I hope that:
the US gets the President it wants;
the UK gets the BREXIT it wants;
we all get through the pandemic soon;
our future holds a Solar Commonwealth but not a Terran Empire.
Happy New Year. Good night.
Thursday, 31 December 2020
The Last Post
Chronological Questions II
Satan's World, "...the Shenna affair..." (p. 175);
shortly after that, the beginning of "Lodestar";
ten years later, the end of "Lodestar";
ten more years later, Mirkheim.
That makes twenty years between Satan's World and Mirkheim. Why then does Eric Tamarin reflect that van Rijn's face is:
"...sharply remembered from documentary shows a decade ago following the Shenna business..." (p. 176)?
The answer is partly that these texts were never meant to be read this closely.
Greatland
Grand Duchess Sandra and her son, Eric, discuss their response to the Baburite invasion.
"'We can organize guerillas.'
"'They'd spend near their whole time surviving.' At the present epoch, Hermes had a single continent, Greatland, so enormous that most of its interior was a desert of blazing summers and bitter winters. 'Worse, they'd invite reprisals on everybody else. And never could they defeat well-equipped troops on the ground, missile-throwing ships in orbit.'" (p. 153)
A conversation can be narrated without identifying a point of view. See the description of the dialogue between van Rijn and Hirharouk in Coya Conyon. I had to check but this conversation between Sandra and Eric is definitely narrated from her pov. Her cigar smoke tastes harsh.
However, of particular interest is the explanatory interpolation, beginning "At the present epoch..." A future historian, recounting the conversation, pauses to explain to his audience the geology of Hermes in that long past epoch.
For the development of Greatland by a later Grand Duke, see the link from "Hermes," also Edwin Cairncross's Ambitions.
Baburite Rule
If Babur and the Solar Commonwealth are about to wage war, then it is advisable that Babur occupy the Maian System in order to forestall a Commonwealth occupation. That makes sense. But why are they about to wage war? We learn that the Baburite occupation of Hermes has a hidden agenda: Benoni Strang's social revolution. That man would have done no harm and much good if he had stayed home and led the Liberation Front.
The Hermetians are promised internal self-government, a promise soon broken. However, while that promise is still ostensibly on the table, Sandra reflects:
"'...I can't imagine any interest the Baburites might take in our local politics.'" (p. 153)
I read somewhere that Spanish Christians had more religious freedom under Muslim rule because the Muslim rulers did not care which of their subjects were "heretics." An Alan Moore superhero loses interest in human politics just as we have no preference between red and black ants.
(Click on the above link from "Babur" for a surprise.)
A Phone, A Cyanops And A Baburite
Sandra's portable phone hangs from her belt. Thus, it is a walkie-talkie, too bulky to fit in a purse or pocket. It saves an animal's life. Sandra's hounds have trapped a scaled, clawed, reptilian cyanops (scroll down) on a cliff top. As she prepares to shoot this native Hermetian animal through one of its eyes with a rifle, her phone buzzes and she must return immediately to Starfall. Although we are not told how many eyes the cyanops has, we assume two but film-makers could make some other assumption.
In the Insignia Room back in Starfall, Sandra sits at bay before the three-dimensional image of a conquering Baburite. I did not think of comparing Sandra to the cyanops but she does.
(The Van Rijn Method is another volume but Sandra Tamarin is one of the characters on its cover.)
Phones And Falkayns
"The portable phone at her belt buzzed." (p. 146)
Here is a mobile phone although I said in an earlier post (see the link) that there were none in the Solar Commonwealth period.
Sandra's vice executive phones with a message from "Admiral Michael" who turns out to be a Falkayn and also the second in command of the small Hermetian space navy. Earlier, "Mike Falkayn," obviously the same guy, had been left in charge of the reserves at home when Sandra led the fleet to Mirkheim. (VII, p. 112)
Have we been told yet that Michael is David's older brother? We did know that David was a younger son. Michael's seniority and his death in combat (see Mirkheim Miscellany) will have grave consequences for David. Times of crisis affect both nations and individuals.
A Time Of Crisis
"Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen...had felt guilty about leaving Starfall at a time of crisis - domestic as well as foreign, with more of the Traver class in an uproar..." (p. 145)
If the lowest social class, allowed no say in public affairs, is in an uproar amounting to a crisis, then all is not well in Hermtian society so meet its leaders and agree some social changes. I remember, during Apartheid, someone saying, "Change will come over time." Yes, it would and did come because a lot of people campaigned for it but he was arguing that they should stop campaigning!
Change is certain. Change for the good is not.
Chronological Questions
(i) Poul Anderson presents no year dates except in the opening story, "The Saturn Game."
(ii) He does inform us about periods of time that elapse between installments or between important events in the Technic History. Thus, we are often told the age of either Falkayn or Flandry in a particular installment. The events of Mirkheim occur ten years after the end of "Lodestar" and a hundred years after the Council of Hiawatha. "Lodestar" occurs shortly after Satan's World but ten years elapse between the beginning and end of "Lodestar."
Rather that arbitrarily ascribe AD/CE year dates to events after "The Saturn Game," I think that it makes more sense to treat, e.g., the discovery of hyperdrive as time zero and to date the Breakup, the Solar Commonwealth, the Grand Survey etc from then.
Wednesday, 30 December 2020
Saturn And Cana
A photograph of Saturn in Orion Shall Rise (see Photographs Of Saturn) got me into rereading The Rebel Worlds, then other works in the Technic History. There is yet another image of Saturn in the Saturn Room in the Hotel Universe:
"Overhead lifted the vast half-circles of the rings, tinted more subtly than rainbows in a violet sky where four moons were presently visible. Sparks of light flickered in the streaming arcs and meteors clove the heavens. Where a tiny sun was setting, dimmed by thick air, clouds lay tawny and rosy." (p. 135)
It is in the Saturn Room that van Rijn preaches to Bayard Story about:
"'The very first miracle that Our Lord did...'" (p. 136) (See A Select Vintage And Solar Spices.)
Although I referred to the "...very first miracle...," I did not cite the Biblical reference so here it is: John 2: 1-12.
Something In Us
Maybe I have more in common with David Falkayn than I had thought? He had thought that:
"'...civilization had evolved beyond war.'" (p. 131)
This is certainly possible. France and Germany no longer settle their differences by waging war. Chee Lan points out that the Shenna had not, and the Baburites have not, evolved beyond war but Falkayn keeps asking questions. Why did the Baburites arm even before they knew that there would be a source of wealth like Mirkheim to fight for? In any case, they could have bought all the supermetals that they needed for a fraction of the cost of the navy that have built. His provisional hypothesis:
"'I have this gnawing notion that something in us, in Technic culture, is responsible.'" (ibid.)
And that is the answer. Not only something in their Technic culture but also something in his Hermetian culture. Looking at an apparently external problem is like looking in a mirror. When the Prisoner unmasks Number One, he sees his own face.
In this sense, the Baburites are not like the Patriarchy of Kzin which is merely an external threat - except insofar as it is projected onto the interstellar stage by the imagination of an American sf author.
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