In Poul Anderson's Orion Shall Rise, some Mong have forgotten that Lenin was anything other than a god.
In Anderson's The Winter Of The World, astrologers know that Mars used to be red, not green, but do not know why. (We can guess.)
Was there a story in which people thought that "A.D." meant "After Darwin"? (No. I made that up.)
In Frank Herbert's Dune future history, most people do not know that Judaism exists because it has become "Secret Israel" - an extreme expression of the belief that Jews and Gentiles cannot peacefully coexist.
In Isaac Asimov's future history, people in the Galactic Empire have forgotten where Earth is and even that humanity originated on a single planet. In the example cited here, they have forgotten that nuclear weapons were used although they have retained the fear.
During the Long Night of Anderson's Technic History, some human beings on extra-solar planets forget that their ancestors came from another planet.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
People forgetting what kind of man Lenin was? We see something similar in Pournelle/Niven's Co-Dominium timeline. At least by the time of the Second Empire of Man Lenin had become one of the "heroes" living before the Co-Dominium arose.
I can see "astronomer" shifting in meaning to become "astrologer." And in THE HIGH CRUSADE "astrologers" seemed to have become what we call "pilots" when the interstellar "British Empire" founded by Baron Roger was finally discovered by explorers from Earth.
In Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD, our BC/AD era dating system was replaced by "AF," After Ford.
And I disagree with Asimov's future history, I fully expect nuclear weapons to be used in future wars. Esp. in space where nuclear missiles will be needed if space navies are going to come to grips with each other.
And armies will be used as an alternative to using nukes when it comes to planet side combat. And we see low yield tactical nukes being used in "Outpost of Empire." Anderson thought hostile fleets might threaten planets with nuclear bombardment to get them to surrender. And Flandry believed barbarians who had gotten nuclear technology too soon in their history would use nukes indiscriminately.
I really wish Anderson had updated and rewritten THERMONUCLEAR WARFARE, to take account of changes in technology and the thinking by analysts about nuclear warfare by the 1990's.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: experience to date indicates that nuclear weapons can only be used against those that don't have them.
It further indicates that WWII-style mass combat between industrialized nation-states stops when nuclear weapons are added to the mix.
Other forms of conflict, yes -- skirmishes, minor clashes, proxy wars, aiding terrorists, subversion, etc.
But not straight-up mass combat ending in the conclusive defeat of one side or the other.
Because they'd pull the trigger and blow up the world before letting that happen; or at least the threat of doing so is credible.
That makes "victory conditions" for mass conventional combat next to impossible; and without some chance of victory (however distorted by wishful thinking) people don't start wars.
One of the basic reasons we beat the USSR in the Cold War was that they insisted on maintaining immense conventional armies, which are hideously expensive.
We didn't, despite some pretenses; our conventional forces in Europe were simply a tripwire, there to get killed so the nuclear trigger could be pulled.
So they went bankrupt; and we didn't.
As my father said, NATO had a threefold strategy:
Fight with conventional weapons until defeated;
Fight with tactical nuclear weapons until defeated;
Blow up the world.
It worked perfectly.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Fascinating comments! And I'm sure Anderson would have incorporated much of this analysis of yours in that hypothetical revising of THERMONUCLEAR WARFARE in the late '90's. One quibble I do have is that in "Wildcat" one character suggested that one side or the other might have surrendered rather than blowing up the world in such a conflict between the West and the USSR.
That way, whatever happened to the defeated leaders, most of their people would survive. And maybe that is what happened in the Earth of "The High Ones" or "The Pugilist"? However brutal the Soviets were, they might in time had been overthrown.
Fortunately, the USSR never pushed matters to that kind of extreme! But we still face danger from a hostile and aggressive mainland China. And I have next to ZERO confidence that the Democrats will be able to restrain Peking effectively. Which is another reason for my dislike of Joe Biden and his awful party.
Ad astra! Sean
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