increasing environmental pollution until the oceans are unsafe by 1990;
the War of Judgment;
the period of the Maurai Federation and of the Eyrie, Phase One;
the period of general revolt against the Maurai and of the Eyrie, Phase Two;
the period of the contemplative pastoral society and of the Star Masters who are the Eyrie, Phase Three, but Havig-, not Wallis-inspired;
the civilization or post-civilization that will grow under Stars Masters influence;
interstellar travel, either FTL or STL plus time travel;
the "...unimaginably remote tomorrow..." (XVI, p. 176) from which (maybe) time travelers created anew will set out to sow the time-travel-gene-bearing virus through a chosen part of the past.
The novel ends with Robert Anderson wondering about that remote future "...under the high autumnal stars..." (ibid.)
Settings that are mentioned but not developed:
the high tech underground base of the Eyrie, Phase Two;
the Havig group's main base in the Pleistocene;
the post-Star Masters period;
Havig's think tank and advisory committee in the twentieth century.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
So far, at least, we have not yet reached the situation seen in the 1990 of THERE WILL BE TIME, with the oceans scummy and unsafe. Nor has there been, yet, a WAR OF JUDGEMENT. I hope we manage to dodge both!
I still find the idea of genetics caused time traveling a strain to swallow. So implausible that I'm not surprised Poul Anderson tried out that idea only in THERE WILL BE TIME. And he's to commended for doing that! Because it shows he was willing to examine practically any hypothesis.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I should have included that in ORION SHALL RISE, we see the beginning of that period of revolt against the Maurai Federation. Renascent new nations and cultures became strong enough to resist the increasingly unreasonable restraints on using advanced technology imposed by the Maurai. The Federation could not forever suppress the use of nuclear power (as we see it doing in "Progress").
Sean
I got the impression from that series that the time-travel mutation was artificial -- that the ultimate successors of the hero had created it and traveled back in time to scatter through the ages (probably via a tailored virus) to produce their own past.
Mr Stirling,
That is Robert Anderson's speculation at the very end of the novel.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
But, as Paul said, that was only a speculation by Robert Anderson. Jack Havig himself seems to have thought it was only due to a freak of genetics, a mutation, that he and others were able to travel thru time by an act of will alone.
Seam
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