"'Our subtronics are out, you know. We can't send information back...'" (p. 395)
In Poul Anderson's Technic History, instantaneous communication in interstellar space is not by "subtronics" but by modulation of hyperdrive pulses. Furthermore, this means of communication works only over a distance of about a light-year and the Ganymede is by now much further away from civilization than that. This is evidence that the story is a fiction within a fiction written in a period when hyper-drive modulation, although pioneered by David Falkayn, has not yet come into regular use. Instead, this story is set in an imaginary future when "subtronics," with a vastly greater range, has been invented.
"The Star Plunderer," is not only set earlier but also written either as a memoir or as a historical fiction purporting to be a memoir. This makes it harder to explain the transonic communicator which is mentioned just once and which could easily have been edited out of the text for the collected edition. Instead, we are left with a textual conundrum and can try to invent some imaginative rationalization for it.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And that bit about "subtronics," along with other issues, explains why "Sargasso" fits awkwardly into the Technic series. So, as we agreed, thinking of the story as a fiction within the fiction is the simplest way of handling the difficulty.
Ad astra! Sean
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