After ten years, Dan Dare returns to find the Solar System ruled by the Mekon;
after a relativistic round trip to galactic center, Larry Niven's Corbell returns to a barely recognizable Solar System, with what might be Earth in orbit around what might be Jupiter;
in Poul Anderson's After Doomsday, astronauts return to a sterilized Earth;
in Anderson's The Long Way Home (St Albans, Herts, 1975), which I am just starting to reread, astronauts returning after thousands of years must cope with a changed sociopolitical system.
In both of the Anderson novels, an alien passenger accompanies the returning astronauts. When we start to read The Long Way Home, it might turn out to be an end of the world scenario because after:
"The spaceship flashed out of superdrive..." (p. 5),
the first question to be asked is:
"'Where's the sun?'" (ibid.)
- but this is because the malfunctioning ship has re-entered normal space a third of a light-year, instead of just one AU, away. The astronauts do not yet suspect how much time has elapsed. Their response to this has to be a major part of the novel.
6 comments:
I really liked the idea of a light speed drive in "The Long Way Home".
Partly because it is the most powerful drive that doesn't run into problems with FTL = time travel.
I'm disappointed so few SF stories use the idea & explore what an interstellar society with such a drive would be like. Anderson did explore the similar idea of an *almost* light speed drive in the Kith stories (including Starfarers).
I did see a series of stories in Analog in which there was such a drive & a kind of creepy way to set up an interstellar empire of sorts with such a drive, as well as showing the beginnings of a resistance movement against the empire when the author for some reason stopped writing the series.
Does anyone know of other 'light speed drive' stories?
Kaor, Jim!
One I thought of, even if it does not quite fit what you had in mind, would be the Alderson drive we see in Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium timeline.
And one interesting story Anderson wrote is "Time Lag," about how it might be possible to fight an interstellar war by STL means.
Ad astra! Sean
I remember 'Time Lag'. IIRC the star drive in that was similar to the drive in the Kith stories.
The Alderson drive was good for storytelling purposes, but a light speed drive would give an interestingly *different* society.
Kaor, Jim!
Then I'm not quite sure I understand. I thought you meant stories where STL means of interstellar travel were used. MY thought was that STL travel would inevitably make for colonies founded using such means soon diverging and becoming very different from one another. Because the "homogenizing" effects caused by relatively rapid travel and communications, via FTL, would not be seen.
Ad astra! Sean
Light speed drive is the fastest that is consistent with special relativity.
The zero time taken from the POV of the traveler makes it very attractive if you don't intend to return, or if you like the idea of leaving the current world behind & seeing the future.
The delay for any travel from the POV of the non-travelers does make for interesting divergences in culture.
Kaor, Jim!
Now I get it, and remember that bit from THE LONG WAY HOME. At first, the inventors of the drive we see in that story THOUGHT it was a FTL drive. But it must have been very soon realized, perhaps in a second or third ship which went only a few light years, that it was not.
Yes, I can see the zero time STL drive of LONG WAY being attractive for some people, under certain circumstances.
Ad astra! Sean
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