There is the general spoiler page for general questions.
I’m making this set of pages for more specific questions.
The rule is: do not ask or comment about a book until it has been at least a month in issue. I think that will make everybody happy re spoilers.
1. they’re an eastern-hemisphere migration, more than western. There is a strong Slavic language component, but it’s not pure Russian or Ukrainian or Polish; and it’s passed through the filter of emigrant-speak in the hinder stars.
2. Denys does not like the thought of Ari getting in front of cameras with that language.
3. 😆 I’ve never thought about the colors.
they’re an eastern-hemisphere migration, more than western. There is a strong Slavic language component, but it’s not pure Russian or Ukrainian or Polish; and it’s passed through the filter of emigrant-speak in the hinder stars
So it’s some kind of creole? That makes a lot of sense, but I’m assuming people like the Reillys are still speaking English on-ship. Is everyone bilingual? What do the stationers and the Fleet speak?
Denys does not like the thought of Ari getting in front of cameras with that language.
Oh, okay; it’s a code-switching issue. And he’s right too- she does say “goddam” in a speech at one point. I actually find it kind of endearing, but I suppose it does undermine Ari’s innocent persona.
I’ve never thought about the colors.
Dare we hope for a Cyteen 3 in which all shall be revealed?
Every ship has its own language, and two of the same origin may not be exactly the same when they meet on dockside. They all speak an English-derived lingua franca at Pell, but it can be pretty confusing.
A #3 is a probability. 😉
So, CJ, do mind if we came up with a color scheme for Cyteen’s several political organizations? and flags and logos?
Science, Defense, etc?
Blue, white and green for alliance. Red, black and silver for Union, etc. The major color is listed first and the most minor last.
A #3 is a probability. 😉
Sweet!
Re: colors- Union troops wear green and the EDF uniforms were blue, which Mallory seems to have continued for the Alliance military. But I don’t think that necessarily tells us much about the flags. Earthside is probably using the blue and white U.N. flag, unless the Company has a corporate logo.
According to Cyteen Union has some sort of multiple stars device- the relative configuration of the Union stations as seen from Cyteen or Pell? Or maybe just some decorative pattern- it’s pretty hard to have recognizable constellations when you’re spread out across space, and a lot of those stars are too dim to see with the naked eye anyway. No colors were mentioned, but red, black and silver probably has negative associations for Eastern Europeans. White on a green backing, maybe? They’re very into having a planet- although from space I suppose Cyteen looks blue-gray.
For some reason I’ve always seen Expansionists as green and Centrists as reddish-orange. I reckon Ari would bag whatever color was on the flag for her party on the election maps, and the Centrists are sort of the populist party, which explains the red. I probably got the orange from the Ukraine.
Earth Company must be a big corporation with its own government and military, probably separate from Earth’s U.N. (or successor), but possibly started from or reinforced by Earth’s government/military. Think “Dutch East India Company” from the 1700’s through the 1800’s, but as the private sector’s answer to NASA/ESA. Now throw in major engineering, telecom, etc., and a “manifest destiny” complex (perhaps).
I took that Mazianni ships used woodland, desert, and urban camo for their marines / boarding parties, plus navy or khaki or olive drab for their more formal duty uniforms. Pell’s uniform is some light blue or blue-gray. Union’s is black with silver.
Flags and gov/corp colors: Conjecture, since the books don’t say. Earth Company: Blue (the UN lighter blue) and white with red would make sense: US, UK, France, post-USSR Russia all use them. Japan’s red and white. Pell and Union: Spence and Spearmint’s comments make sense. They’d all be sure to have very different choices to highlight the ideological differences.
What about Red, Gold, and Black for Union? (Although they use silver a lot.) Red and Gold, because they seem to be Eastern European and Asian in some of their origins and social/political ideology.
For that matter, any of the three gov’s might have two or (less likely) four colors. Plus, who’s to say they wouldn’t have a special corporate / governmental color picked? Not one of the usual European heraldic colors, but their own corporate scheme. — Copper? Bronze? Champagne? Oranges? Blue-Greens? Chartreuse (eek, but Chartres did it)…. Red Ochre? Cordovan? Burgundy? Bourbon? (I’m going for the French provinces/départements, not the wines…heck, go for the wines, s’il vous plaît. — In 500 or so years, completely away from Earth, why would they stick to basic colors only? 🙂
Think “Dutch East India Company” from the 1700’s through the 1800’s
That’s a very good analogy, because in Hellburner Mazian seems to be doing most of his negotiating with the government, not Company executives. So it looks like Company operations are being propped up by a government sponsored/controlled military, which the Company is funding. (Or not funding, ultimately.)
