I cannot remember from previous readings whether what follows will happen in this future history series or whether it is only a possible future contemplated by Fenn.
He imagines that:
the Lahui Kuikawa, human beings and intelligent seals, flatten the Martian moon, Deimos, into concentric cylindroids, thus transforming it into a habitat much vaster than the one currently orbiting Luna;
from this base, they send generations of explorers and merchant adventurers out across the Solar System, thus gathering enough wealth first to terraform Mars, then to launch interstellar argosies.
This might be only a possible future within a fictional future. Nevertheless, Fenn draws a valid inference from it. By transforming Deimos and Mars and looking to the stars, the Lahui Kuikawa would transform themselves and therefore would no longer be Lahui Kuikawa. He reflects that the current extra-solar colonists have been transformed from Terrans into children of Earth Mothers. He could have added that, by cooperatively changing their natural environments with their hands and brains, our pre-human ancestors had changed themselves into rational, linguistic organisms and thus into human beings. That reflection takes us out of speculative fiction and back into our shared past.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I cannot agree with what you said about human beings cooperatively changing their environment in the past. First, that was not their intention. Second, "cooperation" was used at least as often to more effectively compete against other humans, in both violent and non-violent ways. With plenty of archeological evidence being found showing how combative humans were and are. I've seen no reason to expect that to be any different in the future.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
People did cooperate to change their environment in the past. Their intention was survival. They made tools, controlled fire, built dwellings, cultivated plants, irrigated fields and domesticated animals. Of course "cooperation" (why the quote marks?) was also used for competition. It was still cooperation. Archeology shows that people were combative in stone age and other primitive conditions. You see no reason to expect them to behave any differently in completely different conditions, including conditions of advanced civilization and technological abundance, in future? Things will certainly be different in future!
Surely we have said all this before?
Paul.
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