The Colonization Of Daedalus

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 29 June 2013.

Fully inhabitable terrestroid planets are rare and artificial worlds have obvious limitations so some planets have to be terraformed, for example, Daedalus, discovered by David Jones, which, in its natural state, grows no food edible to human beings or Tigeries. Native soil has to be sterilized to bedrock, then a terrestroid ecology, when introduced, has to be nurtured and protected from the native life which tries to return. Islands are easiest to defend and some baronies were rich enough to buy a non-interference pledge from the Empire.

Light is refracted around the curve of Daedalus so that, instead of a horizon, an endlessly receding landscape is seen with the setting sun perceived as a ring. The Highroad River links the capital Aurea to the Phosphoric Ocean where an autonomous cloned community (but see here) inhabits the island, Zacharia.

The single moon of Daedalus is, appropriately, called Icarus. 

Admiral Olaf Magnusson, based on Daedalus, is from the harsh planet Kraken which we have not seen (I don't think) whereas his wife, Vida, is from the oceanic world, Nyanza, where Flandry counteracted Merseian subversion. We know from the next installment of the Technic Civilization series that Kraken will be a center of interstellar activity during the Long Night after the Fall of the Terran Empire.

Maps

On pp. 193-194 of Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), there are six maps of different parts of the Patrician System:

(i) five inner planets with asteroids between the fourth, Imhotep, and the fifth, Archimedes;
(ii) four outer planets;
(iii) Imhotep;
(iv) the third planet, Daedalus;
(v)-(vi) some details on Daedalus.

The central action of the novel occurs on the colonized planets, Imhotep and Daedalus, or briefly in a spaceship between them. Near the end of the novel, one character, Targovi, is said to have gone mining for metals in the asteroids.

The uncolonized planets:

Liang Lin-tsan;
Channing;
Archimedes;
Vitruvius;
Leonardo;
Katsuragi no Kami;
Sennacherib -

- are shown on (i) or (ii) but not named in the text.

The map of Imhotep shows, in the northern hemisphere, Olga's Landing, Toborkozan and the Starboard and Larboard Islands. Olga's Landing has the Imperial offices, the Institute and the old, disarmed, fortress tower of St Barbara. Some Starkadian land dwellers were relocated to Toborkozan. The Islands have Ancient remains. The map also shows, in the southern hemisphere, a continent with two large inlets, the Seas of Yang and Yin, where Starkadian sea dwellers were relocated.

The map of Daedalus shows the Phosphoric Ocean between two continents. On one continent is the capital, Aurea. The first detail map shows the island Zacharia opposite the mouth of the Highroad River. Along the river are:

a Donarrian settlement, Ghundrung;
the mainly Cynthian town, Lulach;
the human settlement, Paz de la Frontera, at the head of navigation;
just north of Paz, Aurea.

The second detail map shows the northern part of Zacharia.

Targovi and his passengers from Imhotep landed at Aurea. Diana traveled by cable car to Paz although Axor, a large quadruped, would not have fitted into a car and probably walked. From Paz, they traveled upriver to Lulach. Diana and Axor planned to visit possible Ancient ruins in the jungle south of Ghundrung but instead Targovi persuaded them to accept an invitation to fly to Zacharia, where Axor would be able to consult records.

Thus, every detail on maps (v) and (vi) is relevant to the narrative, even the unvisited Ghundrung.

The Patrician System

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation on 28 June 2013.

When I was commenting on the fifth paragraph in Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire (IN Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012), I skipped over an exotic place name because I had already quoted it in a much earlier post but it is worth repeating here. The aquatic vaz-Siravo from the doomed planet Starkad had been settled on Imhotep in "...the Seas of Yang and Yin..." (p. 197). This Chinese reference adds an Oriental touch to the British Raj ambiance that has already been established by the title and the opening sentence.

I should also mention five visual aids on pp. 193-194:

(i) a diagram of the Patrician System, showing the six inner planets, including the two scenes of the action, Imhotep and Daedalus, the asteroid belt and the four outer planets;

(ii) a map of Imhotep, showing Olga's Landing on a northern continent and the Seas of Yang and Yin, which are two inlets on a southern continent;

(iii) a map of Daedalus;

(iv) and (v) maps of two parts of Daedalus where events occur in the novel.

