Irumclaw

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 22 Sept 2014.

In Ensign Flandry, there are Irumclagians and, at the beginning of the following volume, A Circus Of Hells, Flandry is on Irumclaw.

Any sf writer can tell us that an interstellar empire is declining and withdrawing from its periphery but Poul Anderson is also able to present imperial decline in social terms with a hint of the pathetic fallacy to back it up.

First, the pathetic fallacy - Flandry leaves the naval compound:

"Soon after the red-orange sun had set..."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 203.

Anderson gets his readers to imagine sunset colors - not only has the sun just set but it was red-colored to begin with - immediately before he discusses declining empire. I have used the accompanying color illustration, although we have had it recently, because of its appropriate background coloring.

Next, as Flandry walks between the homes and private parks of the wealthy, he reflects that "...they epitomized man's trajectory." (p. 204) When the settlement had been large, prosperous and well inside the Imperial boundaries, it had attracted both mercantile commerce and aristocratic culture but now the mansions are either empty or owned only by those who prey on the declining numbers of spacemen and Navy personnel while, outside the treaty port boundaries, the natives revert to barbarism.

"Tonight Irumclaw lay like a piece of wreckage at the edge of the receding tide of empire." (ibid.)

Here again is the pathetic fallacy. Irumclaw is not in decline only at night! However, it is appropriate that Flandry's somber reflections occur just after night fall. They prefigure the Long Night of Empire that haunts Flandry's life.

Ardaig

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 16 May 2014.

"Ardaig was sizeable, must hold two or three million souls. This quarter was ancient, with buildings of gray stone fantastically turreted and battlemented."
- Poul Anderson, "Day of Burning" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (New York, 2010), pp. 208-272 AT p. 223.

Ardaig is a city on the planet Merseia. Anderson must make it different from a Terrestrial city but not very different because Merseia is terrestroid and Merseians are oxygen-breathing bipeds. When Merseia is unified, Ardaig becomes the planetary capital. Later, it is joined in this role by modern antipodal Tridaig, where most of the government's business is conducted, although Ardaig remains the cultural and artistic center, the location both of the Roidhun's primary residence and of his Grand Council's annual meetings, and also becomes the location of the new Space Navy offices.

Ardaig and Tridaig embody tradition and technology, respectively. Ardaig differs from a Terrestrial city because:

it is neither bright nor busy at night;
ground vehicles are confined to tubeways or a few avenues;
streets are for pedestrians or gwydh riders;
recreation is at home or in ancient theaters and sports fields;
shops are small and have been run by the same family in the same house for generations - although there are also mercantile centers with communicator and delivery systems;
pavements are luminous;
street signs are not words but colorful heraldic emblems.

Those last details in particular are different and imaginative.

Starkad

The star Saxo, with its eleven major bodies, 254 light years from Sol, was found during the first Grand Survey but was not profitable for the Polesotechnic League and is outside the Terran Empire although a Terran mission now supports the land-dwelling Tigeries of Saxo V, Starkad, because the Merseians have begun to support the sea-dwelling Siravo. The two native species are natural enemies, like men and wolves on Earth, because the Tigeries' fisheries, seabeast hunts, weed harvests and drag nets disrupt the undersea ecology.

Terrans can breathe on the mountain tops but need helmets at sea level where the oxygen is too dense.

"'Under high atmospheric pressure, there's enough oxygen dissolved in water to support an active metabolism and a good brain. That must be why intelligence evolved in the seas: biological competition like you hardly ever find in the seas of Terra-type planets.'"
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), pp. 47-48.

(Serious scientific speculation in the dialogue of an action-adventure novel.)

The Archer, a merchant ship belonging to the Sisterhood of (the island of) Kursoviki, carries "...timber and spices from Ujanka port down the Chain archipelago." (p. 32) Although a ship has a captain and officers, no town or island has a ruler. Instead, females are organized into associations like the Sisterhood which:

have members not living in any one place;
have their own special languages;
"'...own all important property and make all important decisions...'" (p. 33);
employ males, for examples as crews serving under female officers.

Ujanka, the main Kursovikian port, is on Golden Bay, divided by the Pechaniki River. Sisterhood headquarters is in the West Housing. The homes and trained jungles (including venomous reptiles) of the wealthy are in the High Housing. Dragoika is captain of the Archer, share-holder in a fleet-owning kith-corporation and speaker for the corporation in the Sisterhood but nevertheless "...live[s] in the East Housing, on Shiv Alley itself." (p. 52)

We know nothing of Shiv Alley but the mere addition of the word "itself" is enough to inform us that it is significant, perhaps notorious. Seatraders' Castle guards the port.

The Kursovikians know of, and sometimes drop stones on, Tidehome and Reefcastle, two vaz-Siravo cities at the end of the Chain, but have never suspected the existence of Shellgleam, Vault, Crystal or Outlier, four cities which are on the verge of the Deeps and which complete the Sixpoint of Zletovar. Terrans including Ridenour and Flandry visit the Sixpoint and learn more but that is enough for this post.

Merseia

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, Tues 24 April 2012.

Astronomical:

in the system of the Sol-like star Korych;
four moons - Neihevin, Seith, Lythyr and Wythna;
lethally close (about one parsec) to the supernova, Valendary.

When visited by a ship of the Grand Survey:

an industrial revolution starting by the Wilwidh Ocean in the northern hemisphere;
scientific method invented;
heliocentric astronomy;
post-Newtonian, pre-Maxwellian physics;
chemistry beginning;
a well-developed taxonomy;
speculations about evolution;
steam trains;
political power fragmented among the Vachs;
scientists, engineers and teachers each under the patronage of a Hand of a Vach.

When visited, two hundred years later, by the trader team:

the Vachs have confederated;
in the social dislocation following the industrial revolution, the baronial tradition survives as the Gethfennu, organized crime;
the most powerful Vach, Dathyr, is based in Castle Afon in the city of Ardaig;
other Vachs - Hallen, Ynvory, Rueth, Isthyr, landless Urdiolch;
the Republic of Lafdigu in the southern hemisphere;
interplanetary travel;
inconclusive space battles;
a Gethfennu colony on the planet Ronraud;
Star Believers regarding galactics as divine;
Demonists regarding them as demonic;
Adzel addresses a Believer gathering of clients, commoners and city proletariat. 

When visited, several centuries later, by Ensign Dominic Flandry:

the capital planet of an interstellar empire, the Roidhunate;
unified under the Roidhun, who is of Vach Urdiolch;
Brechdan Ironrede, current Hand of the Vach Ynvory, is Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council;
twin capitals, ancient Ardaig on the bay of the River Oiss on the Wilwidh Ocean and modern antipodal Tridaig;
Castle Afon, the Roidhun's official primary residence, and the newly built Admiralty House are in Ardaig.

When Flandry is an Admiral:

his opposite number, Tachwyr the Dark, has become Hand of the Vach Dathyr and Protector of the Grand Council.

Sources: "Day of Burning"; Ensign Flandry; The Game of Empire.