-copied from here.
I have copied this passage from the Wikipedia article on the CoDominium because it confirms my earlier deduction that the Great Patriotic Wars are a delayed World War III.
The purpose of American future histories seems to be to move human beings out of the Solar System! - although interstellar travel was only just beginning at the very end of Robert Heinlein's original five volume Future History.
There is no doubt that dispersing humanity through space is a sure way to racial survival. Even ex-convicts living on Welfare or isolated colonies reduced to barbarism are at least living human populations which would not be possible on the surface of a single devastated planet. However, Poul Anderson in several works goes further, seeing an interstellar diaspora as the way to ensure that cultural diversity which is the essence of humanity.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And Robert Heinlein would agree on the necessity of colonies being founded off Earth. I remember reading of him saying it was foolish to persist in keeping all of our eggs in the one basket which is Earth.
And Poul Anderson has argued both in essays and his fictional works that one big reason why colonies will be founded is because ethnic and religious would seek to separate themselves from a dominant civilization they perceive as either indifferent to their unique cultures or hostile to them. The Dennitzans and Zacharians comes to mind.
Sean
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