An Occupied Planet

This post continues a line of thought started here.

Dan Dare: The Reign Of The Robots;

Doctor Who: Dalek Invasion

and Poul Anderson's "Hunters of the Sky Cave" -

- all recall World War II:

occupation;
street patrols;
underground resistance.

In Anderson's story, the Ardazirho have invaded and occupied the human extrasolar colony planet, Vixen. Unlike Dare's Treens and the Doctor's Daleks, the Ardazirho are not continuing villains. However, Aycharaych is behind them.

After landing covertly on Vixen and joining the resistance, Dominic Flandry reflects that a local man's hunting skills are transferable to resistance fighting. But surely such skills are also part of Intelligence work? In a Frederick Forsyth novel, a British secret agent organizing resistance in Iraqi-occupied Kuwait remains hidden and motionless but alert for eight hours while watching a possibly compromised dead letter drop before concluding that it is safe to approach it. Sure, his life depends on it. Nevertheless, this is admirable. To remain motionless and alert for eight hours is not only a day's work but a skilled day's work, and the skill is transferable to meditation, in particular to zazen. I try unsuccessfully to remain focused for half an hour.

How is Intelligence gathered? Flandry allows himself to be captured in order to learn the enemy's language, then escape. The easiness of escape is implausible. Of course, escape from capture by armed enemies is a familiar routine in action-adventure fiction and Anderson always writes his escape scenes well although their frequency diminishes their plausibility.

Behind Enemy Lines

See:

An Occupied Planet
Flandry On Vixen

Dominic Flandry goes behind enemy lines on the occupied planet of Vixen in We Claim These Stars!/"Hunters of the Sky Cave"/"A Handful of Stars." Thus, there are similarities to occupied France during World War II.

Flandry reflects that hunting skills are transferable to resistance fighting. Another set of skills is even more appropriate. Some fictional heroes, operating outside the law, wage secret wars, whether plausible or not, against the criminal underworld. Then Dornford Yates' Richard Chandos tells us that:

"During the war I had paid flying visits to France - by sea and by night."
-Dornford Yates, Ne'er Do Well (Cornwall, 2001), p. 2.

And the Germans put a price on his head. Our heroes are known to their enemies' high commands:

Chandos to the Germans;
Bond to SMERSH;
Flandry to the Merseians;
etc.

Some Telling Details

The Forge, CHAPTER SEVEN, pp. 98-99.

The colonized planet, Bellevue, has two moons so what are they called? Miniluna and Maxiluna.

Do they cast moonlight? No, "moonslight." (p. 98)

A soldier scouting possible bandits at night carries "...a wire cord with wooden toggles on both ends..." (ibid.) So what is it? A "...garrotte..." (p. 99)

Soldiers who have been brought up as hunters make little noise when stalking at night. Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry has reflected that hunting skills are transferable to resistance fighting. See here.

Raj Whitehall, leading this night-time excursion, smells barley, hears gurgling water and sees pale silver light flickering through leaves.

We should pause to appreciate these telling details in SM Stirling's narrative before we read on to learn the outcome.