Wednesday, 22 April 2020

Earth In The Stellar Union

The Peregrine, CHAPTER IV.

I have found one point where the "Nomads and Stellar Union History" does refer back to the "UN/Solar Union History." We are told that, after the invention of the hyperdrive, large numbers of people left the Solar System not for economic reasons but because ninety per cent of the population had been made technologically unemployed.

The half billion who remain on Earth are the creative minority that shape society through scientific research, education, art and understanding. Dwellings are scattered through forest but closely connected by transport and communication. The sky is full of aircars on autopilot. The planet "...is a socioeconomic unity...," (p. 24) effectively a city. An individual might live temporarily in South America, work in Africa and holiday with Australian and Chinese friends in Arctic Resort.

Even interstellar colonists scatter across planetary surfaces although we read in CHAPTER VI that, on each planet, a city grows around a spaceport.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And technological unemployment will have POLITICAL consequences as well, not just economic. And it seems Earth herself will sink again into another dark age not too far in the future of THE PEREGRINE. So, SOMETHING went wrong even on Earth.

Ad astra! Sean