However, CJ Cherryh's Downbelow Station suggests that human conflicts and wars on an interstellar scale might overload such environments with hordes of desperate refugees arriving in over-crowded, under-supplied spaceships.
The mere ability to travel between the stars is an ultimate symbol of freedom in American sf but what might it be like in practice, confined inside artificially maintained environments far removed from any hospitable planetary surface?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
We have to expect squalor as well as splendor in our hoped for future in space. That said, the example you cited from Cherryh would seem to be more what is likely to be an exception rather than the rule. Also, I can easily some O'Neill style habitats refusing to take in large numbes of refugees if doing so would dangerously over strain what those habitats were designed for.
Ad astra! Sean
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