"A spaceship could cross the galaxy in months; but a news item, if sensational enough to make the journey at all, might take a hundred years." (p. 34)
FTL in After Doomsday is many times faster than in Anderson's Technic History or in most sf.
Reasons why an armada occasionally starts a new civilization cluster:
traders seek profit;
explorers seek knowledge;
refugees seek a home;
less humanly comprehensible motivations.
Interactions within a cluster:
trade, although not for necessities;
tourism;
"...interchange in science, art, religion, fashion..." (ibid.);
occasional wars.
Between the million clusters: almost nothing.
"No wonder the speculative writers had misunderstood their own assumptions. The universe was too big for them -" (p. 35)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Aside from the FTL drive of AFTER DOOMSDAY being "faster" than the Technic hyperdrive, I thought the process of how a "civilization cluster" in the AFTER universe to make sense. And I can see how a particular piece of news can simply fade away to being completely unknown the further it spreads from its place of origin. Or at least to take a century to become known in other clusters.
Sean
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