(1) Will it be possible to cross interstellar distances quickly and easily despite the light-speed barrier and (2) (a) will the galaxy turn out to be full of terrestroid planets (b) inhabited by intelligent beings with whom human explorers and traders will be able to interact linguistically, economically and culturally as easily as Europeans with Asians or Americans with Japanese?
Doubt it. I think that we have one vast and alien universe out there.
I have divided and subdivided the question as above because the number of extrasolar planets detected recently suggests that, surprisingly, the answer to (2) (a) might be "Yes." Nevertheless, that is just one sub-question out of three.
Could it really be just a matter of time before humanity lives into the kind of period described at the beginning of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization?
"...no springtime is identical with the last. Technic civilization is not Classical or Western; and as it spreads ever more thinly across ever less imaginable reaches of space - as its outposts and its heartland learn, for good or ill, that which ever larger numbers of nonhuman peoples have to teach: it is changing in ways unpredictable."
-Poul Anderson, "- Le Matelot" IN Anderson, Trader To The Stars (St Albans, Herts, 1975), p. 7.
"...the Polesotechnic League became a supergovernment, sprawling from Canopus to Polaris, drawing its membership from a thousand species."
- "- Margin of Profit" IN op. cit., pp. 47-49 AT p. 48.
Much though I love this future history, and even regard it as by far the best of the sf future histories, I cannot believe in those "...ever larger numbers of nonhuman peoples..." or those "...thousand species." One first contact with members of a multi-species, interstellar civilization would be enough to prove me wrong.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
As for your Point (1), I don't know if FTL will ever be possible. But I have read of how some scientists don't totally rule that out as a possibility. And I hope FTL will be invented!
Poul Anderson has also argued, in essays like "Commentary" (in SPACE FOLK) that even if FTL is not invented, it would still be possible to reach the stars by STL means. IF mankind is willing to make the effort.
As for your "(2) (a)," I think it makes SENSE to believe there are both terrestroid and non-terrestroid planets in the galaxy. We see both kinds in Anderson's Technic series (such as JUPITER in our Solar System and Babur).
Emotionally, I find it repellent to think the galaxy has only one intelligent species, ours. I find it hard to believe a galaxy with at least 100 to 200 billion stars does not have many intelligent races. I far prefer what we see in the Technic stories, many races, than what we also see in the HARVEST OF STARS books, sentient life is rare.
So I frankly hope your skepticism about the existence of other sophont races is proven wrong!
Ad astra! Sean
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