Pioneers

Vault Of The Ages, Chapter 15.

"Truly, thought Carl, his was a friendless gang and every man's hand was against it. Briefly, he wondered if the great pioneers who had built the lost civilization had been as lonely in their day." (p. 149)

Carl has a simplistic and ahistorical view of ancient times:

first, human beings lived for however many generations without any civilization;

then a single generation of pioneers built a technological civilization;

then that civilization destroyed itself in the Doom;

finally, human beings have again lived without any civilization for five hundred years until Carl's time.

He has no idea of the millennia of civilizations that had preceded the one that destroyed itself but then how could he? Rebuilding civilization will involve regaining that knowledge.

I will be away from this computer for most of tomorrow.