I have skipped past the diagrams and maps on previous readings but this time will refer to them as appropriate. Anderson's Introduction explains that the Patrician planets are named after "...great engineers of legend and history...although just two of them got into the story." (p. 192) We recognize Archimedes and Leonardo if not any of the others.

On The Highroad River I

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 1 July 2013.

A long boat journey down a river offers comfort, in the boat's saloon or a cabin, and adventure as the travelers encounter each new place along the river. Poul Anderson describes two such journeys, the first in The Day Of Their Return, the second in The Game Of Empire. The place names on the maps at the beginning of The Game Of Empire become invested with meaning as the characters travel to and through them.

The relevant map of one part of the surface of the planet Daedalus shows the capital Aurea as just upriver from Paz de la Frontera, which is the head of navigation on the Highroad River. Targovi arrives on Daedalus by landing his ship, Moonjumper, at the spaceport in Aurea. The original town, which had been small because "...colonization was far-flung, enclaves in wilderness..." (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, new York, 2012, p. 221) has been mostly demolished or engulfed by sector defense command, civil bureaucracy, private enterprises, towers and industrial plants linked by streets, elways and air-space with round the clock traffic.

Aurea is on a plateau above a steep slope retaining a small part of the old town. Descending from the plateau, Targovi walks along a lane down the side of a cliff with, on his left, time-worn walls and, on his right, beyond the railing, a view of:

ice fields beyond northern mountains;
the headwaters and the river valley;
native growth;
farms and plantations;
southern plains receding to invisibility.

Ju Shao, a Cynthian, runs an inn perched on the cliff.

Hospitable inns are a major feature of Anderson's fictional worlds. There is one between the universes and there are several in the city of Ys as well as others scattered among many times and places. In the Patrician System, Hassan runs the Sign of the Golden Cockbeetle in the old part of Olga's Landing on the planet Imhotep and Ju Shao runs her place in old Aurea on Daedalus.

On The Highroad River II

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 1 July 2013.

In Aurea, the capital city of the planet Daedalus, the Cynthian, Shan U of Lulach, captain of the riverboat Waterblossom, offers to transport the human Diana Crowfeather and the Wodenite, Francis Xavier Axor, down the Highroad River from the nearby head of navigation, Paz de la Frontera, to the mainly Cynthian town of Lulach, which, according to the map (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 194) is about half way between Aurea and the Phosphoric Ocean.

"The Highroad River has always been a main artery of travel..." (p. 288)

- because roads, where they even exist, are poor.

To check out Waterblossom, Diana travels with Shan U by cable car down to Central Station in Paz de la Frontera, which is a colony for veterans who are helped to establish farms. Clusters of habitation with diverse architectures - facades hiding courtyards; domes and spires; framed vitryl; a wooden stockade guarded by brassarded militiamen armed with knives and staves; etc - are separated by open spaces because veterans who had originated on different colony planets are mutually hostile - and non-humans have learned not to live there. Passing through a lawless area, they are attacked but Diana, who grew up among Tigeries and was trained by Targovi, knows how to handle herself.

Waterblossom is made of Terran and Cynthian woods which are immune to Daedalan organisms. Terra is Earth, we know of Cynthia from previous installments of the Technic Civilization History and Daedalus has been introduced in the current novel. Thus, Anderson shows three planets interacting not just by communication between intelligent beings but also on molecular and organic levels.

Unusual Heavenly Bodies

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 21 April 2012.

