that prayers, even if not outwardly spoken, are heard;
that petitionary prayers can be answered;
even that sometimes the answers are literally heard.
In SM Stirling's and David Drake's The Forge, Raj Whitehall inwardly converses with a sentient artificial entity that describes itself as a:
"...Sector Command and Control Unit..." (CHAPTER TWO, pp. 13, 23)
- and that Raj himself refers to as "...Center..." (p. 22)
Raj inwardly addresses Center which hears, replies and even conveys information visually. Thus, Raj prays - not to the single deity of the monotheist faiths but to a superhuman intelligence nevertheless. This intelligence was humanly constructed just as the many gods of polytheist traditions were humanly projected. I have met people who claim to have conversed with them. Personally, I just sit to meditate but also think, "From delusion, lead us to truth. From darkness, lead us to light," and will be grateful if any superhuman entity hears and responds.
In Raj's time, dogs have grown big enough to be ridden like, and instead of, horses. Since horses started small, this is possible.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Actually, Raj Whitehall did believe in a God, called the "Spirit of Man of the Stars." And thought of Center as being an angel of that God.
And I would argue that the giant dogs of Bellevue were genetically modified and bred to be that large before the fall of the Terran Federation.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
I agree about the genetic modification. The very first vision Center shows Raj includes a park where children are playing with animals out of fantasy. The park's gate is marked with a double-helix symbol. There were already riding dogs that might've been able to carry adults, but they were "smaller even than a lady's palfrey." I'd guess that for some reason, horses didn't do well in Bellevue's ecosystem.
David,
These are the details that give life to future histories.
Paul.
Bellevue's native fauna are equivalent to the late Cretaceous; lots of fast, smart dinosaurian-like predators. Dinosaurs, especially the last types, where not really reptiles; much more like big flightless birds. And birds can be very intelligent -- their brains are smaller than those of mammals, but more efficient ounce per ounce.
Kaor, Gentlemen!
DAVID: you made more plain what I left too brief! I also remember how people in that halcyon time were SWIMMING in the oceans of Bellevue, which no one in Raj Whitehall's time in his right mind dared to do. Precisely because of those smart dinosaurian predators Mr. Stirling mentioned later. People in those days were able to fend off those predators.
Mr. Stirling: I thought the LARGEST dinosaurian like predators on Bellevue were not that smart. At least that was my impression.
Paul: ditto!
Sean
Kaor, DAVID!
Another thought I had was that genetically modified dogs took the place of horses because the latter were not thought capable of surviving on a planet with aggressive, dinosaur like animals. Perhaps these giant dogs were thought more capable of fighting off the predators of Bellevue.
Sean
Sean: what we actually had in mind was the dogs surviving and the horses not because of that, but inadvertently -- the dogs were originally created by genetic engineering for the amusement of children, pretty much.
You couldn't produce riding dogs simply by making dogs very big; you'd need to modify their skeletons in other ways, particularly the spines.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
So, before knowledge of genetic engineering was lost after the fall of the Terran Federation, dogs were further modified in their spines and skeletons. Noted, that large dogs were originally gene modified to amuse children.
Sean
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