Is either hoax credible? Church argues that, in his period, the Terrestrial population is gullible, prone to panic and deeply afraid of the Others. He consulted psychosociologists who thought that his scheme was feasible. Thus, there is a hint of that predictive science of society, Asimov's psychohistory, Anderson's psychotechnics etc, that figured in some twentieth century sf.
Church ends by speculating that human beings might find a way to the stars. This story, "The Moonrakers," is not followed by any interstellar sequels but nevertheless serves in a more general way as a precursor of all the Andersonian sf that does does involve interstellar flight.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson has used frauds and hoaxes in some of his stories. One example I thought of being how, in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, we see Aycharaych setting up a puppet prophet to preach a spurious religion as a means of starting civil wars and jihads within the Terran Empire. All without the "prophet" knowing he had been manipulated and mentally tampered with. The goal being to make it easier for Merseia to overrun a "convulsed and shattered" Empire.
Sean
Paul:
Alan Dean Foster's Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, title character of The Man Who Used the Universe, faked an interstellar invasion so that humanity would join forces with the alien Nuel (and within a few years, some other species) against the invaders rather than going to war among themselves. The Nuel who figured out the truth had to acknowledge:
"Peace was better than war, no matter the motivation behind its establishing. Commerce was prospering, Nuel and humans and Orischians and Athabascans and all the other sentient races who were part of the new alliance were safer and happier than they'd been...
"...what ever [Loo-Macklin] did, however grandly he lied and cheated and falsified to serve his own private demon, the end results always seemed to benefit the majority of intelligent peoples."
Kaor, DAVID!
I dunno, wouldn't SOME people, of whatever race, be angry and upset how they had deceived and lied to? How stable can a peace based on deception rather than hard, mutually beneficial common interests, be? Yes, commerce was flourishing, and that in turn would lead to powerful vested interests having a stake in peace continuing.
Sean
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