In this one galaxy, there are a million civilization-clusters with no pattern between them and very little pattern within any given cluster. The U.S.S. Benjamin Franklin's three year mission is to begin to get an idea of the layout and characteristics of the galaxy beyond what has already been learned from the Monwaing complex. The ship visits a dozen planets in four clusters. Donnan's assignment is to study outplanet mechanical techniques.
This three year mission resembles the Grand Survey in Anderson's Technic History or the five year mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series. Some future history series, like James Blish's Cities In Flight, skip past this necessary early stage of interstellar exploration.
"Higgledy-piddledy, helter-skelter, civilization spread out among the stars." (p. 34)
We remember how the Polesotechnic League sprawled from Canopus to Deneb but these civilization-clusters sprawl much further and endure for much longer.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I think it would make sense for a private or governmental consortium to sponsor a Technic style Grand Survey in the period after the invention of a real world FTL drive (which I hope happens soon!). I think there were at least two Technic Grand Surveys of the neighboring galaxy.
I get the impression that human exploration extended to about a thousand parsecs in any direction from Earth in the Technic series. And we both recall how Nicholas van Rijn planned to spend his last years exploring REALLY far from Sol.
Sean
Sean,
Curiously, I have not received any email notification of this comment as yet. I found it only when scrolling down the blog.
Paul.
I have also not yet received email notification of my comment above.
Notifications have just belatedly arrived.
Kaor, Paul!
I saw your comments and notifications, belatedly.
Sean
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