Sunday 20 March 2022

An Interstellar Situation

"The Queen of Air and Darkness."

Several extra-solar planets have been colonized. Some have natives. Earth has stopped launching spaceships. New colonies are not yet able to launch new ships and even their survival is in doubt. Older colonies launch ships that might visit any particular planet two or three times a century at most. Colonists must be strongly motivated and must also take with them germ plasm for plants, animals and human beings.

Beowulf:

like Rustum but more advanced, has a densely populated city and a lowland frontier for those with a high carbon dioxide tolerance;

launches an expedition to seek new ideas among several colonized planets, especially those unable to maintain laser contact.

Eric Sherrinford, born on Beowulf, joins the expedition and decides to stay on Roland. He knows of Rustum.

This situation has clearly existed and developed for centuries. It seems quite unlike the scenario in "Home" and "The Alien Enemy" where a Terrestrial government called the Directorate has established a few extra-solar colonies before closing, then later re-opening, them.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Considering how long it took for STL ships to travel between the stars, something like the Kith of "Ghetto", etc., might have arisen. Because some means of making these star ships pay for themselves would need to be found.

The Directorate stories could still fit in the Rustum timeline if we assume them to be later.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I am rereading "Home" which has an Israeli character. It is clearly not set after the centuries-long history of "The Queen of Air and Darkness" during which Earth had stopped launching interstellar ships.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Because it would not be likely for Israel to have survived if a far more powerful nation like the US could not successfully break away from the World Federation 20 years before the events in "Robin Hood's Barn"? If so, a bit disappointing: I rather liked the idea of a change of regime (the Directory) and policy (renewed interest in space) occurring on Earth sometime after "To Promote The General Welfare."

I guess we will have to exclude "Home," "The Alien Enemy," "The Faun," and "Time Lag" from the Rustum timeline.

Ad astra! Sean