Early History

"The Chapter Ends."

"He wished he knew more about the early history of the Solar System..." (p. 202)

Like maybe how the planets formed? No:

"...the first men to ride their thunderous rockets out to die on unknown hell-worlds - the first clumsy steps toward the stars." (ibid.)

Our immediate future is Jorun's "early history." We have read the previous installments in this future history series but Jorun does not know what happened in them. Indeed, he could have been a character in the concluding installment of some other future history series, just as we can now imagine different versions of our remote past.

"He could look it up in the archives of Corazuno, but he knew he never would. Too much else to do, too much to remember." (ibid.)

And will this be the last time I reread any installments of the Psychotechnic History?

Surely the human masses living near the Galactic center remember Earth and its history? Not exactly:

"Probably less than one per cent of mankind's throngs even knew where Earth was, today - though, for a while, it had been quite a tourist center. But that was perhaps thirty thousand years ago." (ibid.)

In another future history, although a spaceship is approaching Earth, its captain does not understand when one of his passengers, an Adapted Man, says:

"'...in just a few days now, we will be - in the historical sense - home again.'"

-James Blish, "Watershed" IN Blish, The Seedling Stars (London, 1972), pp. 181-192 AT p. 189.

 

It is necessary to explain:

 

"'I'm sorry; I thought you knew. Earth is the home planet of the human race, Captain. There is where the basic form evolved.'

"Gorbel considered this unexpected bit of information cautiously." (ibid.)

 

However, he does not see that it makes any difference.

 

Lastly, a comparison with Asimov. Jorun reflects:

 

"Because this world, out of all the billions, has certain physical characteristics...my race has made them into standards. Our basic units of length and time and acceleration, our comparisons by which we classify the swarming planets of the Galaxy, they all go back ultimately to Earth. We bear that unspoken memorial to our birthplace within our whole civilization, and will bear it forever."

-op. cit., pp. 202-203.

 

In the Foundation timeline, Intergalactic Standard Time defines:

 

the fundamental unit, the second, as the time light takes to travel 299,776 kilometers;

the Intergalactic Standard Day as 86,400 seconds;

the Intergalactic Standard Year as 365 days.

 

Why?

 

Historians say tradition;

mystics say numerology;

a few say that the home-planet had corresponding periods of rotation and revolution.