Uniform descriptions:
DBS: Mallory’s dress uniform is blue, Union occupation troops are green. That might be camo but if so it makes no sense unless they’re planning to invade Earth, since stations seem gray and white and Cyteen is blue-gray.
Merchanter’s Luck: I’m pretty sure we get uniform descriptions, but my copy is in another state. Can anyone flip to Sandor’s meeting with Josh Talley and check?
Scapegoat: Union elite- black; Alliance spacers- blue; Alliance ground troops- drab (light blue is mentioned as a separate color in the same paragraph, so the blue is probably medium to navy)
Faded Sun: Alliance ground troops- drab
Have I missed anything? Do we ever get uniform descriptions in the Cyteen books for anything but ReseuneSec? Does Azov’s uniform ever get described in DBS?
I think that by the time of DBS, the Fleet is wearing anything they can get hold of. I doubt there’s many intact uniforms left after 40 years of fighting and no formal supply lines. They’re probably wearing standard spacer work gear, maybe with clip-on rank badges, although I suspect they wouldn’t even bother with those in an essentially closed community. I seem to remember Mallory wearing a sweater at some point in the narrative, and Bet seems quite handy at make-and-mend (“just like on board ship”)
Marines certainly won’t have camo. There’s no need since all their fighting is done on ship and station, when they’d be in armour anyway – kinda conspicuous. Off duty, it’d be the same mix of casuals and work gear that everybody else is wearing.
On the subject of uniform, would each Fleet ship have had it’s own patch, same as merchanters? I’m seeing a picture of the Earth, surrounded by a blue circle with (for eg) ECS5 Norway, and maybe a big 5 superimposed on the Earth.
Spearmint, by “drab,” I presume you mean either khaki or else olive drab…British tan.
IIRC, towards the end of DBS and again in Merchanter’s Luck, Joshua Talley and others who become Pell Merchanter Alliance wear a light blue or blue-gray. I pictured that as like Trek TOS science blue or the light blue of US Union troops’ trousers.
Earth Company’s ships, Mazian’s fleet, could well have ship’s patches plus an Earth Company patch. I don’t recall anything said, but since civilian ships have individual patches by custom/tradition, it’d make sense for EC ships to have them.
Mallory is the captain. That gives her the privilege of wearing something non-reg. Her crew know she’s the boss lady. — Yes, the Mazianni would use old fleet uniforms plus whatever they commandeered (stole or bought or confiscated) and anything they could scrounge from EC supplies, since there are other, non-outlawed EC, near Sol.
I’d thought Azov wore black and silver as Union; or am I confusing him and which side?
Then, of course, there are the Downers, hisa, IIRC, who usually seem to prefer “clothing optional.” LOL.
Im reading finity’s end at the moment, only in the 100 page, and I’d like to ask about the issue of ship and station time.
Fletcher met “kids” on the ship. he see Jeremie as a 12 years old although he’s the same age. he claim Jeremie mentally 17 but physically twelve.
now, if in Pell time, Fletcher is 17, so his almost brother, Jeremie, is 17 as well, but on ship, there is a time delay according to relativistic effects, so I would essume that according to Jeremie, he’s subjectively 12, is he? so why ship folks counting years as they were on station?
I mean, in Jeremie’s proper time d(tau)=dt/gama
he’s twelve, isnt he?
unless there is a global agreement to count years as they are on zero movement (station time) but then how come Jeremie have a mentality of a 17 years old?
The passage of ship-time depends on the length of the voyage, and the distances they travel are not the same in every instance. There is a master ship’s clock in the navigation computer that keeps track, but it tracks ‘real’ time, ie, station-time, which is used by all ships because of the need for an accurate chronometer in plotting course.
