The human beings in "Star Ship" are separated from the rest of humanity because they have landed on a planetary surface and cannot get back off it, at least not for a couple of generations.
There are other examples in the Psychotechnic History and also in the Technic History. Poul Anderson welcomed spatial dispersal and human diversity and also recognized that, after many generations in alien environments, descendants of human beings would cease to be human.
If there are intelligent beings billions of years in the future, then it will not matter whether they are directly descended from us because they will be completely unlike us in any case. They might not even be organic - and that thought takes us from Anderson's first future history to his last.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And the problem we see in "Star Ship" causing the crew to be stranded could so easily have been avoided! They ignored the rule that at least two crewmen should always be in the ship--precisely to handle unexpected problems. The captain goofed!
Ad astra! Sean
Of course, being a Nomad on a spaceship is very, very different from being a nomad on a horse...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! Interstellar nomads, if that is practical on a FTL star ship, would necessarily be far more high tech than horse nomads.
Ad astra! Sean
If you are living in something like an O'Neill cylinder, you can use some sort of engine to move it.
In this case the distinction between nomadic & settled disappears.
Kaor, Jim!
And we see Anderson using a similar idea as early as TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS.
Ad astra! Sean
A spaceship, like a seagoing ship, requires a disciplined hierarchy.
Isn't the discipline and hierarchy always a matter of degree, depending on the margin of error between safety and disaster? It is only because that margin is *usually* smaller on a ship that a rather illusory sharp distinction is seen.
Rules of the road were rather minimal before motor vehicles moving at high speed were introduced.
Having someone directing traffic is only sometimes needed.
The Dutch need more strict rules about digging in the vicinity of the dikes than most people need about digging in general. Though I see signs warning not to dig because there is eg: a gas pipeline running underground there.
When a water main burst a few months ago here in Calgary there were restrictions on water use. Some mandatory especially outdoor watering where it is easy to see violations. Indoor mostly voluntary, but maybe if there had not been sensible reductions by most Calgarians stricter rules might have been needed.
An O'Neil colony would need some strict rules eg: next to no use of fire to keep the air clean. Adding some sort of engine to change the orbit would make for only minimal extra rules.
Of course it always helps if the majority of the population sees the rules as sensible and needed.
A ship requires strict discipline because it's in a hostile environment where one serious mistake will kill everyone. Space is even more hostile than the ocean.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, and I think that will be true of O'Neill habitats as well. Altho it might be possible for many matters of everyday life on such a habitat to be managed more "loosely" within a strict framework of discipline.
Ad astra! Sean
"A ship requires strict discipline"
Yes. And an Antarctic base requires almost as much.
The point which I guess I didn't make very well is that the discipline requirement is a continuum, with ships at sea or in space near the high end.
Kaor, Jim!
Then that clarifies what you were trying to say.
Ad astra! Sean
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