Brian Aldiss - Helliconia

The y to y sector marks the period at periastron when Star A appears brighter than Star B in Helliconia’s skies.

Points V, V, and V indicate approximately the periods in which the three books of the volume are set.

The time from 311 to 633 E years marks a period of fairly rapid improvement in climatic conditions. After that, a slow warming process sets in towards periastron. From 1929 E years, a fairly rapid decline takes place. On either side of apastron is a period of over five E centuries when the climate is either severe or unsettled; a minor ice age is either building up or else in slow decline. This contrasts with a more brief 238 E years of high summer, over periastron.

The orbits of the four Star B planets are at the following (E) distances from their primary:

An Avernian shrine stands on Aganip (Bk.2x), it marks the spot where the 512 future occupants of the Avernus satellite were housed during the construction of the Earth Observation Station.

The Helliconian satellite lost during the period of capture was known to the phagors as T’Sehn-Hrr . It holds the key to one of the discomfiting secrets of human life on Helliconia. (The truth is uncovered by SartoriIrvrash in Vol.2, xxi, to his detriment.)

Helliconian humans divide their small year of 480 days into weeks and tenners. One week is eight days. One tenner is 6 weeks (i.e. 48 days). So the year is divided into ten equal parts.

Avernus is a satellite placed in orbit about Helliconia by the terrestrial expedition. It is designated Earth Observation Station. Its function is to relay data on all facets of Helliconia back to Earth. To the inhabitants of Helliconia, the OES is known as Kaidaw , because of its perceived rapid motion against the stars.

Avernus has an almost circular circumpolar orbit, its mean distance above planetary surface being:

Depending on the latitude of an observer, Avernus takes about 20-24 minutes to cross the sky, from rising to setting. From the ground, its maximum angular diameter when overhead presents 137.5 seconds of arc. Inhabitants can observe Avernus undergoing rather complex phases when it is passing overhead.

When the starship from earth was closing into orbit about Star B, 512 colonists were hatched, almost full-grown (i.e. as late adolescents). The DNA of fertilised human egg cells was computer-stored in nanowombs. The colonists were reared in six ‘families’ or clans, each destined for specific duties.

Once they had been landed at a base on Aganip, automated construction units began the building of the EOS, using local stellar material. Owing to difficulties and set-backs, construction took eight E-years. The colonists were then ferried to their new home on Avernus to begin an intensive study of Helliconia.

Information transmitted back to Earth takes a thousand years to reach its target. So the early signals sent in Spring are received on Earth in approximately AD 6344.

By the time of ‘Helliconia Summer’, Avernus has been in orbit for thirty-two E-centuries. Its population now numbers close to 6000 people. Copulation is taught from the age of eight, but all procreation is by extra-uterine birth.

Among the six clans, the PIN family is the ‘Cross-Continuity Family’. Its duty is to follow the unfolding of one or two Helliconian family groupings through generations over the cycle of a Great Year (60 generations).

The GO family deals with questions of theology, philosophy, ontogeny, phylogeny, etc.

The TAN family studies the origins of long-standing quarrels, from personal to national and specific.

As a safety valve against confinement sickness, Avernians can enter a ‘Helliconia Holiday’ lottery; winners are allowed to visit the planet below. This is a one-way ticket.

The colonising starship left Earth in the year AD 2100, arriving in the vicinity of Star B in AD 3600. The journey of 1000 light years took 1500 years to accomplish. Avernus was operative by AD 3608. On the Helliconian Great Year, this is 500 years After Aphelion.

In Book 1 Avernus has already been operative for more than a Great Year.

i.e. about 2592 + 134 E years = 2726 E years

In Book 2 Avernus operative for a further 543 years = 3269 E years

So dates now will be:

On Earth, AD 6877

On Helliconia, 1177 E years AA

On Avernus, 3269

In Book 3 Avernus operative for a further 696 years = 3965 E years

So dates will now be:

On Earth, AD 7573

On Helliconia, 1873 E years AA

On Avernus, 3965

Myrkwyr is an ominous day in 1873. Freyr sinks below the horizon on the Polar Circle, not to rise again for a further eighteen or so human generations.

Helliconian Time reckoned as Earth Time

A Helliconian inhabitant living to the ripe old age of 70 would be 99.4 E years old

The Earth–Avernus method of reckoning Helliconian years is simply to date them After Apastron (AA). On Helliconia itself, various nations have, at various times, their own means of reckoning calendar time. Generally, such calendars begin from the start of the reign of a local despot.

For example, in ‘Summer’ four different calendars are mentioned. Taking these into account, Book 2 opens in

(Terrestrial dateline AD 6877)

Earth years AA

1177

Helliconia year AA

‘Denniss’ calendar

828 [1] The legendary King Denniss was ruling in Year 249 before apastron, and foresaw disaster. His calendar has been discarded.

Oldorando-Borlien After Union

381 (some claim 408)

Ancipital year

749 [2] The full and correct name of this year in the Ancipital calendar, forged in the ancipital cotemporal brain, is: ‘Year After Small Apotheosis of Great year 5,634,000 Since catastrophe’. That is, since Freyr’s capture of Batalix, some 8,000,280 years previously.

Because the Small Year on Helliconia is longer than a terrestrial year, age differentials exist.

The following table (years) gives comparable ages of humans on the two planets.

Life spans are longer in summers of the Great Year