Power, Justice And Love

"The Problem of Pain."

Peter Berg:

"'...religions evolve. The primitive faiths see God, or the gods, as power; the higher ones see Him as justice; the highest see Him as love.'" (p. 37)

I can offer a couple of other histories of religion.

(i) Personification of natural forces.

Personification of social forces.

Unification of personified forces.

Understanding replacing personification.

(ii) Monotheism as the content of prophetic traditions but as a phase in contemplative traditions. See Traditions.

Because I am interested in the history of religion and in the practice of contemplation, I tend to respond when Poul Anderson's characters discuss such issues which happens quite often.

Families, Households And Choths

"The Problem of Pain."

Peter Berg informs the first person narrator that the carnivorous Ythrians, most of whom have advanced from hunting to ranching, are:

"'...fiercely territorial. They live in small groups - single families or extended households - which attack, with intent to kill, any uninvited outsider who doesn't obey an order to leave.'" (p. 38)

Like the t'Kelans in "Territory," Ythrians are territorial, inclined to violence and disinclined to live in or identify with large groups and this is all because they are carnivorous. It is built into their biology and does not result from a "Fall" from any primordial state of innocence. I point this out because Berg, who is Christian, is trying to understand the Ythrians' relationship to God. And Nicholas van Rijn, who makes deductions about the t'Kelans, is also a Christian.

Meanwhile, we have got as far as "small groups" in our understanding of Ythrian social arrangements. Next, Berg says that the Planha-speaking "choths" (p. 39) are not barbarians. This is the first appearance in any of the stories of that Planha word and it is not yet explained. The full picture emerges gradually.

"Arinnian of Stormgate, whose human name is Christopher Holm,...has rendered several Ythrian works into Anglic..." (p. 266)

Hloch writes "Ythrian works," not "Planha works," so maybe Arinnian knows more than one Ythrian language?

In his general introduction to the Earth Book, Hloch:

introduces himself as "Hloch of Stormgate Choth..." (p. 13);

states that "...our choth receives more humans into membership than most." (ibid.);

also states that his mother's The Sky Book of Stormgate "...traced and described the whole history of our choth."; (pp. 13-14) (Its ancestors were on Ythri but its founders on Avalon.)

claims that his Earth Book tells "...how Avalon came to settlement and thus our choth to being." (ibid.)

Whatever a choth is, this one, Stormgate, was not brought from Ythri but founded on Avalon.

On Lucifer

Poul Anderson, "The Problem of Pain" IN Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), pp. 35-54.

On the hellish planet, Lucifer:

"We came back to base as day's fury was dying in the usual twilight gale; we washed, ate something, went to sleep with the hiss of storm-blown dust for a lullaby." (p. 36)

Rereading, we find yet another contextually appropriate wind. How many sf writers present this amount of detail when describing extraterrestrial environments? Many hours later, it is still night with:

cold, crystalline stars;

thin air;

flaming auroras;

hoar landscape;

glittering ice sheathing twisted "trees."

Work outside cannot resume until dawn so two men eat, drink and talk.

We are rereading "The Problem of Pain" in order to discern how much information this story imparts about Ythrians and, in particular, about their form of social organization called the "choth." But there are no Ythrians on Lucifer, a planet that we are shown only in this single story although it will be mentioned once later.

Two men talk and one of them, Peter Berg, describes his earlier experience with Ythrians on the terrestroid planet provisionally named "Gray" although later, when colonized, it will be renamed "Avalon." The scene on Lucifer is introductory. Every scene contributes to one long rich series.

Nations

Before studying the Ythrian concept of "choth," we can learn something about ourselves by rereading the Ythrian Hloch's attempt to explain the human concept of "nation." This has to be read in full:

"Their Commonwealth had been formed out of numerous nations. A few more came into being and membership afterward. To explain the concept "nation" is stiffly upwind. As a snatching at the task - Within a sharply defined territory dwell a large number of humans who, in a subtle sense which goes beyond private property or shared range, identify their souls with this land and with each other. Law and mutual obligation are maintained less by usage and pride than by physical violence or the threat thereof on the part of that institution called the government. It is as if a single group could permanently cry Oherran against the entire rest of society, bring death and devastation wherever it chose, and claimed this as an exclusive right. Compliance and assistance are said to be honorable, resistance dishonorable, especially when one nation is at war with another - for each of these entities has powers which are limited not by justice, decency, or prudence, but only by its own strength."

