Captain Joachim, after some damage to his ship:
"'We can live off preserved stuff if we must, but green vegetables from an E-planet would help morale until we get our own tanks producing again.'" (p. 119)
Every terrestroid planet is going to grow vegetables that can just be collected and eaten? Like a sea-going ship arriving at a new island on Earth? I think that we can predict that the universe is not going to be that hospitable. But we appreciate earlier and later stages of speculative fiction.
Every future history series implies an entire different parallel universe, each with its own norms and expectations. Contrast the Psychotechnic History and the same author's much later Genesis.
I am watching the TV evening news. Are we fit to venture into the universe? Do interstellar distances protect other intelligent species from us?
14 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson believed even terrestroid planets colonized by humans would need some tweaking to be comfortable for them. That is, Terran meat animals and crops would need to be introduced, to compensate for possible dietary deficiencies in local plants and animals. We see that in many of the planets colonized by mankind in the Technic stories.
As for your last paragraph it could just as easily be the case that other intelligent races are no better than us! They might well be as quarrelsome and strife prone as mankind.
Some UFO believers like to dream that the ETs out there are wise, benign, benevolent Elders who will uplift/enlighten us savages! (Snorts) They could just as easily be warlike and belligerent Klingons, Kzin, or Merseians.\
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
As for my last paragraph...
We do not know what other intelligent species, if any, might be like but we do need to focus on our own flaws and failings especially at present.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It's all very well to hope for the best--but it's prudent to be alert for the worst.
The innate causes of our vices and flaws can only be managed, not eliminated.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Prudence, of course.
It can be eliminated.
Paul.
"vegetables that can just be collected and eaten? Like a sea-going ship arriving at a new island on Earth?"
Considering how few crops humans rely on for nutrition and how they got spread over the world to places that didn't have really good crops already, that might be more accurate than you meant. ;)
Post 1500 people often left a few goats or pigs on some isolated island to become a food source for the next time they visited.
When early humans spread over the world they hunted the animals they found and had to be careful about what plants they ate because so many plants make poisons to deter being eaten.
With life from other planets there is the additional issue that life there might use eg: different amino acids in the proteins making them anywhere from less nutritious to lethally poisonous.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: We agree at least on the need to be wary. Eliminated? No, impossible. Our flaws can only be managed.
Jim: Anderson would agree. "The Sharing of Flesh" gives us an esp. clear example of what's likely to happen to humans on planets with little or nothing humans could subsist on.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But nothing in the world is unchangeable. We came into existence from nonexistence. That is the biggest change of all.
Paul.
Paul: some things change, but only very slowly. The genetic nature of a species is one of them, particularly one with long generations.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
If it's going to take millions of years for something, anything, to change--that might as well be effectively "forever."
Ad astra! Sean
Society changes much faster.
Kaor, Paul!
I remain skeptical. All these "changes" are exterior, I don't see those changes innately affecting human beings--who remain as flawed, imperfect, and strife prone as ever.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
This is a false dichotomy between inner and outer. Everything interacts. How can there be an unchanging core in anything or anyone? We know that one person's upbringing and circumstances make him vicious whereas another person's make him the opposite.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except there can be no guarantee, in this life, that the vicious man will always be vicious (he could repent) or that a saint will always be a saint (because he can fall). This is ordinary, standard Catholic teaching.
So, I remain skeptical.
Ad astra! Sean
Skeptical of what? We can improve conditions and thus improve future generations. We know people of whom it is unthinkable that they will "fall."
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