Martin Saunders time travels from 1970 to various future times. In 50,000 AD, he meets the half-million-year-old Dreamer, the last survivor of a race whose civilization had lasted for ten million years. Having:
"'...proved rigorously that permanence is a self-contradictory concept...'"
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT CHAPTER FOUR, p. 262 -
- the Dreamer formulates the philosophical basis of the Second Galactic Empire as the First ends. His race had coordinated a billion planets with scientific psychodynamics and "'...great cybernetic engines...'" (ibid.)
Four million years later, a voice in a city tells Saunders to go on to the end of time. A hundred million years later, a being tells him to continue. A billion years later, a non-human city warns him away. More happens but I just wanted to summarize Saunders' encounters with intelligence!
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I think the Catholic Church is giving everybody else tough competition in the permanence race! I don't think any other institution exists which was also existing when the Church was founded (aside from the Jews, of course). Well, I should include at least some forms of Buddhism, in addition.
And no nation now existing was also existing in AD 32. China doesn't count because the Han Dynasty ruling the Central Kingdom in Christ's time has long since passed away.
Ad astra! Sean
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