Tuesday 8 March 2022

Interstellar Political Refugees In Five Timelines

The Howard Families escape persecution by hijacking the generation ship, New Horizons, in Robert Heinlein's Future History.

Colonials flee from the Solar System shortly before the Fall of the West in James Blish's Cities In Flight.

The persecuted Constitutionalists flee to the extra-solar planet, Rustum, in Poul Anderson's Orbit Unlimited.

Some Americans escape from the Solar System when SM Stirling's Draka win the Final War.

Some Aeneans flee from known space when Dominic Flandry defeats their Rebellion in Anderson's Technic History. 

(Anderson usually gets onto such a list more than once.) 

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I'm convinced that once space travel and extraterrestrial colonization becomes practical, there will be political and religious malcontents willing to leave Earth to live elsewhere if that was the only way they could live as they believed was best.

And, later, of course, from interplanetary or interstellar realms.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Americans are largely descended from people who left the place they were in because they didn't like it. It's a reflex. Nor did the process stop when they landed on the eastern coast -- take a look at the history of Utah, for instance, or the mass movement of blacks out of the South after WW1.

It's one reason why the Old Testament has always resonated strongly here, the story of the Exodus.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And we can expect that "resonating" to continue in the future, when malcontents of all kinds leave Earth!

Ad astra! Sean