Next, we might reread "Territory," which is:
the second of the three van Rijn stories comprising Trader To The Stars;
not included in the Earth Book;
the first of the seven Technic History instalments collected as the Saga, Volume II.
It makes some difference whether a particular story comes at the beginning, in the middle or at the end. "Hiding Place," also not in the Earth Book, is the first of three in Trader To The Stars and the last of eleven in the Saga, Volume I! Thus, the Technic History in its original book publication order had certainly not started at its chronological beginning and there are now two orders in which it can be read.
Each of the three stories in Trader... has an excellent introduction. All three introductions convey the sense of adventure in the early days of the Polesotechnic League.
Le Matelot, really introducing the whole volume, not just the first story, quotes Shelley to proclaim:
An extract from the first van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit," describes the League as:
"...sprawling from Canopus to Polaris..." (p. 54)
The third introduction is simply a verse from Shelley beginning:
"A loftier Argo cleaves the main..." (p. 115)
The first two introductions acknowledge problems as well as adventure:
"...on the darker side, greed, callousness, disregard of the morrow, violence, often outright banditry have returned. Such is the nature of societies possessed of, and by, a frontier." (p. 5)
A pretext or an excuse? We are on a frontier so we can be as greedy, callous and violent as we like?
"The powerful companies joined together to squeeze out competition, jack up prices, and generally make the best of a good thing." (p. 53)
We see the results of this three volumes later.
"...it had its troubles." (p. 54)
"...it..." being the League.
Le Matelot ends by saying that we do not know or care where we are going but:
"...we are on our way." (p. 5)
Later generations cannot afford to be so carefree when they see where they have wound up.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course, the very existence of a frontier will always come with plenty of scope and opportunity for the greedy, callous, and violent to do as they please. It took the rise or expansion of a State exerting its authority over the frontiersmen to get such things under control. Which is exactly what happened as the US expanded westward to the Pacific.
One thing that will be very different in a hoped for FTL setting will be that, for all practical purposes, there will be no end to a frontier. The restless, ambitious, bold and adventurous, both good and bad, can always move ahead of a settled society governed by one or many states.
That's exactly what the human race needs, a frontier, despite the inevitable downsides.
Ad astra! Sean
"State exerting its authority over the frontiersmen to get such things under control."
See the contrast between the US 'wild west' and the Canadian West with the Mounted Police & the Railways preceding large scale settlement.
Kaor, Jim!
I agree there will be exceptions to what I believe is the general rule re "frontiers."
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson was a strong life-long advocate and defender of the desirability and necessity of a real space program, one that truly mankind off Earth and into space, including the colonization of other worlds. A brief but good exposition of his views about this can be found in the "Commentary" he wrote for SPACE FOLK.
At the same time, however, Anderson was not blind to the fact that a space frontier, like all frontiers, is going to come with dangers, costs, setbacks, trade-offs, and downsides. I'll quote two paragraphs from his story "Kyrie," from pages 344-45 of MULTIVERSE (Tor, June 2002) to demonstrate his awareness of that.
[You can hear them [the convent bells] inside at the canonical
hours, and throughout the crypts below where machines toil to
maintain a semblance of terrestrial environment. If you linger a
while you will also hear them calling to requiem mass. For it has
become a tradition that prayers be offered at St. Martha's for
those who have perished in space; and they are more with every
passing year.
This is not the work of the sisters. They minister to the sick, the
needy, the crippled, the insane, all whom space has broken and
cast back. Luna is full of such, exiles because they can no longer
endure Earth's pull or because it is feared they may be incubating
a plague from some unknown planet or because men are so busy
with their frontiers that they have no time to spare for the failures.
The sisters wear space suits as often as habits, are as likely to
hold a medikit as a rosary.]
I've more than once regretted how "Kyrie" could not be included in the Technic series, where it would have made a wonderful addition. I can easily Nicholas van Rijn helping to generously endow this convent of St. Martha of Bethany on the Moon.
Ad astra! Sean
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