-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), pp. 33-34. (Two emphases mine. See below.)

The BBC TV News has been on while I have been writing this post.

Anderson/Hloch italicized "nations" in the first sentence. I have italicized "said to be" and "by its own strength." I have done this partly by way of comment and partly to emphasize that, fictitiously, this passage is written by an Ythrian who is merely reporting or recording Terran sayings and practices. Clearly, Hloch thinks that powers might be limited by justice, decency or prudence rather than by strength alone.

To comment on the current news would be to become immediately embroiled in present conflicts and disagreements whereas merely to quote Hloch is to maintain that distance which is provided by science fiction. But Anderson's text from 1978 is very relevant here and now.

Hloch has three more comments on "nations." First, Avalonian human beings maintain a very limited form of government but that is because:

"It is merely their way." (p. 34)

Secondly, it is impossible to understand the Terran Empire without understanding "nation."

Thirdly:

"To curb these inordinate prerogatives of a few, whose quarrels and mismanagement threatened to lay waste their native planet, the Commonwealth was finally established, as a nation of nations." (ibid.)

Comments

"...a nation of nations." Not (yet) an end to nations.

Compare the struggles to establish and maintain a UN world government in Anderson's earlier Psychotechnic History.

Hloch's concluding remark above returns us sharply to the question: What are we going to do next?

Sf is relevant.

Five Stories And A Novel

 

In the 1960's, it sufficed for me that a novel involved space travel. That put Asimov's Foundation Trilogy on a par with Anderson's Technic History. Now considerably more than that is necessary and Poul Anderson still provides it.

Decades ago, while visiting my parents in Nottingham, I bought paperback copies of The People Of The Wind and The Day Of Their Return. I knew that both novels were volumes of Anderson's Technic History and thought that both, not just one, of them were set outside of the Flandry period. Consequently, references to Dominic Flandry in the second of these volumes came as a surprise. Now, of course it is clear to anyone who knows the Technic History that the Young Flandry Trilogy comes between these two volumes. Thus:

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, concludes with The People Of The Wind;

Saga, Vol. IV, comprises Young Flandry;

Vol. V commences with The Day Of Their Return.

However, centuries separate The People Of The Wind from Ensign Flandry whereas only a few years separate the third Young Flandry novel, The Rebel Worlds, from its non-Flandry sequel, The Day Of Their Return.

The People Of The Wind opens by imparting some concentrated information about Ythrian choths so it makes sense first to check the five earlier Ythrian short stories collected in The Earth Book Of Stormgate. The first of these stories, "Wings of Victory," introduces the Ythrians as a species but says nothing as yet about their social relationships except that, as carnivores, they must be territorial and, as fliers, they do not need cities. That is the base on which Anderson builds.

Stories And Series

Apart from their original magazine publications, Poul Anderson's "The Saturn Game" and "Starfog" can be appreciated either as separate stories at the beginning and end of his collection, Explorations, or as opening and closing instalments at the beginning and end of the seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga. That is pretty amazing. Any future history instalment should be equally readable as a one-off story although that dual status can be fully achieved only to a greater or lesser extent. As the opening story, "The Saturn Game" refers back to the passive entertainment of the mid-twentieth-century and might anticipate some later instalments of the series although it cannot in the nature of the case refer to any earlier instalments whereas "Starfog" does refer to:

"'...the League, the troubles, the Empire, its fall, the Long Night...'"

-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 722 -

- which is like an attempt to summarize the entire history. Earlier episodes cover all of these periods except the "fall."

A reader of "Starfog" as a one-off story might be puzzled by this list. On the other hand, he will not be puzzled to read that the Kirkasanters are descendants of exiles from Technic civilization although any reader of earlier instalments does understand this reference. 

The Technic History hangs together both as a long coherent series and as forty-three individual works.

