This chapter presents some daily life in Pacific Colony and a political conversation.
The Mermaid Tavern is in deep water under the caissons of Pelican Station, beneath storerooms, machine rooms, kitchens etc. Above the ocean surface, the main deck holds animated signs, a park and pedestrians under tiers ascending to an upper deck. This station houses the shops, theatres, restaurants and entertainment of the Colony. The Californian coast is visible. There are bridges and boats between the stations, which include:
a sea ranch cultivating edible seaweed;
mineral-extracting plants;
fishery bases;
experimental stations;
research stations.
The underwater settlement has oil wells, mines and submarines exploring the cold dark deep, comparable to space exploration.
30 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I wonder what processed, edible sea weed might taste like?
Of course exploration of the oceans and exploitation of the resources found there will be worthy objectives. But I don't think Earth's oceans will ever move the hearts and appeal to the imagination of human beings as the desire to know what is OUT there in space, other planets, and the worlds of other stars will do.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am sure it will be possible to synthesize any taste.
Paul.
Most sushi comes wrapped in seaweed. I've eaten dried seaweed, and I find it sort of mildly salty, rather like a cracker. Some varieties are very rich in vitamin C -- I used that in "Island in the Sea of Time".
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Probably. Altho I have my doubts synthesized meat will satisfy many people.
Mr. Stirling: I can see some people snacking on dried sea weed, as I do on Ritz crackers.
Ad astra! Sean
"Altho I have my doubts synthesized meat will satisfy many people."
Given that people eat sausage & 'chicken nuggets' with apparent satisfaction, I think you are wrong, though a proper steak or pork chop will command a higher price per kilogram.
Kaor, Jim!
The sausages and hot dogs (I favor Hebrew National) I eat are made with real meat. And I thought McDonald's chicken McNuggets are made with real chicken.
Ad astra! Sean
I get my chicken nuggets from Whole Foods (aka "whole paycheck") and they are most definitely real chicken (or real small theropod dinosaur).
This has to be the most wide-ranging combox on the Internet.
One thing history (including family history) has taught me is how weird modern food habits and concepts are.
Throughout most of human history, the main preoccupation most people have had about food is getting enough of it.
Concern with quality and so forth was very much a -very- upper-class preoccupation; ordinary people got to do that only on specific occasions -- festivals, during unusually good times, etc.
A fictional character obsessed with food is Inspector Montalbano.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I've been to the local WHOLE FOODS a few times and it's rightly called "Whole PAYCHECK"! Not bad but I see no need to go there very often when I think MARKET BASKET (a regional grocery chain) is just as good and a LOT cheaper.
Yes, for most of human history, simply getting enough to eat was what preoccupied most people. And to heck with quality. That only started changing in the later 19th century when greater prosperity in the most advanced countries enabled people to pay more attention to quality.
Henry IV of France reportedly said that what he desired for his people was for them to be able to have a chicken in their dinner pots every Sunday. He thought that a sign of real prosperity!
Paul: And that free ranging quality of your blog is a good thing!
Nicholas van Rijn was also very fond of his food!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: depended on the time and place.
Americans in the 18th century averaged 5 inches taller than Englishmen -- because they ate better, including lots of meat.
An Irish laborer employed on the Erie Canal project in the 1820's had a clerk write a letter home for him, and told him to write that he ate meat three times a week.
The clerk said "Pat, you eat meat three times a -day-."
Pat replied: "Sure, and if I said that, they'd think I was lying."
Even American -slaves- were several inches taller than the European average in the 19th century, btw.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, it does depend on times and places how well we eat. I can see colonial Americans and 19th century slaves eating better than many Englishmen and Europeans of those times.
Amusing, that bit about the Irishman and his letter. But, he might abstain from meat on fast days!
Ad astra! Sean
I just think it will be much easier to synthesize the taste & texture of sausage meat etc. from eg: microbial protein, than the taste & texture of a proper steak.
