In Anderson's "The Game of Glory," Dominic Flandry learns that the planet Nyanza was:
"...colonized some 500 years back during the breakup of the Commonwealth." (II, p. 306) (For full reference, see here.)
This "breakup" is not to be confused with the Breakup. The Solar Commonwealth lasted for centuries after human beings had colonized many extra-solar planets. Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn lived during the Commonwealth, Flandry lives in the Terran Empire and the Technic History continues for millennia after the Empire.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I usually think of a FTL hyperdrive being invented in the Technic History some time after AD 2100. About the same time as the Solar Commonwealth was taking form (or maybe somewhat earlier). Next, I'm inclined to think the Polesotechnic League arose sometime after 2200. That would give the League three centuries or a bit less to flourish before the Mirkheim/Babur crisis. And I'm inclined to think the Commonwealth survived longer than the League, albeit in an increasingly debased, incompetent, and ineffectual form--till Manuel Argos swept away its remnants around AD 2690-2700.
Sean
Sean,
I suggest that terrorists nuked Rome so the Curia relocated to Jerusalem, hence the Jerusalem Catholic Church.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot about that, but it's a suggestion I agree with! I find it far too likely a possibility to think that terrorists of one kind or another might destroy, making the site permanently uninhabitable. And the rise of the Commonwealth might have enabled the Papacy to relocate to Jerusalem.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot to add that I think many politicians in the Commonwealth took advantage of the invention of a FTL drive to encourage many malcontents, dissenters, nonconformists, irreconcilables, etc., to leave Earth and settle other planets. Easier and cheaper than either ruthlessly crushing them or trying to accommodate demands such politicians and their supporters might find increasingly intolerable. Hence the Breakup.
Sean
Post a Comment