It is a bad sign in a Poul Anderson novel if numbers off Earth are declining - especially since, as we have already seen, in a visit to the suburbs, numbers on Earth are also declining.
The central intelligence of the Solar System, controlling all technology, can neutralize any weapons that are about to be used and can immobilize any vehicles - aircars, of course - that are proceeding towards combat. But why do any weapons still exist "...after three centuries of the Great Peace" (p. 76)?
Nowadays, if someone kills my parents, I try to persuade the police to charge him with murder - unless I take the law into my own hands - but what I cannot do is demand or negotiate wergild. The mechanism and mindset for that no longer exist. Society really does change. If my roof leaks, I ask, "What caused the leak? How much will it cost to fix? Am I insured? Who can I sue?" not "Why have the gods done this to me? Did I or my fathers sin that this has happened? What did I do in a past life to cause this to happen now?"
Well, some people still ask that last question but they mainly ask the physical, practical, financial, legal questions. Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis: "Times change and we change with them."
1 comment:
Hi, Paul!
Your first two paragraphs here reminded me of this bit from Chaper II of A CIRCUS OF HELLS: "Tonight Irumclaw lay like a piece of wreckage at the edge of the receding tide of empire. What mansions were not standing hollow had become the property of oafs, and showed it."
So, yes, it's an ominously bad sign when Poul Anderson mentions declining numbers, on or off Earth, in one of his books.
Sean
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