So that is why my comment mentioned sausages & chicken nuggets.
Kaor, Jim!
I don't think we are going to see convincingly tasty ersatz meat made from tofu or microbial protein any time soon.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the Catholic Irish became much more "Catholic" (and ultramontane) in detail after the Famine, including things like fast days.
Prior to that they'd been loyal to the Catholic Church, but more in the abstract than in detail, and Catholic clergy were sparse on the ground for a long time, as was formal religious instruction.
One of the themes of Irish church history in the 19th century is the increasing density of clergy and the sustained efforts to stamp out folk-religion, including folk-concepts of what constituted Catholicism.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! IIRC, when St. Oliver Plunkett became Archbishop of Armagh around 1670, there were only two Catholic bishops (one of them elderly and bedridden) still in Ireland. Anglican persecution had completely disrupted the usual diocesan, parochial, and educational organization of the Church. St. Oliver had to focus on the minimum needed for survival.
One of the consequences of this disruption would be naive folk ideas and beliefs, including superstitions, spreading among Irish Catholics.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: spreading further. There had been plenty of disorder in Ireland for a long long time, well before the English (or even the Anglo-Normans) arrived; traditions of clannishness and feuds, with feudalism tacked on.
Hence for a long time, religious organization in Ireland focused on monasticism. Irish monasteries often had very high standards of scholarship and theological study; out in the boonies, much less so.
Superstition and folk-beliefs were widespread throughout Europe, in fact.
Theological orthodoxy didn't start until you went well up the social scale. Most people were illiterate and deeply ignorant, and got their notions of the bible stories from illustrations and carvings and occasional sermons.
While Thomas Aquinas was writing, people in peasant villages not ten miles away were still making sacrifices to the elves and casting spells to make their romantic rivals' toenails split.
That went on for a long time in more remote regions. People were killing each other over accusations of witchcraft fifty miles from Moscow in the 1920's.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Your first paragraph: actually, I agree. I was focusing on the situation of the Church in Penal Law and early post Penal Law times in Ireland. Yes, the political anarchy and disunity of Ireland before and after the Anglo/Norman invasion was one factor encouraging the Church to focus its activities around the monasteries. But, my impression has been, because of Papal insistence, the Church in Ireland did increasingly adopt the more usual diocesan/parochial system seen elsewhere after about 1100.
I agree, Irish monasteries were, for a long time, had high standards of scholarship and study, including, I'm sure the works of St. Thomas Aquinas.
I agree, superstition and naive folk beliefs, despite the best efforts of the Church, were common thru out Ireland and Europe among ordinary people. I recall Anderson discussing that in the preface or afterword he wrote for THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN. Eamon Duffy, in his book THE STRIPPING OF THE ALTARS (a study of the Church in England a century before the catastrophe of the "Reformation" and then discussing the devastation wreaked by Henry VIII and Edward VI), discussed how most parish priests focused on teaching their congregations such basics as the Pater Noster and the Creed, plus regular attendance at Mass. I think that was also the case in Ireland.
One superstition I heard of was of how some people believed that if you wanted to quickly and profitably sell a piece of property, you should bury an icon of St. Joseph upside down. I protested against that not only as rank superstition, but also of how it showed disrespect to the Spouse of the BVM!
Even allowing for the different problems and situations faced by the Russian Orthodox Church, including the persecution unleashed by Lenin, I'm amazed some Russians were still killing each other for being "witches" only fifty miles from Moscow in the 1920's!
Ad astra! Sean
As I was taught it at school (in Ireland), bishops are based in cities. Ireland, entirely agricultural and rural, lacked towns and cities so the church became centred on abbots in monasteries. When the Norsemen, instead of periodically raiding, settled down, they founded Dublin and other cities.
Kaor, Paul!
That is true, and I think many of the abbots of the most prominent monasteries were also bishops.
Ad astra! Sean
Or sometimes there was a bishop subordinate to the abbot.
