One significance of the previous post was that, in December 2012, evidence was found for five planets in orbit around Tau Ceti. (Tau Ceti is also the sun of the colonized planet Hydrot in James Blish's The Seedling Stars.)
In Starfarers, the round trip from Sol to Tau Ceti takes twenty two years and the explorers spend three Terrestrial years there. Thus, they return to Earth after twenty five years. Because Earth changes and not for the better, Jean decides to continue starfaring:
"'What will we find when we come back? After a generation...At best, I'm afraid, worse crowding, more ugliness, less freedom. I doubt I'll care to stay.'" (pp. 25-26)
"'...I recall how the things I loved, moors, woods, old towns full of kindness, old lifeways, I've seen them crumbling and by now they may be gone.'" (p. 27)
In two of Anderson's FTL futures (which two?), Earth eventually becomes a quiet forested world to which spacemen like to return.
I disagree with Jean on one point:
"'And the rest of the Solar System - well, we know too much about it. Nothing really new there.'" (p. 26)
Nothing really new in the entire Solar System? That can never be true.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
You wrote: "In two of Anderson's FTL futures (which two?), Earth eventually becomes a quiet forested world to which spacemen like to return." I think you had WORLD WITHOUT STARS and FOR LOVE AND GLORY in mind.
I would say Jean would have some truth in her comment about there being nothing really new to learn and discover after centuries of exploration. The situation we are in NOW is that we STILL have barely started exploring the Solar System. A really thorough exploration requires humans in large numbers leaving Earth and settling other parts of the System.
Sean
Sean,
No. I meant WORLD WITHOUT STARS and THE PEREGRINE. So there are three!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I did some quick checking of THE PEREGRINE, and I'm not sure I agree with you. THE PEREGRINE is part of Anderson's Stellar Union/Coordination Service stories. And Chapter IV mentions Earth as still having a half billion people. Not quite as empty as the Earth we see in WORLD WITHOUT STARS.
Sean
Sean,
Yes, a bigger population but a quieter environment, I thought, in THE PEREGRINE, "The Pirate" or both. But I would have to check.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
One thing I remember about "The Pirate" is how the Earth of the Stellar Union still has active and busy cities. And was a major financial center.
Sean
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