Operation Chaos works as a sequel to Three Hearts And Three Lions. It begins as Steve Matuchek telepathically broadcasts to other possible universes and states that the conflict between Law and Chaos must occur in every universe. Several times throughout the book, he comes face to face with that "...final One..." (p. 72) postulated by Holger Carlsen as outranking every other agent of Chaos.
Holger wonders whether Chaos is a more animistic expression of the second law of thermodynamics, the tendency toward disorder and level entropy, then whether Nazism is a resurgence of such animistic entropy in his world. But Chaos is not entropy. The Middle World agents of Chaos want the order of Law to be ended but not their own bodies or environments to become disordered or to wind down to total quiescence.
In our universe, that quiescence is apparently inevitable although, in Anderson's later hard sf, some high tech AIs think that they might somehow remain conscious even at full entropy. So they are Law against Chaos? As is the Time Patrol when it counteracts temporal chaos at the end of The Shield Of Time.
Extrablogular activities rule at present as you might guess from the fewness of posts.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I suspect, however, that many of the Middle Worlders of THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS had themselves been deceived by that final One who was the enemy of the Highest. Most of the Middle Worlders might not want themselves to be "disordered" or their universe to decay into the heat death of total entropy--except that was the goal of their Master. What I think the Adversary desired in his hatred was for all universes to become like the Hell universe we see in OPERATION CHAOS. So the Adversary would be more than willing to deceive many of his servants in Faerie, in the Carolingian time line.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That combines the ideas of Chaos and entropy.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Thanks, I thought it made sense! And resolved a possible inconsistency.
Ad astra! Sean
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