In Poul Anderson's After Doomsday, the American men stay in the local civilization-cluster where they become involved in an interstellar war whereas the European women travel to another cluster where they participate in a competitive economy. Does Anderson merely project human social norms out into the galaxy? Not exactly. A point made in the Polesotechnic League period of Anderson's Technic History was that, of many intelligent species, some will be similar enough to us for us to interact with them whereas others will not.
The species who compete either economically or militarily are surrounded by probably larger numbers of beings who conduct their affairs in entirely different ways. Explorers will either ignore or occasionally study such races and their cultures.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I too have been scrolling down recent blog pieces to check for new remarks in the comboxes. I hope this glitch of not getting combox notifications is soon fixed.
And I agree with Anderson's point: if other intelligent races exist and mankind gets to interact with them to any degree, humans will have the most to do with races with some similarity to ours. If several races are biochemically similar enough to each other to desire the same kind of planets, then that alone opens the prospect of both peaceful and warlike interactions. Think of the Terrans vs. Merseians, for example. And oxygen breathing species, by contrast, have little or nothing to do with the hydrogen breathers of the Dispersal of Ymir.
Sean
Sean,
Good examples from the Technic History.
Paul.
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