Roland, 75 light years from Sol, was colonized long after Rustum, 20 light years from Sol, yet, in this story, the Rolandic colony is about a hundred years old. I have lost track of which kind of years but, in any case, several generations have lived on Roland.
Beowulf, distance from Sol unknown, was also colonized long after Rustum but now counts as "...an old settlement..." (p. 173) because it is able to launch a spaceship that visits several planets, including Roland.
Barbro Cullen of Roland reflects that Beowulf was:
"...supposed to have the up-to-date equipment that they still couldn't afford to build on Roland..." (p. 166)
This strongly suggests that Roland is one of those planets that the ship visited precisely because it:
"...didn't have the equipment to keep in laser contact.'" (p. 194)
Sherrinford, who came in the ship from Beowulf but then stayed on Roland, tells Barbro that the crew:
"'...found little on Roland relevant to Beowulf.'" (ibid.)
They were looking for new ideas in science and other fields but Roland, being more backward, had none to offer. When Sherrinford says:
"'You'll recall [the expedition's] announced purpose...'" (ibid.)
- we should understand that, unless Roland does have lasers (which I doubt), Barbro would not have heard the purpose announced until the ship had arrived at Roland. Sherrinford has read of large birds on Rustum. (p. 179) It follows that laser communication had been established between Rustum and Beowulf before Sherrinford left Beowulf.
Beowulf has:
a densely populated but efficiently organized city, Heorot;
a lowland frontier requiring high carbon dioxide tolerance.
Bored in Heorot but lacking high carbon dioxide tolerance, Sherrinford joined the interstellar expedition. Having arrived on Roland, he saw opportunities for himself there. Most people stay on one planet. A few travel between planets but return home. Sherrinford, interstellar migrant, is rare if not unique.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would not be surprised if, for interstellar purposes, Earth standard years were used. Because that would be one measure of time all the humanly settled colonies should have in common.
I recall some characters in the stories set on Rustum believed it would take centuries before they would have the industrial plant and capital needed for building space ships. Which means Beowulf, apparently second planet to be colonized, was several centuries old if it was able to build STL star ships.
And Sherrinford's boredom in quiet, placid Heorot reminded me of another Detective who also suffered from bouts of ennui! (Smiles)
Sean
Sean,
In fact the story does say something about the lengths of Rolandic and Beowulfan years. With so little interstellar contact, the colonists would not keep to Earth standard years.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That is true, it would not make much sense to keep on using Earth years.
Sean
See some of the fiction by Joan Vinge or by Vernor Vinge. (I don't think they wrote anything together.) They both use the idea that humans outside the solar system, through STL travel, might not use earth length days years etc, but instead use kiloseconds, Megaseconds, Gigaseconds for longer time units.
Kaor, Jim!
I have my doubts something so abstract and clinical would be used by humans. I think it's more likely standard Earth earth years might be used for space travel. Colonized planets would devise calendars suitable for those planets.
In fact, Robert Zubrin, in his book THE CASE FOR MARS, worked out a calendar he thought colonists on Mars might find suitable. One designed to take into account the different length of days/rotation periods on the Red Planet.
Ad astra! Sean
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