More Merseians On Dennitza

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, IV.

"Day of Burning" and A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows are linked across several centuries. Life was hard on Merseia because the planet was modernizing and moving into space at the same time as it had to be protected from supernova radiation and there was a three-sided struggle for power between Vachs, Gethfennu and nations like the Republic of Lafdigu. Merseian immigrants were welcome on the human colony planet, Dennitza. Able to stand cold better than human beings, they do most of the fishing and pelagiculture, especially on the eastern seaboard of the main continent, Rodna. They are organized in Vachs and have their own House in the Shkoptsina, Parliament. Kossara remembers a gruff welcome at the campfire of great green hunters and is overcome by emotion. After Abrams' and Flandry's (fully justified) hostility to the Roidhunate, Anderson's account of inter-species harmony on Dennitza is welcome indeed. It is hard to choose but I think that Dennitza is my favourite planet in the Technic History. Its place names are resonant:

the Kazan

the Obala

Zorkagrad

I would not participate in Orthochristian prayers or sacraments but would meditate in a side chapel of St Clement's Cathedral. I would also learn how to recite Eriau prayers with Trohdwyr. Paganism encourages ritual observance but does not insist on credal assent.

Some Details In "Home"

For reference, see "Home."

The round trip to retrieve the colonists from Mithras, thirty-three light-years from Sol, will take seventy years.

The scientific base, not really intended as a colony, has been on Mithras for a hundred years.

Earth has pelagiculture (scroll down) and floating towns with transport webs.

The Terrestrial Directorate is terminating all interstellar activity because global population has grown large and resources low.

This sounds like the Rustum History except for the word "Directorate" instead of "Federation" and that could reflect a regime change. Thus, so far, this story might fit into that future history.

Orbit Unlimited

As works of science fiction go, the four story collection, Orbit Unlimited by Poul Anderson, is an extremely restrained account of the colonisation of an extrasolar planet:

at the end of the first story, a slower than light space fleet leaves the Solar System;

the second story describes an incident en route when the option of turning back must be considered;

the third story describes an incident when the fleet is in orbit around the new planet, Rustum;

thus, the colonists are settled on the surface and starting to reproduce there only in the concluding story.

The reader is pleased to learn that there are sequels, including a story in which Rustum must cope with a second wave of colonists from Earth and another story set on a colony in a different planetary system. As in other series, Anderson gradually broadens his narrative perspective.

The opening pages of the first story quickly establish a detailed sociopolitical background of high tech but overpopulated urban decay, with Atomic Wars in the past. Some terminology is familiar from other works but each future society envisaged by Anderson is unique. The (unelected) Guardian Commission of the Federation meets in teleconference:

Premier Selim, before a window opening on palm trees;
Svoboda, Commissioner for Psychologics, in his departmental tower surrounded by airborne filth in a city on an Atlantic coast;
Security Chief Chandra in India at sunrise;
Rathjen, Commissioner for Astronautics;
Novikov of Mines;
Larkin of Pelagiculture;
Dilolo of Agriculture.

That Astronautics is decaying, with a Venerian colony discontinued, is a sure sign that this Federation will not have the author's approval. The Commission discusses Constitutionalism, a philosophy founded by a man called Anker who advocated basing thought patterns on the constitution of (empirical) reality, not on mysticism, although, in North America, despite recent Oriental immigration, the term "Constitution" retains for the English-speaking half of the population another meaning that had even instigated an anti-Federation Rebellion twenty years previously.

Constitutionalism may inspire middle class professionals on whom the Guardians depend to seek political power for their class so Svoboda proposes to close Constitutionalist schools by reviving free compulsory education, though not for the illiterate eighty per cent of the population of course. Thus, in the nine pages of section 1, Anderson sketches an entire society and sets the scene for persecuted Constitutionalists emigrating to Rustum.

Dennitza

The star Zoria is an F8 sun, a third again as luminous as Sol. The terrestroid planet Dennitza is half covered by ocean. Axial tilt and rotation period cause extreme weather and climate. Less than a million years ago, a shower of giant meteoroids caused an ice age. Now, sea levels rise in the Great Spring.

Terrestrial human beings colonized Dennitza about 2450. About 200 years later, Merseian immigrants arrived and in 3047 comprise 10% of the population. Their self-designation is "ychani," seekers. The human Dennitzan term, possibly contemptuous in origin, is "zmayi." Displaced by political conflicts at home, ychani provided labor for new Dennitzan industries. Able to endure cold better than humans, they mainly live on the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, the main continent in the northern hemisphere, where they specialize in fishing and pelagiculture. The legendary ychan hero Gwyth dared the storms and sea beasts of the Black Ocean.

