Tuesday 4 January 2022

High Tech Versus The Weathemother

Today the Daily Star warns that colonists of Mars could become cannibals. What else might we face on other planets?

"Born and raised [on Avalon], [Jack Birnam] was used to sudden tempests. The rapidly spinning globe was always breeding them. Yet the violence of this one astonished him."

Yet technology is almost a match for extreme weather:

"In case of serious difficulty, he need merely send a distress signal by his pocket transceiver. Homing on it, an aircar from the nearest rescue station in the foothills should reach him in minutes.
"If the sky was fit to fly in!" (p. 311)

So there are some limits to what technology can do. However, Jack is safe during the tempest:

his heated sleeping bag has a hood and breathing mask;
a duraplast sheet wards off hailstones and debris;
explosive heads drive the sheet's pegs securely into bedrock;
he just has to lie there for several hours.
 
Some people enjoy the experience of all that power out of human control.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Meaning whoever wrote that article for what looks like a very lurid tabloid speculated that some disaster on Mars might cause humans to each other? Unfortunately, as real world historical examples like the Donner party shows, that is not an impossible idea. But I hope the certainty of dangers and setbacks won't stop people from going to Mars!

And we do see Poul Anderson writing a few stories that uses cannibalism: "Welcome," and "The Sharing of Flesh."

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Oddly, I read this in an interval while writing about people erecting yurts in a Gobi sandstorm, driving stakes for anchor lines with sledgehammers, covering the air intakes of trucks with bags, etc.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And I expect very similar methods will be needed for coping with sandstorms on Mars.

Ad astra! Sean