A humanly colonized terrestroid extra-solar planet is going to have some environmental differences from Earth:
yellow phosphorescent fungi high on forest trees, bright enough to see by at night;
unfamiliar plant scents and animal sounds.
But at the same time the colonists will have reproduced some aspects of life on Earth:
through the forest, a broad road;
approaching along that road, a large truck whose driver stops to give a lift to Flandry and Kit.
This scene could be happening here and now.
By invading and occupying the planet, the Ardazirho reproduce some of the conditions of Europe during World War II - but the invaders are non-humanoid enough to be nicknamed "wolves" and are aided not by trained dogs but by packs of batsnakes.
14 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I missed or forgot some of these details in my previous readings of HUNTERS, such as that yellow phosphorescent fungi. I do remember how Terrestrial cattle could not be introduced there--hence no dairy foods or ice cream!
Ad astra! Sean
Though by that time I would expect trucks to be automatic. I don't think Poul completely thought through the implications of the computer technology he described.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
A good point, altho I can imagine times when it might be thought safer to have live drivers transporting some cargoes thru rough country.
Ad astra! Sean
For that matter, if you've got cheap energy and antigravity, which they do, why have roads and trucks at all?
H. Beam Piper's 'home timeline' in the Paratime stories, and the 'Space Viking' future, both have antigravity -- so they have isolated centers of habitation, supplied by -flying- vehicles.
If you read the novella closely, Vixen is not an especially wealthy or populous world, and about half the planet is uninhabitable much of the time; Anderson does not really explain the technology issues beyond that, but seems a reasonable inference the "local" economy is limited, technically and economically, to what is useful and affordable.
Not without parallels in history, of course, because of geography or economic issues; not many freeways - or subways - in Venice, or the Falkland Islands. ;)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Good points, but Dave also made good points re Vixen being not particularly wealthy or populous.
Ad astra! Sean
Vixen isn't a big metro planet, but it's also not technologically backward -- it wouldn't be habitable if it was. In the Technic universe, antigravity is not "rocket science", nor are fusion plants and really high-density energy storage -- all are commonplace.
It's established that energy is very, very cheap on any but backward planets in the Technic universe, and that it can be easily stored at very high density -- superbatteries, essentially. Likewise, antigravity is ubiquitous.
Roads, on the other hand, require construction and maintenance, and road travel is much slower.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I was trying to think of a way to "save appearances" in Anderson's depiction of Vixen. But I have to agree, Vixen was a little too implausibly primitive.
Oh well, I still like HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE!
Ad astra! Sean
In a discussion about "Day of Their Return", the economics of water transport on the Flone river was questioned.
I suggested that if hovering by antigravity took significant power (though less than a helicopter) bulk goods transport might still be cheaper by water than by antigravity craft. It would take raising the power needs of hovering by antigravity higher to make road transport still economic. Rail transport would be somewhere in-between.
Fusion, be definition, requires certain things on the periodic table; it's entirely plausible that on a world with limited fissionables and not much of an economy beyond local needs, it could very well make more economic sense to refine liquid fuels from petroleum, hydrogen, or methane than mine uranium, create plutonium, or what have you.
In Anderson's telling, Vixen is colonized fairly "early" in the human expansion, and although habitable, is hardly prime real estate by the time of the novel.
In many senses, it's the equivalent of Newfoundland, or Nevis; desirable enough for European settlement/colonization in the 1500s or 1600s, but essentially a place to leave or pass by in later centuries.
Kaor, to Both!
So, all this makes me think even an interstellar civilization with FTL, some colonies on more marginal worlds could technologically lag behind other planets. That would "save the appearances" for Vixen in HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE.
Ad astra! Sean
DS: fusion requires hydrogen, or isotopes thereof.
It doesn't require uranium or plutonium.
The heavy metals might be scarce on a habitable planet; but hydrogen (and its isotopes) are exceedingly unlikely to be unavailable, because hydrogen is the main component of -water-, among other things.
And you don't even need -much- hydrogen. It's a very energetic reaction.
And Technic civ. has energy storage dense enough that Flandry can repeatedly use a personal antigravity belt, flitting around.
The Vixenites -arrived- with that tech.
And they haven't relapsed into primitivism or fallen out of contact with Technic civilization in general. So presumably they would have access to it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Then the only thing I can think of would be to wish Anderson had thought of having Vixen settled by Old Order Amish. If Vixen had been colonized by Amish who wanted to eschew modern technology, that's one way of having a planet not as advanced as most human colonized planets in the Empire.
And the idea of Flandry trying to interact/socialize with a young Amish woman coming from so different a background as his would be piquant!
Ad astra! Sean
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