In Poul Anderson's "The Night Face," the Gwydiona look forward to Bale Time when they think that they become God although they acknowledge that God has "Night Faces." One Gwydiona reluctantly admits that something bad happens at Bale Time and mentions:
"'...a theory that the mountain ape is driven mad by the presence of God and comes down into the lowlands, killing and destroying.'"
-"The Night Face," VII, p. 607.
The mountain apes are omnivorous hunters that travel in flocks. See Two Fight Scenes.
The Morlocks climb up from below ground whereas the Gwydiona apes descend from the mountains. Apart from this topological difference, the two situations seem very similar - but are not.
In 802,701 A.D., mankind has divided into Morlocks and Eloi. On Gwydion, mankind has divided himself.
10 comments:
Anderson is a little vague (as is appropriate, given the "up-from-collapse" setting) on the "history" of the Gwydiona but given the general level of health care in his universe before the fall, one wonders if the environmental issues that led to the Gwydionans' "accommodations" had been known and dealt with before the collapse?
Anderson frequently used equivalents/analogues to social and physical scientists as his protagonists, including a few xenologists/xenobiologists; did he ever use a physician equivalent in the role?
James White wrote more than a dozen "Sector General" stories, and other writers as distant as Leinster and Hubbard took a run at series centered around such protagonists; don't recall Anderson doing so, however.
Kaor, Dave!
No, my recollection is that Gwydion was, except for one caveat, an unusually terrestroid planet. Somehow, tho, something soon went wrong and a mutation occurred among the colonists which caused them to become addicted to the baleflower and its literally baleful consequences.
Agree, I don't recall any of Anderson's stories primarily featuring physicians or "meditechs."
I've heard of James White and read one or two of Sector Generals. I'm also familiar with the Baptist James White, who wrote books like THE KING JAMES ONLY CONTROVERSY.
Ad astra! Sean
The Gwydiona were also said to be derived from a very small original group, weren't they? Or was that in A SHARING OF FLESH?
The Gwydiona are certainly descended from a small group and even have a myth that they are descended from one man and two women.
Kaor, to Both!
If so, such a tiny gene pool would allow a bad mutation to survive and spread to all future generations of Gwydiona.
Ad astra! Sean
Raven thinks that the myth might even be true.
Kaor, Paul!
Some legends and myths may have a kernel of factual truth.
Ad astra! Sean
If I recall correctly, three of Anderson's four (or more, if one includes "The Longest Voyage")"post-Collapse" stories all involve human-settled worlds that have suffered heavily because of the conflict inherent in the collapse era. Nike, Gwydion, and Lokon had all been (essentially) nuked by raiders of one stripe or another, hadn't they?
Yes.
Kaor, Dave!
Gwydion was a complicated case. That colony was isolated from the rest of mankind as the League and Commonwealth was disintegrating. Something seems to have happened to cause the colony to have only a tiny population at that time. Still, Gwydion's tragedy might have been averted or corrected if it had soon been rediscovered by the Empire.
Ad astra! Sean
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