The literary ghetto of pulp magazine sf developed its own cliches and terminology, e.g., the Latin
" Terra" used as a name for Earth. However, contrast that use of the word, "Terra," with the sophisticated civilization of the Terran Empire in Poul Anderson's Technic History. In
A Stone In Heaven, the Imperial legate on Hermes requests figures for Hermetian production and consumption of
palladium, a metal that is essential to protonic control systems which in turn are essential to any military machinery, but his agents are unable to collect the relevant data. The Grand Duke of Hermes claims to suspect that there is a conspiracy to discredit him whereas in fact it is he that is engaged in secret weapons production.
Again, he vetoes any attempt to request Imperial assistance for the nearby Ramnuans, an intelligent species threatened by an Ice Age, even though such an Imperial effort would be bound to boost the declining Hermetian economy. The Duke has something to conceal on Ramnu.
Thus, we get a sense of a history, an industry and an economy that are as convincing as if Hermes and the other planets with which it interacts were real places. This is historical fiction with a future setting.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And what makes Duke Edwin's stonewalling of efforts to obtain Imperial assistance for reversing the glaciation of Ramnu all the more suspicious was that the Imperium was WILLING to grant such assistance. Not only because it would have been a good act in itself but also because it would help to gain good will for the Empire. Which, after Josip's reign and the civil war breaking out after his death, it badly needed.
Ad astra! Sean
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