "Day of Burning" joins The Man Who Counts etc (see Mirkheim Miscellania) as a direct prequel to Mirkheim. "Day of Burning," written too late to be included in the Falkayn collection, The Trouble Twisters, is nevertheless referenced in the two novels, Satan's World and Mirkheim and, of course, collected in the Earth Book.

A powerful group not understanding that it has made enemies sounds all too familiar.

Civilization Loyalism

Who says that he is a "civilization loyalist" in the Dominic Flandry series?

Obviously Gratillonius, the last King of Ys, and Dominic Flandry, agent of the Terran Empire, are civilization loyalists because each of them struggles to prolong the lifetime of a particular civilization and both fight barbarians.

Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn prefer to strive and thrive within an ordered society rather than in a disordered one but who doesn't? Organized crime is socially and politically conservative. It wants to preserve the status quo in order to continue to operate within it. I do not compare van Rijn or Falkayn to the Mafia although such a comparison would be valid in the case of some other Polesotechnic League merchants.

Manse Everard of the Time Patrol preserves Danellian civilization by preserving the history that leads to it even though this obliges him to preserve the Fall of the Roman and other Empires. 

More Merseian Names

See Merseian Names.

When the trader team visits Merseia:

Morruchan Long-Ax is Hand of the Vach Dathyr;
Wedhi is a servant;
Dagla Quick-to-Anger is Hand of the Vach Hallen;
Olgor hu Freylin is Warmaster in the Republic of Lafdigu;
the red-robed Gryf is the chief of the Star Believers;
Tryntaf Fangryf-Tamer, Captain of space cruiser Yonuar of the United Fleet of the Great Vachs, keeps an eye on the warcraft of Lafdigu, Wolder, the Nersan Alliance etc;
the black-skinned, heavily scaled Haguan Eluatz is head of The Gethfennu, organized crime.

Is the list complete yet? I will be out this afternoon but will take some Technic History volumes with me.

Addendum:

Wedhi (see above) is a servant of Morruchan but a spy for Dagla;
Dwyr is a servant of Dagla but a spy for the Gethfennu;
Blyndwyr of the Vach Ruethen works for the Baburites when they seize Mirkheim and Hermes;
Lannawar Belgis is another Mersian whose first language is not Eriau;
Wythan Scarcheek is a scientist on Talwin;
another Chwioch, of Vach Hallen, is a Mei on Talwin;
Ulfan-gryf and Avalrik are two more Merseians on Talwin;
Korvash the Farseeing is Ambassador to Betelgeuse and later becomes Hand of the Vach Rueth (if this is the same Korvash);
Tachwyr's sons are Chydhwan and Gelch;
Glydh Far-Farer of the Vach Rueth, an afal in the Merseian Naval Intelligence Corps, addresses his human assistant, Muhammad Snell, as Kluwych, possibly because the latter's parents gave him this Eriau name when he was born in the Roidhunate;
Trohdwyr, Ywodh, Hand of the Vach Anochrin, and Kyrwedhin, Hand of the Vach Mannoch, are "ychani," Dennitzan Merseians - the latter corresponds with Hand Korvash;
Khwent, Yffal and Qythwy were Trohdwyr's brothers;
Gwyth was a Dennitzan hero who dared the storms of the Black Ocean - three hundred years ago, a Council House table was made from the timber of his ship;
Qow of Novi Aferoch is a light cruiser pilot on "Bodin's raid";
Merwyn is the Cyntath of a fleet cast back by Admiral Magnusson;
Iriad the Wayfarer works for the Gethfennu;
Cyntath Gadrol Cannonshield, Vach Ynvory, commands a task force from the dreadnaught Ardwyr;
Qanryf Bryadan Arrowswift, Vach Hallen, commands a squadron from the cruiser Tryntaf;
Afal Uroch the Lucky, Vach Rueth, commands an escadrille of twelve gunboats launched from Tryntaf.
Gwanthyr was a secret agent poisoned by Flandry.