In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization:

Planets

Jupiter has solid land masses because that was a reasonable assumption when Anderson wrote about it.
Diomedes' poles are in the ecliptic plane. Each spends half the year in winter and night. Intelligent Diomedeans are winged migrators.
Although the planet Woden has two and a half Terran gravities, its sun is so energetic that Wodenite life can grow massive.
Tidal action has forced one hemisphere of the small, eccentrically orbiting, librating planet Ikrananka to face its red dwarf sun but such slow rotation generates a weak magnetic field so that the planet retains an atmosphere although most of its water has frozen on the cold side making the warm side a slowly deteriorating desert whose inhabitants, struggling for survival in their season-less, rhythm-less environment, regard nature as hostile, believing in demons but not in gods, whereas dwellers on the edge of the Twilight Zone with rain, snow, day, night and constellations, more conventionally believe in an annually dying and rising god and a single devil whose power can be neutralized. The latter are easier to trade with.
Pressure and temperature gradients on Daedalus refract light around the curve of the planet so that there is no horizon. Sunset is a ring of fire.
Nike is very small but holds an atmosphere and biosphere because it is so old that its weak gravity has had enough time to pull heavier elements into an atmosphere-generating solid core. Age explains its sun's variability which adversely affects Nikean weather.

Giant Stars and Rogue Planets

The red giant Betelgeuse has planets, some of them with life, because that was a reasonable assumption when Anderson wrote about it.
David Falkayn brags of finding a rogue (sunless) planet between Tau Ceti and 70 Ophiuchi although this adventure really happened to someone else.
The Merseians keep a base on Vorida, a rogue planet in the Betelgeuse sector.
The rogue planet Satan bypassing the blue giant Beta Crucis in a hyperbolic orbit becomes a base for the industrially valuable transformation of elements into heavier isotopes when its cryosphere becomes atmosphere and hydrosphere, coolants for heat waste.
A condensing giant star's gravity prevents the condensation of planets but nebular friction around the condensing blue giant Beta Centauri converted the hyperbolic orbits of a cluster of passing rogue planets into eccentric elliptical orbits.
A rogue planet hitting the star Saxo causes it to explode destroying its planets, including the inhabited Starkad.

Giant Planets and Eccentric Orbits

The captured planets of the blue giant Beta Centauri have eccentric orbits. See above.
Another star passing near Siekh skews its planets' orbits. The planet Talwin's distance from Siekh varies from 0.87 to 2.62 astronomical units. Huge ice caps form and melt each twice Terran year. There are floods and rain storms. One intelligent race hibernates in caves. Another estivates at sea. They do not meet.
In the Cerulian system, resonance with the jovoid planet Ogre has multiplied perturbation and brought the eccentricity of the terrestroid Vixen's orbit close to one-half so that, with a 24 degree axial tilt and midsummer nearly at periastron, once every eighteen month year the northern hemisphere is scorched with four times the radiation that Terra receives from Sol - snow melts, rivers overflow, lakes bake dry, storms rage, fires break out, erosion prevents mountain formation, hot wind blows dust and ash across dry plains.
A subjovian planet, which lost most of its lighter gasses when an eccentrically orbiting moon crashed on it, now has 15 Terran masses concentrated in a solid globe called Paradox but 8% of its atmosphere remains helium which diffuses through any material, ruining unprotected equipment.
The Cloud Universe globular cluster's eccentric orbit passes through dense clouds near the galactic center, gathering gas and dust which condense into heavy-metal-rich stars and planets.

Supernovae

When a superjovian planet of 1500 terrestrial masses orbits a star that goes supernova, the planetary core, now called Mirkheim, survives coated in valuable supermetals which are impossibly expensive to synthesise.
The massive star Valenderay, older than normal for its type in its region, must have come from elsewhere. Its supernova explosion will cause ecological disaster on the planet Merseia a parsec away unless artificial force screens protect the planet.
A nearby supernova causes a superjovian planet of 3000 Terrestrial masses to lose all its hydrogen and helium, over 90% of its mass, transforming it into Ramnu, a glacial globe of 310 Terrestrial masses, later inhabited by small, intelligent gliders.
A peak of radiation from the planet Dathyna's massive, metal-rich, irregularly variable sun, which probably condensed near a recent supernova, destroyed civilization but produced a killer mutation which exterminated the parent race, appropriated its technology and now threatens the Polesotechnic League.
Periodic ingestion of new matter by the Cloud Universe (see above) causes several supernovae per century for at least a million years.

