Peregrine Joachim Henry tells the Nomad Captains' Council:
"'I even talked my way into the Cordy office on Nerthus, and got a look at their Galactic Survey records." (p. 11)
The Nomads were founded in "Gypsy."
Nerthus was introduced in two stages in "The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb."
The Coordination Service office on Nerthus had to deal with a Galactic Survey man in Virgin Planet.
Coordinator Trevelyan Micah, having already appeared in the chronologically earlier "The Pirate," will shortly join the Nomad ship, the Peregrine, when it stops at Nerthus.
Thus, these six instalments form a closely integrated future history series. They are not the whole of this second part of the Psychotechnic History but they are most of it.
15 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Just mentioning VIRGIN PLANET made me smile, one of the best and most satisfactory of the Psychotechnic stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Didn't the 'sisters' throw dice to decide who got the hero?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That's exactly what the Whitley clone sisters did, whoever won two out of three throws of the dice got Bertie! (Laughs)
Ad astra! Sean
Yeah. Though I think Poul got sexual orientation among women wrong. With men, it's usually either-or, but for women it's on a spectrum. The mechanisms are quite different -- men and women are more alike than different, but the differences cluster around sex.
Eg., in women's' prisons the percentage who engage in same-sex behavior is nearly 100%, versus about half in mens' prisons.
So it would probably be about 100% on an all-female planet too.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I was just glad the lesbianism seen in VIRGIN PLANET wasn't crudely and crassly shoved into readers faces. Still, I can agree it would have been more realistic if Anderson had made that lesbianism a bit more prominent.
All that said, I believe it was also realistic of Anderson to show women who were plainly not satisfied with lesbianism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: oh, true enough. Though they'd have to get -used- to the idea of being attracted to men.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, and we do see that in VIRGIN PLANET, as Barbara and Valeria Whitley find themselves more and more attracted to Bertie, to their confusion. Because, at first, they did not understand why they were attracted to the "Monster." Nicely done by Anderson!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, there's an instinctual element.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That was dang well fortunate for the human race.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, men and women aren't really very sexualy compatible.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Men and women better have some sexual compatibility for each other--else the human race will die out!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: note that the world's total fertility rate is now at or below replacement, and even in Africa there has been an ongoing collapse in fertility over the past few generations. Eg., Kenya had a TFR of 8 when I lived there in the 1960's -- about the biological maximum, allowing for natural infertility in many cases. But it's now at 3.0, and dropping by 2% a year.
One of the major reasons is that marriage is no longer effectively compulsory.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I am not happy about that population decline, which is reaching worrisome levels.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, yeah, but that illustrates the "blindness" of evolution.
We have an instinct to have sex, not an instinct to reproduce -- but for most of human existence, an instinct to have sex -was- an instinct to reproduce.
And we have an instinct to bond with young children if we're around them on a routine basis.
Together, those two drives ensured reproduction. They don't anymore.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that's going to be catastrophic if persisted in. However, and fortunately, it's been noted that convinced religious believers tend to be more willing to have children. Meaning, for example, the Maoists in China should be glad Chinese Christians are willing to have children, and stop persecuting them. I recalled how you explained China faces a grotesque demographic crash.
Ad astra! Sean
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