Ythrian And Human Avalonians

In "Wings of Victory," Ythrians are a flying, fighting species and it is confirmed that they are intelligent. In the concluding passage, communication is established although off-stage. Thus, in this introductory story, no Ythrian becomes an individual character with a name or a speaking part. That has to wait until the second story, "The Problem of Pain," published ten months later. Although Ythrians retain the status of individual characters from "The Problem of Pain" until the last appearance of an Ythrian, the death of Erannath near the end of The Day Of Their Return, no member of this species ever becomes a recurrent, continuing, series character like Adzel the Wodenite, Chee Lan the Cynthian, Tachwyr the Merseian, Aycharaych the Chereionite, Chives the Shalmuan or Dragoika the land Starkadian.

The definitive human-Ythrian narrative has to be The People Of The Wind which in turn provides the basis for that ultimate future historical volume, The Earth Book Of Stormgate. It is only in these two works that we read about human Avalonians joining choths. Christopher Holm is Arinnian of Stormgate. Tabitha Falkayn is Hrill of Highsky. Holm, when we first meet him, is fanatically pro-Ythrian whereas Tabitha, brought up by Ythrians in her choth, is more balanced and relaxed about inter-species relationships. Arinnian just makes it into series character status since he is mentioned by Hloch in the Earth Book.

We might reread passages of The People Of The Wind not for the entire narrative but specifically for all the details of choth life on Avalon. We are shown almost nothing of Ythri after "Wings of Victory."

Sequels And Prequels III

See:

Sequels And Prequels

Sequels And Prequels II

Most attempts to summarize internal interconnections and cross-references within Poul Anderson's Technic History miss something. In the second post linked above, I mentioned that:

"the Young Flandry Trilogy recounts Flandry's early career, including his defeat of the McCormac Rebellion centered on the planet Aeneas" -

- but omitted that that Trilogy also covers the time that Flandry had spent with Merseians on the planet Talwin. While Flandry is on that planet, the Merseian Ydwyr twice mentions Aycharaych, first to Djana, then to Flandry. The latter's newness to intelligence work is demonstrated when he misses a chance to learn more about this casually mentioned name. Ydwyr's brief account to Djana imparts some information about Aycharaych that we do not read anywhere else.

Prequels enable an author to exercise considerable hindsight.

Details And Copies

In Narrative Structures, we proposed to summarize information about members of the Olga crew but find that we have already done this in "Wings Of Victory." I would have included a few more details if writing such a summary now but, of course, the details are in the story which I recommend every reader of this blog either to read or to reread. See also A Five Year Mission.

In "The Saturn Game," Scobie's:

"...copy of The Machinery Of Freedom...had nearly disintegrated..." (p. 23)

After repeated rereadings and referencings, my paperback copy of Poul Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate eventually split into two parts and was sellotaped back together but then split again, this time into two parts and a separate page, and has more recently been replaced by a larger format hardback copy whose dust jacket is now frayed and torn. Likewise, a paperback edition of David Falkayn: Star Trader split in two with a torn page but has been replaced by a larger hardback copy whose dustcover is protected by a seemingly impenetrable transparent outer cover. We quote texts as if they subsisted in an abstract and universally accessible Platonic realm, and indeed they can now be preserved online, but nevertheless we often still rely on vulnerable physical copies. 

Most of my currently possessed copies of Poul Anderson's works should outlast their present owner.

Narrative Structures

Poul Anderson, "Wings of Victory" IN Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1978), pp. 15-32.

The first person narrator of this story has a curious status. First, she is not named in the story. It is the Earth Book compiler, Hloch of Stormgate, who afterwards informs us that her name is Maeve Downey, that she is a planetologist and that this story is an extract from her autobiography, Far Adventure. (An evocative title.)

Secondly, she is not involved in the action that she recounts. Three explorers descend to the surface of the newly discovered terrestroid planet. They are a xenologist, a pilot and a gunner and therefore do not include the planetologist.

Thirdly, her narrative uses the techniques of fiction, describing events from the point of view of the pilot and informing us of his reactions and feelings. This does not surprise us because we know that we are reading a short story written by Poul Anderson but Hloch's Avalonian audience does not know that!

The story presents information about several members of the Olga crew and I propose to outline and discuss this information but that will have to wait until after a visit to the gym. Life continues in Lancaster as well as on Ythri.