Note that entirely rural doesn't necessarily mean entirely agricultural.
Eg., I read a study recently that did an occupational breakdown of the Tidewater region in Virginia in the 18th century.
This area was conspicuous for its lack of any substantial towns; for a long time historians assumed that mean everyone was a farmer.
A more detailed investigation revealed that the percentage of craftsfolk and merchants wasn't much different from points further north. There were everything up to and including ironworks and shipyards; they just weren't concentrated in towns and cities.
The merchants and artisans weren't 'farmers', except in the sense that most of them also owned land.
Likewise, in pre-Norse Ireland, people made things -- in fact, Irish craftwork was of quite a high standard.
They just didn't do it in towns.
A lot of monasteries also had urban 'functions', especially what you might call 'head technologies' like education and adjudicating disputes.
Helped by the taboo on attacking monasteries; Irish warfare was violent enough, but also highly regulated by custom.
(That was one reason they found the Vikings so shocking; by Irish standards, they fought in a completely unscrupulous and pragmatic fashion, strictly to win by any means.)
Rural but not necessarily agricultural. Got it.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Yes, some bishops being subordinate to abbots was seen in pre-Anglo/Norman Ireland. But that came more and more to be regarded with disapproval.
Mr. Stirling: I assume those VA Tidewater ironworks and shipyards also had residences for workers and craftsmen. So, they were at least hamlets and villages.
And we see some of that Viking pragmatic ruthlessness in war in Anderson/Broxon's THE DEMON OF SCATTERY.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: hamlets, yes.
Most of them didn't need very large labor-forces. Few pre-industrial processes needed large concentrated numbers working in close coordination.
The reason for cities was usually the division of labor -- myriads of small independent enterprises, dividing the production process between them to minimize management costs. Having them close together could help with that division of labor.
The biggest in the Tidewater would have been the ironworks (Virginia and Maryland were major producers), but their labor forces tended to be rather scattered, since the largest element were the charcoal-burners. The actual smelters and furnaces rarely needed more than 20-50 workers, even the biggest ones.
The closest thing to towns in most of the area were the "home plantations" of big landowners, who usually concentrated things like smiths and barrelmakers and so forth at one of their properties, with the more purely rural ones grouped around it at some distance.
Smaller planters and farmers often marketed their crops through the planters, and also relied on them for specialist craft work.
Towns (like Richmond, Yorktown and Alexandria, and especially Baltimore) started growing there later in the 18th century, because the Piedmont settlements didn't have immediate access to water transport the way the tidewater did, where everything could be reached by boat. As settlement pushed inland, trading ports were more and more necessary.
The process was helped along by the swift rise of export trades in things like wheat, flour, timber products, bar iron and barreled salt meat, which increasingly rivaled the value of tobacco. Those required more aggregated merchant dealers, and more processing.
The early colonial tobacco plantations in the tidewater could be serviced directly by ships, often from England, because they were all on water that was navigable for the rather small ocean-going vessels of the time.
Sean: yup. OTOH, the very fissiparous nature of ancient Irish society made it hard for outsiders to actually take over, as opposed to raiding. Note that unlike England, there wasn't as much -rural- Viking settlement in Ireland -- they had walled trading cities like Dublin, but they couldn't make the countryside safe enough to live there extensively.
The Vikings could beat the Irish, but they had trouble making them -stay- down.
Still, they had a fairly heavy impact. The aDNA studies indicate the modern Irish have something like 12% of their genes from early-medieval Scandinavian sources, IIRC.
NB: that percentage is about the same as in coastal Normandy.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Thanks for these very interesting comments, which I read more than once.
Another reason for cities, besides the economic, was defense in times of war. If they had walls, of course. But walled fortress cities was not the norm in colonial America. Probably because the Indians never had the numbers, organization, technology, etc., to be the threat to the English colonists the Irish were to the Norse and Danes who founded those Scandinavian cities.
Ad astra! Sean
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