Monday 16 June 2014

Dates In The Later Technic History

"Only one is set during the Long Night itself, over half a century after The Game Of Empire: 'A Tragedy of Errors'..."
-Hank Davis, "The Wheel Turns" IN Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), pp. vii-xii AT p. x.

Over half a century? Surely it is longer than that? As a matter of fact, the dates as given by Sandra Miesel in "Chronology of Technic Civilization" (pp. 795-804) are:

3064 The Game Of Empire
3600 "A Tragedy of Errors"
3900 "The Night Face"
4000 "The Sharing of Flesh"
7100 "Starfog"

The precise dating in this Chronology has been disputed (see here). However, I am at present focusing attention only on the Chronology as presented in Flandry's Legacy and, furthermore, only on the approximate intervals between the last few installments. The texts present no dates. Sandra Miesel presents only round numbers for the dates of these later works. And she dates Flandry's birth to another round year, 3000.

Once in the series, the projected date of the Fall of the Terran Empire is discussed:

"'If we possessed Syrax,' said Aycharaych, 'it would, with 71 per cent probability, hasten the collapse of the Terran hegemony by a hundred years, plus or minus ten. That is the verdict of our military computers - though I myself feel the faith our High Command has in them is naive and rather touching. However, the predicted date of Terra's fall would still lie 150 years hence. So I wonder why your government cares.'"
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 163.

What does this tell us? Aycharaych doubts the computers and can be trusted to know what he is talking about although not necessarily to tell the truth about it. This story, "Hunters of the Sky Cave," is set in 3040, according to the Chronology. 150 years later would be 3190. But Merseia does not gain control of Syrax so that puts the estimated date of the Fall back to 3290. However, the Merseians suffer other unexpected reverses during Flandry's lifetime. They lose Chereion in 3047 and suffer a severe blow to their morale in 3064. All of this should delay the fall of Terra even further. In fact, we know that the Roidhunate also collapses and this would not have been predicted by their military computers. Diana, who is eighteen in 3064, should not, even with anti-senescence, live to see the Empire fall.

Back to Aycharaych's last point: 150 years, if that were the right figure, is frighteningly close. Even the complacent Terran Empire might be concerned.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

Yes, as we both know, I did dispute many of the dates proposed by Sandra Miesel for her Technic Chronology. But I don't need to rehash that argument here.

And the mere fact that the Empire successfully opposed Merseia's seizure of the Syrax cluster shows that she was not willing to complacently accept the Empire's downfall 150 years after 3040. The other incidents thwarting or defeating Merseian aggressions would also make nonsense of the computerized predictions Aycharaych mentioned.

I agree, Hank Davis' dating of "A Tragedy of Errors" to not much more than half a century after the fall of the Empire is far too soon. That story should be thought of as occurring four hundred years after THE GAME OF EMPIRE. GAME ends with Flandry expressing the hope that the Empire still had two centuries of existence left.

Sean