Notes on the Above

Falkayn spells out why Satan alone is ideal for producing heavier isotopes. This cannot be done:

on inhabited planets because heat and radioactive waste would make them uninhabitable;
on uninhabited planets because heat waste added to solar radiation would vaporize the rivers needed for coolants;
on uninhabited planets with orbiting albedo-raising dust clouds because these would trap home-grown heat;
in newly formed systems because factories would be bombarded by meteors and asteroids;
on airless planets because the necessary heat exchangers are expensive and put engineering limits on the size of a plant;
on Jovoid planets because free hydrogen diffuses through materials and interferes with nuclear reactions;
on ordinary rogue planets because temperatures near absolute zero affect the properties of matter and because liquid water and gaseous atmosphere are necessary coolants.
 

Anderson invented several ways to disrupt familiar celestial processes:

a giant star capturing rogue planets;
a supernova transforming one of its own planets into the industrially valuable Mirkheim;
a supernova potentially devastating a planet in a nearby system;
a supernova transforming a planet in a nearby system into the massive but solid Ramnu;
a supernova affecting the condensation of another star;
a rogue planet causing a nova by hitting a star;
a rogue planet becoming the industrially valuable Satan by just missing a star;
a star causing eccentric planetary orbits by just missing another star;
an eccentrically orbiting moon transforming its planet into the massive but solid Paradox by hitting it;
an eccentrically orbiting globular cluster causing new stellar condensations and novae by gathering dust from clouds near the galactic center;
planets with eccentric axial tilts;
a planet with no horizon;
a planet with a very close horizon!

Unscientific readers forget technical details so it is good to summarize them. The explanations begin to sound similar but, in each case, they are used to create a unique effect. Supernovae:

usually destroy all their own planets;
can affect planets in nearby systems;
possibly affected the condensation of a nearby star. 
 

In "A Sun Invisible," Anderson planned to introduce the unexpected Beta Centaurian system as the solution of a puzzle so he had Falkayn mention rogue planets earlier in the story. Thus, it was not a deus ex machina when captured rogues turned out to explain why there are planets orbiting a giant star. In Ensign Flandry, Anderson introduced the planet Starkad only to reveal, near the end of the novel, that its sun was doomed to be hit by a rogue planet so, again, Anderson made sure that a rogue, Vorida, had been mentioned much earlier in the novel.
 

These features recur:
 

giant stars;
superjovian planets;
novae and supernovae;
industrially valuable planets;
massive but solid planets;
stellar and planetary condensations;
metal-rich stars and planets;
rogue planets;
collisions;
near misses;
eccentric orbits;
other odd planets;
intelligent fliers or gliders.

Responding to these phenomena, Anderson's characters:

negotiate with Ikranankans and Betelgeuseans;
let extra-solar hydrogen-breathers who have colonized Ogre colonize Jupiter;
colonize the Beta Centaurian system;
trade with Diomedeans;
save Merseia;
incorporate Wodenites and Dathynans;
evacuate some Starkadians;
exploit Satan, Mirkheim and the Cloud Universe;
study Talwin, Ramnu and Paradox;
live on Kirkasant (in the Cloud Universe), Vixen, Daedalus and Nike.

Added on 12/5/12: A revised text explains that the Betelguesean planets were seeded and colonized but should they have existed? 

Added, 23/5/12: Data on Diomedes that I missed above: the system is metal-poor though not old possibly because the electromagnetic action of a passing neutron star fractionalized the original cloud of dust and gas. Consequently, Diomedes has 4.75 terrestrial mass but a low density so its gravity is only 1.10.

Freehold II

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation on 6 July 2013.

In Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire," the planet Freehold is bigger than Earth and very fertile but the human colony is small because:

"...the system lies on the very fringe of human-dominated space..." (Captain Flandry, Riverside NY, 2010, p. 11);

storms, diseases and nutritional deficiencies in local food caused early high mortality;

the system had formed in a metal-poor region before entering this spiral arm so that industrial development is impossible and extra-planetary trade essential;

staying in their cities, where they can better resist the hostile environment, but economically unable to expand the cities, the colonists have practiced a lot of birth control;

the cities should be able to export food to other colony planets like Bonedry or Disaster Landing but are now in conflict with non-human settlers, the Arulians, and with rural human beings...