Since the universe in which they live, politically and socially, outside the ship, is on real-time, the youngsters are encouraged to think in these terms, because this is the world in which the ship makes its economic and political decisions, vital to survival. The children are at particular variance with this: for adults it doesn’t make so much difference. But the children, while aging slowly, have exposure to the changes on the stations they visit, so their political time runs fast and their personal time runs slow. They are educated in this, they are taught to understand it, so they can function in station society in due time, but they are different—which is only one of the ways in which ship-folk are different from station-folk. They have to watch station-folk age and die, for one thing, so they need to have this firmly in perspective, and be careful where they form attachments. The regular route a ship takes means not all ships age at the same rate, and they may have friends or lovers on other ships who pass out of phase with them. So it is one of the most important aspects of their education, to stay intellectually grounded in ‘real’ time and be able to function in it, while emotionally living in ship-time. If they did not, the ability of ship-folk and station-folk to deal with each other would be greatly impaired…because station-folk will not make that adjustment.
My impression of that was that spacers aboard ship may be partially conscious or dream in jump, much like one or two characters in other Alliance-Union and Compact books discover they can think or move in jump. So that would mean the kids would, subjectively, be thinking (or daydreaming) or asleep and dreaming, all through the (compressed) yet simultaneously slowed and sped up real time. So they might be mentally more mature than a kid in normal space, from all that mental processing. At the same time, their bodies are physically slowed in aging (relativistic time effects) but they aren’t stopped from aging. So they would grow up, just slowly, even with frequent in and out of near-C and jump. (That’d have to play heck with hormones and the body’s repair and growth / nutrition, I’d think.) — That’s my impression, but is that close to what’s intended? — The chance to show Fletcher and Jeremy as the same age, but affected differently by near-C / jump effects, and show how strange it is for both Fletcher trying to fit in, and Jeremy trying to get used to him, when they’re the same generation / age, was one of the highlights of the book’s themes.
(That’d have to play heck with hormones and the body’s repair and growth / nutrition, I’d think.)
Sudden, mildly icky thought- how does menstruation work, shipside? Jump must utterly screw up your hormonal cycles, plus if you hit jump at the wrong time you’re going to be actively leaking blood for a week while you’re out cold, with no way to rehydrate. For a stationer being on a ship would probably be traumatic enough to stop their cycles until they got home, but the spacers must be acclimated somehow or there wouldn’t be any little Neiharts running around. 😀
My expectation would be that women aboard the ships would be very, very attuned to their cycles if they’re allowing themselves to have them, or they’re on some sort of birth control – my wife has an IUD that’s essentially stopped her cycle – she still has the hormone movement, but otherwise, she’s has very little of an actual cycle. It could be that they have similar technologies?
Hi all! I’m so glad to have found this site! I’m rereading Finity’s End for the umpteenth time. Last night I told my wife I was going to track down the author and ask her a question about the station and dock layout, because it’s bugged me for years. My wife said, “Good luck with that!” and yet, here I am 18 hours later. 🙂
Anyway, here’s my question: Where, exactly, do the ships dock with the stations, and at what orientation? They can’t point their axis towards the station center, because you wouldn’t have an up half and down half to the ship’s ring. And they can’t attach at the station’s outer wall, since the outer wall is actually the floor of the Dock, so the airlock would be in the Dock floor, not the wall. Since all the airlocks are on the same side of the dock, all the ships must attach either above or below the station’s plane of rotation, which seems like it would put an awful lot of shear stresses on those attachments, since essentially you’re hanging the weight of the ship off those attachments.
Anyway, any help from anyone would be appreciated.
Thanks!
They come in with a probe, and the grappling arm folds them up against the body of the station, which is much, much larger than they are. The rotational ring is locked to a specific exit position during docking and does not start up again until undock. This means that most of the ship is not accessible during that interval. The station uses fluid (water) to balance its own mass. Ships just aren’t accessed, except that the ‘loft’ is occupied, being exactly opposite the exit port, and exists on its own during dock. The connection between ship and station is at more than one point when it is locked in; its orientation is gently altered during dock until it can exit on the dockside ring of the station (lowermost of, on Pell, 9 levels.)
Thanks for the response! I’m still not quite seeing it; maybe I’ll draw some possibilities and post them. 🙂 I don’t know why I’ve fixated on being able to visualize this for so long, but I have… i guess it seems so tantalizingly realistic. I’m a huge fan, btw, though I’m sure you get that a lot. Finally, somewhere in here I thought I saw you had a developing interest in anime. If so, I *really* suggest Cowboy Bebop. Maybe that’s been recommended already, but if not, put it near the top of the list.
Liked Cowboy Bebop. Also Saiyuki and Bleach.
Actually, dug out my copy of Downbelow Station, which had some drawings that helped. I thought I’d seen some somewhere.
