Starfarers presents three interconnected narratives:
Earth;
Envoy;
Kith.
44 is fourteen and a half pages of Terrestrial future history. Will there be future religious figures like the Buddha and Christ? Yes:
in Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men, the Daughter of Man and the Divine Child;
in Starfarers, Selador.
Seladorism is an off-shoot of Arodism. Selador's father was a Kithman who left his ship to marry an Arodist. Cast out by the Arodists, the couple lived in Kith Town but Selador's mother took him to Arodia after his father had died young. Selador was martyred. Seladorianism is partly technophobic and its extremists are mechanoclasts. Expanding their area of cultivation, the Seladorians come into conflict with their neighbors and retaliate to killings by destroying some Arodist robots. A later Seladorian leader, Houer Kernaldi, is a former Kithman and convert who evangelizes and organizes while maintaining contact with the Kith. Much must be summarized in few pages.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember Selador and the philosophy or religion he founded. Truthfully, I thought it rather thin and unconvincing, one of the weaker parts of STARFARERS. But I do agree it was commendable of Anderson to speculate about possible future religions or philosophies.
But my belief is that Catholic Christianity, and Judaism for that matter, will still be existing ten thousand years from now.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
And those Seladorian extremists, the Mechanoclasts (Machine smashers?), reminded me of the Iconoclast Controversy which agitated the Church in the 8th/9th centuries.
Ad astra! Sean
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