In Dubina Dolyina province, Danilo Vymezal is both the voivode (hereditary aristocrat) and the nachalnik (governor chosen both by the Gospodar {planetary head of state} and by the popular assembly).
 
Cultural influences: Vymezal's bugle call is an immemorial Merseian war song; his wife sings an Eriau lullaby to their daughter, Kossara: Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv.

Religions: human Dennitzans, Orthochristians worshiping in St Clement's Cathedral, later canonize Kossara Vymezal, who has a large tomb on Founders' Hill. Some ychani of the Black Ocean remain pagans referring not to "the God" of Merseian religion but to Afherdi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds and Haawan who lairs on the reefs.  

Yovan Matavuly led the human pioneers who, like other emigrant groups at the time, wanted to preserve traditions, customs, language, race etc. They speak Serbic and Imperial Anglic while the ychani/zmayi speak archaic mutated Eriau. 

Dennitza, still in its ice age, has limited habitable areas. Mahovina turf and woodland duff are soft and springy. Evergreen equivalents are low and gnarled with blue-black plumes. Firebush burns spontaneously to ripen and scatter its seeds. There are no ornithoids but orliks are winged theroids. Flocks of yegyupka fly south; guslars trill; a horned bull leads a herd of yelen; riba caught from the Lyubisha River can be fried to eat. 

The original colonists, having to survive without sophisticated technology, developed a baronial clan system which persisted under industrialization. The Shkola, university and research center, preserved learning almost from the beginning of the colony. Lake Stoyan and the capital Zorkagrad are in the center of the Kazan, an astrobleme containing woods, farms and rivers, on Rodna. In Zorkagrad, the fountain before the Capitol in Constitution Square contains bronze statues of the hero Toman Obilich in combat with wild Vladimir. On a rock hill beyond the Square are the battlements of the Zamok or Castle, the executive center.

The Gospodar, elected out of the Miyatovich family by the plemichi, clan heads and barons, has supreme executive authority subject to Grand Court rulings on constitutionality. Court verdicts are reversible by the Shkoptsina, a Parliament with chambers for plemichi, commons and zmayi, although more than once in history a demonstration of zmayi has marched into the House of the Zmayi and been heard. One demonstration in 3047 carries the white star on blue standard of Yovan Matavuly and the red axe on gold of Gwyth. A militia, the Noradna Voyska, has been basic to Dennitzan society since the Troubles.

The nachalniki, i.e., heads of okruzhi (baronies or prefectures), are hereditary or elected by resident clans or appointed by the Gospodar depending on ancient usage. Towns and rural districts have elected councils. Ychani have preserved the Merseian organizational form, Vachs. For example, Ywod is Hand of the Vach Anochrin as well as steadcaptain of the fishing village of Nanteiwon on the Obala. Kyrwhedin is Hand of the Vach Mannoch, a member of the House of the Zmayi and moot-lord of the Obala steadcaptains. In this third capacity, he presides when the steadcaptains meet around a table made from timbers of Gwyth's ship in Council Hall at Novi Aferoch at the Elena River mouth.

Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich, having supported the Imperial usurper Hans Molitor, was rewarded with governorship of the Taurian Sector which faces the Merseian Rhoidunate. Ychani, not wanting Merseian rule, are loyal to Gospodar and Emperor. The Dennitzan poet Andrei Simich celebrated the deeds of the Founder and other ancestors but, in the absence of Simich, we must make do with a prose account of Bodin's raid into Merseian space.

Source: Anderson, Poul, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, London, 1978.

(For convenience, dates are as given in Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization but see here.)

One Fictional Planet

For many of his fictional planets, Poul Anderson seriously considers:

the astrophysical conditions of the condensation of this planetary system from the primordial gas and dust;
the current planetary environment and climate;
every facet of the social life of the inhabitants;
their galacto-political relations to other planets during a changing history.

In the case of Dennitza, there was no astrophysical accident - no nearby supernova or passing neutron star etc. However, there was a more recent collision with "...a shower of giant meteoroids..." -Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 498. Results: craters, extinctions, tsunamis, clouds, an Ice Age and, at the time of human colonization six hundred years ago, a Great Spring, now submerging coastal towns. The Kazan or Cauldron is a huge astrobleme containing woods, farms, rivers and the capital city.

Four hundred years ago, immigrants fleeing the modernization of Merseia, and better adapted to cold environments, provided labor during industrialization and now do most of the fishing and pelagiculture. They retain Vach organization and are represented in a third House of the Parliament. Anderson demonstrates that both species have developed new legends and traditions during their centuries on Dennitza.