CJ suggested I share some artwork I’ve come up with – and as I wasn’t sure the best place to put it, and since this is the Alliance-Union thread, it probably fits here as well as anywhere.
I was overcome with a fit of creative energy the other night and thought I’d share the results, although I’m still tweaking it. I’ve recently re-read Cyteen for the second time this year and started in on Regenesis (for the third time since I bought it?) and thought I’d create a more “true to life” map of Cyteen. I hope you enjoy it!
@Ragi-at-heart NICE!
I’m totally happy to try and rework it, too. I’m not 100% on the colors, obviously, since Cyteen is supposed to be a ruddy, woolwood covered desert, right?
just finished finity’s end.
another brilliant book about downers, stationers and the spacer culture. I enjoyed it very much. I was fascunated by another reveal of the economy of the stations world. how news and culture travel between stations and the information network between stations.
so mazian still out there…
what interest me is how Fletcher gave up downbelow… how a man forget the sunrises and sunsets? the river and the sky and the green sceanery? and the woman he love?
I still find it hard to except that people that have the choice to pick between a planet life and eternal darkness life pick the dark. spacially when downbelow memory so fresh…
I mean most stationers and spacers dont have to choose since mnost of them never saw downbelow, cyteen nor earth. but if you see it…then is the question, can you let it go?
other things interest me regarding finity’s end.
spacers on a family ship- they dont ever get merry? raising kids? dont they bring women aboard and getting married? a man and a woman need companion. so it never work on ships?
I was thinking of a comcept. buay located on jump points can send and recieve information like the freighters black boxes and mail. can infornation travel on hyperspace? or you need a ship as a medium?
about esperance- seemed like a big story here hides between the lines of the last pages.
story of ruthless corporations, corrupted government, doublecrosses union, alliance and fleet. anything that could give the station a leverege.
people knew theire station doesnt hesitate bend theire own rules regarding shadow market but still, when it was out in the open (after jeremy’s little visit at the antique shop), stationmaster had to flinch and give up to merchenters demands.
Im fascinated by the untold story of wartime esperance, and offcorse the years between buttle of pell and current events as described in “finity’s end”.
after down below station, this is my favorite book.
I just love the intraship human interactions and I loved to hear about the economical and cultural network of stations and merchant ships.
and offcorse, more mazian adventures!
Im running out of alliance stories…only cyteen got left for me to read.and it about union…
one more thing though.
Fletcher come with the kids to the antique shop and claim to be a spacer from Cyteen.
now, does cyteen spacers have different eccent then spacers originated in pell or mariner?
I mean, fletcher has Pell staioner accent so its different from cyteen eccent.
does esperance dwellers can tell between accents of merchenters from different ships? I guess they never heard pell accent unless from the vids…
I happened to see the Japan attempt to sample an asteroid photo on BBC news.
The original picture is on the JAXA site.
From seeing it a lot of the surface seems to be aggregated material (micro-
gravity captures). This adds a new twist to mining operations, since a mass
driver would convert this into a high velocity shotgun blast making a driver
firepath and capture zone truly hostile.
Accents are pretty strange in micro environments like ships, because incidents
known only to the crew sneak into the spoken language. The Sub-light ships
would have had the worst problems because the society that spoke their dialect
would have disappeared when they returned. Once tape training became usable
I’d expect ships to buy and use language tapes to stay in sync with society.
Anyone who wanted to speak like a native could achieve it fairly simply with
the tech level available. Pretending to be someone from a specific ship would
be extremely difficult once the people who really were from it showed up.
It’s the shared in-jokes that are the hardest to make sense of. It is also the
kind of thing that gives Emory nightmares over runaway changes conditioning new
forms of human behaviors and transmuting the culture into something truly alien.
I would presume that not all asteroids are that way, and I wonder if the ‘driver wouldn’t put some sort of fixative onto the surface of the asteroid to keep it from going shotgun blast – Remember that it’s chewing up the asteroid and sending it out in bucket loads (if I’m remembering the descriptions), which would mean that we avoid the shotgun blast.
Accents develop quickly, too – look at Afrikaans – it took about 150 years to split from mainline Dutch (which is, it must be said, quite the volatile language – it makes English look staid and sedentary and other languages, like French would appear set in stone.)
I think you’re right about language tapes – and they do spend a goodly amount of time on the dockside at each layover, which should hopefully help keep it homogenized more than the sublight ships.