Inhabitants of the planet where this story is set have their own bizarre myth to explain why:
"'...men must work...'" (p. 99)
Originally, human beings could command their environment but this made one man so lazy that God withdrew the power. They also refer to a Fall:
"...since the Fall of Man..." (ibid.)
An attempt to explain gravitation:
"'The same pressure, maybe, that hurled mankind down onto the earth, at the time of the Fall From Heaven.'" (p. 102)
"'Scripture tells us man dwelt beyond the stars before the Fall.'" (p. 108)
OK. An extra-solar colony has lost space travel, has retrogressed scientifically and now confuses the Biblical Fall with their ancestors' descent from space onto this planetary surface: "the Fall."
We find the same theology in another sf work. See All That Fall.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The theology you summarized here is reminiscent of Drake/Stirling's THE GENERAL set on the planet Bellevue, more than a thousand years after the fall of an interstellar Terran Federation. Which I heartily recommend despite it being military SF, which some won't like.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
The religion of THE GENERAL series, the Church of the Spirit of Man of the Stars, was meant by Drake/Stirling to remind alert readers of the Byzantine Christianity so unfortunately controlled by the Eastern Empire in our real history. This Church of the Civil Gov't of Holy Federation also featured veneration of technology and at least theoretical openness to innovation.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment