"'You've no idea how beautiful this country was before the settlers arrived.'"
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), IV, p. 40.
Compare Havig's observation with statements made by both Manse Everard and Dominic Flandry, quoted in Unpolluted Planets.
There are two ways to see North America before the settlers arrived:
time travel, like several of Poul Anderson's characters;
find a Gate to an alternative Earth where there never were any settlers - before you arrived - like John Rolfe VI in SM Stirling's Conquistador.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Strictly speaking, just to be nit picky, the Americas of Stirling's CONQUISTADOR did have settlers, the Indians whose ancestors used the Bering land bridge to pass from Asia to North America.
Sean
Sean,
But Havig was referring to his visits to the Native Americans.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but the Americas of THERE WILL BE TIME and CONQUISTADOR did have PRE-European settlers, the Indians.
I have sometimes wondered what might have happened if the tentative Norse settlements in "Vinland" of circa AD 1000 had survived. History would have certainly turned out very differently! For one thing, since the technological differences between the Indians and the Norse was less pronounced than it would have been 400-500 years later, the inevitable conflicts would have less lopsided in results. Which means I can imagine hybrid Indian/European states and cultures arising by Columbus' time. Poul Anderson gives us some speculations along these lines in "Delenda Est" and "The Only Game in Town."
Sean
Sean,
And in one of the alternative timelines in "Eutopia"?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, I should have listed that story as well. Darn, I forgot!
Sean
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