The Cosmos And The Future

I am trying to refocus on Nicholas van Rijn but that has taken us through the League, Empire and Commonalty periods of the Technic History to Mars in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History to an interstellar crossing in an obscure, magazine publication only, work by James Blish. But sf is all one. It is about our relationships not only to each other and to our Terrestrial environment but also to our total cosmic environment as revealed by science. The laws of physics apply "...on Earth as in the heavens."

In a sense, we cannot go into space because going into space will change us so much that we will no longer be who we were before we went. In most sf, we continue to act in the same kinds of ways because we have not changed enough yet but give us more time. Daven Laure says that the people of the Commonalty do not get into wars and, indeed, if they have no reason to wage wars, then they will not, any more than most of us attack our neighbours here and now.

We need to imagine different futures because we will live into them.