If any given colonized planet might be visited two or three times a century by a ship from an old settlement and if each interstellar crossing lasts for several decades, then there must be quite a few old settlements launching ships? There are also laser communications between some colonies and face-to-face contacts with natives on some planets so how much of an interstellar civilization is emerging?
After the last story set on Rustum:
a new Constitution is adopted;
Dan Coffin's great-grandchildren grow to maturity and old age;
Confucianist colonists arrive;
maybe the lowlands are fully colonized;
laser communication is established at least with Beowulf;
a lot of time elapses before the events of "The Queen of Air and Darkness" -
- so what else has happened?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But would it be possible for there to be an interstellar civilization if it takes decades om cold sleep for travelers to go from planet to planet? I don't think so. Rather, these intermittent contacts with both other humans and non-humans will affectd the cultures of the different planets.
And I still wonder whether the Federation on Earth has fallen and the entire planet collapsed into a Dark Age.
Sean
Kaor, Sean!
Probably so, for some value of Dark, although we don’t know just what’s been happening on Earth. Perhaps they no longer have the resources for spaceships, or at least won’t use their resources for such a materialistic purpose, with no practical benefit for Earth. Perhaps an ossified, authoritarian Federation still rules, with science out of fashion, and most of the people taking drugs or seeking consolation in religion, when they aren’t working for their meager livings. Perhaps there was a catastrophic breakdown, leading to an end to high technology, and the deaths of most of the world’s population. Perhaps someone will someday be able to build something new and relatively hopeful on the rubble, and perhaps not.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Perhaps.
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