In Robert Heinlein's Future History, after the Second American Revolution, misfits are sent to Coventry which is divided into three parts, a free for all, a dictatorship and a Prophetic remnant. They cannot complain about lack of choice.
In Poul Anderson's Technic History, after the Chaos and during the Breakup, misfits or, more generally, minorities aiming either to preserve a cultural tradition or to conduct a social experiment, can colonize extra-solar planets - a much more agreeable arrangement. Colonies retain their internal structures within the Terran Empire and Flandry tries to strengthen some so that they will outlast the Empire.
However, let us return to the misfits who either enter Coventry in the Future History or leave the Solar System in the Technic History. Would one or other of these arrangements suit some of our contemporaries on Earth Real in 2020? (I can think of more than one candidate group.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I know Heinlein did not like his character Nehemiah Scudder or evangelical Protestantism, but I'm sorry he never wrote "The Stone Pillow," featuring the beginning of Scudder's rise to power in the US as the first "Prophet."
Like you, I would prefer Anderson's Breakup to RAH's Coventry. Better to have malcontents and misfits be able to freely leave than to coercively exile them to a part of Earth.
Yes, both human and non human planets within the Empire had a good deal of internal autonomy. I think non-humans tend to be overlooked by you, so I would remind you of how Flandry discussed those races in, I think, Chapter V of THE REBEL WORLDS.
Like you, I can think of a varied number of unhappy groups who might be glad to leave our real Earth to live as they wished in new colonies founded on other planets. Both political and religious groups and sects. Old Order Amish and libertarians being two examples.
Ad astra! Sean
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