Green Lantern, an sf superhero, requires:
(i) a very old race that becomes the Guardians;
(ii) many non-humanoid species that can be represented in a single organization;
(iii) a very fast means of interstellar and intergalactic travel;
(iv) "evil" for the organization to fight.
("Evil" is vague. GL eventually asked whether evil was in crime or in the society that he was protecting from crime. Apparently, Niven replaced "evil" with entropy.)
Elements of GL's requirements are present in Poul Anderson's works:
(i) The Danellians in the Time Patrol series and the Others in The Avatar.
(ii) There are many such species. I am currently thinking of the intergalactics in World Without Stars. The Patrol is organized by the Danellians to guard history but has only human membership.
(iii) The space jump in World Without Stars and the T machines in The Avatar.
(iv) Neldorians, Exaltationists and temporal chaos in the Time Patrol series.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I had not known, or at least noticed, that Larry Niven played a role in shaping the Green Lantern.
And Poul Anderson did show us some people in the Time Patrol stories who were indisputably bad or evil, such as the Neldorians.
And I thought the T machines more scientifically plausible than the space jump.
Sean
Sean,
The T machines were based on Tipler's theory whereas the rationale for the space jumps was just Anderson practicing his technique of thinking up yet another verbal contrivance or circumlocution to account for a fictional FTL.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree! And Anderson usually managed to at least make such devices reasonably plausible. And even gave us some of the theory behind the FTL "hyperdrive" of his Technic stories. Enough to make me wish it was real!
Sean
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