There are only nine cities and we quickly learn most of their names:

Domkirk;
Sevenhouses;
Nordyke;
Oldenstead;
Waterfleet;
Startop;
?

Not all yet. Freehold is proving to be as fascinating and complicated as Aeneas, Daedalus and other colonized planets in Anderson's Technic Civilization History.

The Planet Without A Horizon

In Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012) -

- the planet Daedalus in the system of the star Patricius is Earth-like except that:

its plants and animals are humanly inedible;
it rotates in fifteen and a half hours;
pressure and temperature gradients refract light around the globe, as they would on Earth if its radius were thirteen kilometers less;
traveling by riverboat, Diana sees the river and its valley dwindle and merge into a still visible "...shining thread between burnished green darknesses..." (p. 297);
on her left, openings in the wood reveal prairie blurring into haziness;
on her right, "...toylike snowpeaks..." (ibid.);
the setting sun gleams on the ocean around the curve of the planet;
the golden-red sun disc softens and spreads into a step pyramid stretching around what would normally be a horizon, safe to look at;
night is "...a glimmering dusk..." (pp. 297-298);
sunlight becomes a ring, broad and bright, orange and white, in the direction of Patricius, narrower and redder in other directions;
above the ring, the sky ascends through blue and purple to violet;
below is the dark mass of the planet;
Diana stands rapt for hours although regular passengers, used to the sight, go below.

On The Highroad River III

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 1 July 2013.

On the planet Daedalus, the capital city, Aurea, and the colony, Paz, are two very different human institutions. The next stop down the Highroad River, Lulach, is mainly a Cynthian town so is different again.

Cynthians are essentially large - although not human-sized - intelligent squirrels. I think that they are implausible aliens and indeed Poul Anderson went on to write speculative fiction in which there are no such beings on other planets. Harvest Of Stars and Genesis are entire alternative future histories.

In Lulach, houses are under or even in the trees. Branches can support and conceal them because imported Cynthian vegetation often grows enormous. Plants grow on roofs and flowering vines on walls. Dwellers usually travel between branches rather than on the narrow, twisting, turf streets. Whereas northern farms are mechanized, Lulachans use horses and changtus as beasts of burden.

The Lulachan police station is run by Lieutenant Commander Miguel Gomez supported by Lieutenant Rihu An, a Cynthian. Large buildings on the waterfront include "...a rambling timber inn..." called the Inn of Tranquil Slumber (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, pp. 326, 345), yet another Andersonian hostelry. Near the waterfront is the Zacharian dealership. The factor, Pele Zachary speaks accented Anglic because Zacharians, on their island in the Phosphoric Ocean, regularly speak several other languages. In addition to presenting plausible Tigeries, Cynthians, Wodenites, Merseians etc, any screen adaptation of the Technic Civilization History would have to use human actors speaking, if not Anglic with English subtitles, then at least English pronounced with the various different colonial and planetary accents.

Toborkazan

Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, June 2013.

Where the Crystal River enters Dawnside Bay on Imhotep, the Tigeries who had lived in Kursoviki on Starkad have built their new town, Toborkozan:

the gray stone Castle of the Sisterhood - guarded with traditional halberds and firearms - including the Gaarnokh Tower, named after an extinct horned Starkadian species;
most goods manufactured on Imhotep because they had been able to transport very little from Starkad;
Terran mission headquarters;
timber houses with carven totems on the roofs;
cobbled streets;
archaic windjammers, many with auxiliary engines;
modern hovercraft;
a landing field for aircars, gliders and propeller-driven wingboats;
flying snakes above the sea;
out to sea, the Starboard and Larboard Islands that may hold Foredweller ruins.

We do not see anything of the Seafolk on Imhotep because the action moves to Daedalus.