Ralph Barnes:
is a physicist and cosmologist;
understands the Big Bang as a quantum fluctuation beginning a universe in series with a standing waveform drawing on zero energy explaining the dark matter problem;
refuses to help John Rolfe conquer more Earths even though he expects to be badly treated or killed in consequence;
makes his own way in New Virginia when given the opportunity;
names his Mermaid Cafe from a line in a Joni Mitchell song;
serves good food;
says "...what he thinks, that the company stinks;"
befriends the young Adrienne Rolfe despite her surname;
has a black son-in-law in the "white-boy heaven" of New Virginia;
gives the Rolfes important intelligence against their (even worse) enemies;
later, helps to reopen the Gate.
What's not to like?
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think it would have been better to say Ralph Barnes "befriends the young Adrienne Rolf despite her ANCESTRY." And despite the fact she was resolutely loyal to the Commonwealth and John and Charles Rolfe, the ruling Chairmen.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Just a point I forgot to include in my previous note. It's important to stress that John Rolfe VI might have been a bandit, but he was no racist. If he rigidly excluded blacks and most Indians from the Commonwealth that was solely because he wanted internal peace and stability. He wanted to avoid the Commonwealth suffering the injustices, strains, weaknesses, etc., caused in America by the introduction of first black slavery, then segregation, and than the halting painful, slow process of reform. If the Old Man had been black, I think he would have set up a black Commonwealth.
Sean
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