The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III, collect twenty four installments of the Technic History, including four novels, whereas Volumes IV-VII collect nineteen installments, including seven novels. Volumes I-IV have seventeen introductions by fictional future historians whereas IV-VII have only one.
Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, begins with "The Saturn Game," which is divided into four parts, numbered I-IV. Each part is introduced by Francis L. Minamoto of Apollo University in Leyburg on Luna, writing in 2057. Minamoto is the first fictional historian although he writes shortly after the events that he discusses.
In his second introduction, Minamoto reviews some recent history. Space-based industries had:
"...offered the hope of rescuing civilization, and Earth, from ruin..."
-Poul Anderson, "The Saturn Game" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 1-73 AT II, p. 6.
A large, solar-powered vessel carried a crew of a thousand to Mars orbit from where they studied Mars and launched minerals from Phobos to Earth. Similar craft explored the rest of the Solar System. A Brittanic-American consortium sent the Chronos to Saturn.
This is not only long before the Polesotechnic League but even before Technic civilization and the hyperdrive. However, it is the beginning of the Technic History and the link to that "...violent period of global unrest known as the Chaos..." (Sandra Miesel, p. 663) which we currently experience.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And that date, 2057, is the only explicit date the cautious Poul Anderson committed himself to in the entire Technic series. A bare 36 years from now!
I usually think of the Technic FTL hyperdrive being invented by or near AD 2100, thus some forty or more years after Minamoto wrote.
I certainly hope the new technology being developed by Elon Musk's companies Tesla and SpaceX leads to making those space-based industries becoming practical!
Ad astra! Sean
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