"Hunters..." has had two lengths and three titles:
"A Handful of Stars"
We Claim These Stars
"Hunters of the Sky Cave"
It has grown from a magazine short story to an Ace paperback to an inclusion in a Dominic Flandry collection to an inclusion in a The Technic Civilization Saga volume, its ultimate place in Poul Anderson's works. All that can come after that is, hopefully, further editions of the Saga.
The opening sentences perfectly convey the confidence of Merseia and the decadence of Terra:
"It pleased Ruethen of the Long Hand to give a feast and ball at the Crystal Moon for his enemies. He knew they must come. Pride of race had slipped from Terra, while the need to appear well-bred and sophisticated had waxed correspondingly."
-Poul Anderson, We Claim These Stars (New York, 1959), CHAPTER I, p. 5.
Will our entire species interact with other rational species and, if so, will we be describable in such terms? While the Terran and Merseian space navies fight beyond Antares, Terran aristocrats, including Flandry, accept the hospitality of the Merseian representative in the Solar System. We appreciate this space opera narrative without asking whether it is plausible futurological speculation.
15 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm willing to go where wiser beings might fear to go and say I believe it will be possible for humans and other races to have conflicts and wars. And this bit from Chapter I of A CIRCUS OF HELLS makes me think Anderson would agree: "It wasn't the differences between them [Merseians] and men that caused trouble, Flandry knew. It was the similarities--in planets of origin and thus in planets desired; in the energy of warm-blooded animals, the instincts of ancestors who hunted, the legacies of pride and war--"
If humans and another, non-human race, are both oxygen breathing and biochemically similar in many ways, I can see conflicts arising, due to both species desiring the same types of planets.
Terra might be decadent, but humans were still willing to fight at the Syrax cluster, rather than supinely allow the Merseians to take over those stars unchallenged! As the Empire had also done at Jihannath, about 15 years before.
Ad astra! Sean
Space opera, pretty much by definition, requires "alarums and excursions" to set the stage; otherwise, the conflict is entirely external.
Having said that, as has been said "space is big," and a civilization capable of FTL travel (by whatever means of handwavium) would not, presumably, a) be vulnerable to economic scarcity, and b) be able to, essentially, "create" any number of habitable environments for any scale of population imaginable.
Hard to see how such a reality would lead to the "there must be war" sort of situation.
Sorry; meant to write "the conflict is entirely internal."
Kaor, Dave!
But, given FTL, I can see two such races being "close" enough to each other that conflicts and wars are possible, if they both desired the same types of planets.
For amply good reason we don't see humans/Merseians having problems with hydrogen breathing Ymirites.
Ad astra! Sean
Would not being "close" actually preclude sources of conflict?
There has been discussion of mining the bottom of the ocean and concerns over this harming life on the sea bottom. Suppose there was an intelligent species living in the deep ocean, human deep sea mining could cause them problems & lead to conflict.
Of course this doesn't *have* to lead to some sort of warfare. The deep ocean beings would be better able to do the mining and animals like humans that live in the air would be better able to manufacture many things some of which could be valued by the deep ocean dwellers, so a trading relationship could develop.
See the Arthur C. Clarke story "The Shining Ones" for an encounter between humans & such a species. At the end of the story it could go either way
Kaor, Jim!
Not quite sure I understand your point. Two oxygen breathing species don't to be literally close to each other while still becoming rivals. I think Merseia is about 500 light years from Terra. But the rise of the Empire and then the Roidhunate would bring them both much "closer," near enough to spark rivalry and clashes.
I have read about mining the oceans--but I would prefer mining the asteroids, moons, and other planets of the Solar system. I can't help but think, once mankind gets off this rock, that would be much easier to do than mining the ocean beds. Think of Anderson's collection TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS.
I have a collection of Clarke's short stories somewhere--I'll look for it and see if his "The Shining Ones" is included.
Ad astra! Sean
If any sort of technology that gets "around" relativity and delivers what amounts to FTL is possible (doubtful, but lets go with it), the same technology (basically, enabled by physics well beyond the current definition) means its users should - essentially - be capable of converting any rocky planetary body into a habitable world for as many individuals as desired.
In our solar system, presumably, that would yield Venus as a second Earth, and Mars and Mercury pretty close to said ... along with Luna and a number of the asteroids and (potentially) outer planet natural satellites ... along with as many artificial space colonies, stations, etc. one could ever wash (and, for that matter, any one of a number of otherwise uninhabitable "natural" places on Earth.
Take that same capability to the Alpha Centauri/Proxima system, Tau Ceti, Epsilon Eridani, etc. - basically, any F-G-K star system within cruising "distance" of Earth using the same technology - and the options would be literally astronomical.
Hard to see any reason for conflict in the above state of affairs.
Kaor, Dave!
And I like that speculative possibility, and I hope it becomes practical.
But it still remains my belief that two oxygen breathing races can still have conflicts and rivalries. Until proven otherwise I'm going to assume other species will be as bellicose and quarrelsome as mankind. It's my belief sentient beings don't need rational reasons for conflicts. The ideology of racial supremacism dominating the Roidhunate will cause plenty of conflicts with other species refusing to knuckle under to Merseian domination.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
So, in terms of Christian theology (which I don't accept), you assume that all rational species are Fallen.
Paul.
Sorry I thought "close" was being used in the odd sense of living in very similar environments and so both wanting the territory the other wanted.
My example of deep sea mining was intended to show that species living in quite different environments could still have disputes over resources they both want.
Might Ymirites want minerals more easily obtained from rocky bodies like earth than from the interior of a gas giant? Might they start mining over the objections of species that live there.
In the "Tales of the Flying Mountains" stories humans were scooping useful materials from the atmosphere of Jupiter. If this caused problems for some species like Ymirites, could that result in war?
To take an example just within one species. The plains 'Indians' considered the Black Hills of South Dakota to be very important for their life. When whites found out there was gold there, they wanted the gold but at the time did not want the region for any other reason. This resulted in warfare between the US and the Lakota (called Sioux by some rival tribes)
Don't think so, really - it's akin to imagining conflict between Inuit and Xingu; what is there to fight over? Too far apart to fight, next to no resource conflicts, and plenty of space between the two to "expand into" if that's the drive ...
The typical H. Saps will have more in common with an elm tree than any even remotely likely extra-terrestrial life, and the "Great Human-Tree War" has yet to occur; think we're safe.
Kaor, Paul, Jim, Dave!
Paul: Yes, because I had Fr. Axor's comments in Chapter 1 of THE GAME OF EMPIRE on how all known oxygen breathing species were Fallen.
Interested readers could look up my article "God and Alien in Anderson's Technic Civilization," discussing such issues.
Jim: Yes, I can see it being possible even for biochemically dissimilar species having disputes over resources they both wanted.
But such disputes seem unlikely between humans and Ymirites. Mention was made of the Empire and the Dispersal of Ymir swapping planets to each other they had no use for. E.g, Terra ceded Jupiter to the Dispersal.
At least as of now Jupiter seems unlikely to have intelligent life.
What happened to the Lakota was them having the bad luck to clash with an expanding civilization so powerful that the last nomadic tribes all over the world were being absorbed or destroyed.
Dave: Then we will have to agree to disagree. I am not optimistic about the power of sweet reasonableness.
Ad astra! Sean
Conflict may be about territory, but equally about a number of other things.
Economism is false.
"Great Human-Tree War"
Well humans cut down trees for various reasons, but so far we haven't had a counter-attack by any Ents ;)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling ad Jim!
Mr. Stirling: I agree.
Jim: Ha! Not yet!
Ad astra! Sean
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