Saturday 25 March 2017

Changes

Something Big happens that changes everything:

a nuclear war;
a cometary strike;
an Ice Age;
a global flood;
most people die;
intelligence increases;
Mars and Venus are habitable and inhabited;
technology stops working.

Observations:

maybe the Ice Age is gradual, therefore doesn't quite fit with the others?;

the first five of these "changes" are generic;

the sixth is a Poul Anderson premise;

the seventh and eighth are SM Stirling premises;

Stirling's two premises require intervention by a superior technology.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree that Ice Ages are more likely to come on us gradually, over a long period of time (but see Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn's FALLEN ANGELS for a different take). And we do see a very different world drastically changed by an Ice Age in Anderson's THE WINTER OF THE WORLD. Since that story is set thousands of years from now I'm assuming the Ice Age was gradual.

And whoever terraformed Venus and Mars in Stirling's "Lords of Creation" books at least SEEM benevolent or at least non malignant. Unlike whoever caused the Change in the Emberverse timeline.

Sean