"'In the early days, men did settle on planets with primitive native races. It only led to conflict...'" (p. 26)
But these are early days, according to the Chronology. We have to imagine a much longer time, many centuries or millennia, between "Gypsy" and the two stories of Nerthusian colonization.
"'I've seen races like his - here and there in the Galaxy - living in so close a symbiosis with nature that they never had to develop any mechanical technology. But they weren't the less intelligent for that.'" (p. 27)
But how did they become intelligent? Human beings developed intelligence by acting on their environment with hands and brains, not by interacting with it symbiotically.
Uncle Gunnar has seen races throughout the Galaxy. In "Gypsy," it was stated that at that time spaceships were limited to a speed of a few hundred lights but that, if it could be learned what had flung the Traveler so far off course, then the Galaxy would be theirs. It seems that this discovery has been made between stories.
Joe says that he has not been on Earth or "'...on any of the great worlds of the Galaxy..." (p. 28) but instead has:
"'...worked my way along the odd trade-lanes, seeing obscure and backward planets.'" (pp. 28-29)
This is a vast and old interstellar civilization or network of civilizations. We have to think of "Gypsy" as an interlude of early but slow FTL travel between the STL travel of the period that ends with "Brake" and the Galactic travel of the period that begins with "Star Ship."
No comments:
Post a Comment