A Dyson sphere with a humanly breathable atmosphere, especially one that has been at least partly colonized from Earth, is a perfect setting for discovering new civilizations by airship instead of by spaceship. Kind of a Trek without the Stars. Given historically recent transplantations of people from Earth, the language barrier can plausibly be as big or as little as the author decides. This particular sphere is in 1 AU orbital distance not from a star but from some kind of light- and heat-emitting artifact.
A series with such a setting could be extended indefinitely perhaps with the newly discovered civilizations becoming progressively more alien and incomprehensible. However, as it stands, this novel completes a trilogy with the previous volumes set on Venus and Mars, respectively.
Bob Shaw's Orbitsville, an earlier fictional Dyson sphere, was created by transforming stellar energy at 1 AU distance from the primary into matter. How did the Lords of Creation do it? The only rule here is: expect the unexpected.
The Fransay and Britannians are in conflict although they cannot know anything of resentments arising from World War II back on the Round World!
The ending will be unexpected but will then seem to have been inevitable.
The sphere is an obvious setting for an anthology of original stories and Poul Anderson would have been able to create a story fitting perfectly into the Lords Of Creation background.
26 comments:
Britain and France were at war for most of the period after about the 1340's...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Even after Waterloo old grudges lingered on between the French and British. IIRC, there was a real chance of war between France and the UK as late as about 1890, over rival claims in Africa. And I recall Churchill commenting, circa 1940, about a French minister of the Marine (Navy) still resenting how one of his ancestors had been killed at Trafalgar.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, I know the animosities were longer standing. You guys fill in the details.
Kaor, Paul!
Just being nerdy and geeky! (Laughs)
Ad astra! Sean
However, Britain fought France for so long because France aspired to dominate Europe and Britain's fixed policy was to prevent any single power from doing so.
Hence Britain's move to ally with France (and Russia) in the early 20th century -- and Britain and Russia had been imperial rivals for a long time.
That was because Germany tried to challenge Britain's naval supremacy, which was a direct threat.
The Germans complained about "encirclement", and it was all their own fault. Granted, after two attempts to dominate Europe they gave up.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, since the reign of Francis I of France (r. 1515-1547) it was the fixed policy of England to oppose and undermine the ambitions of France as best it could. Reading about the complexities and intricacies of the poker game played by Henry VIII, Francis I, and Emperor Charles V during those decades makes for fascinating reading. To say nothing of the extra complications and contortions caused by the Protestant "Reformation."
I think, however, it needed the expansionist wars of Louis XIV of France before Great Britain more consistently followed a policy of opposing whoever aspired to dominate Europe. There were long periods before then when England/Great Britain were militarily ineffective.
Yes, it was folly of the first order for a newly unified Germany to challenge the UK's naval supremacy--which provoked it to allying with France and Tsarist Russia. It would have been far wiser for Germany to do everything possible to stay on good terms with the UK.
Britain and Russia were once imperial rivals? I'm reminded of the Great Game they played over the moribund Ottoman Empire, central Asia, and India. Shades of Kipling's KIM comes to mind!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaiser Wilhelm had a serious case of "nautical envy" about the British fleet and Empire. 'twas of a piece with his general influence -- erratic and wayward. He wasn't stupid but he didn't have much emotional control.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
It wasn't all Kaiser Wilhelm's fault! There were plenty of Germans who thought the same way, such as Admiral von Tirpitz. But I agree, Wilhelm II was too often erratic, driven by his emotions.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: and the Kaiser was effectively in charge of foreign and military policy, provided he could get financing from the assembly.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
What makes that erratic zig-zazzing of Kaiser Wilhelm all the more regrettable was that when he thought calmly and objectively, he was often right.
The problem with concentrating power in one man, whatever his title might be, is that it asks too much of that man. Not all such rulers, by far, will be as able and conscientious as Marcus Aurelius in your Antonine books. A political system where the Emperor, President, or King is checked, balanced, restrained, assisted, etc., by other institutions or a PM works best for mankind. If the right laws, traditions, customs, institutions, etc., exist.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: you're right about that. You can get a flamboyantly brilliant sole ruler... but the opposite is rather more common!
If Germany hadn't engaged in a naval race with Britain, Britain might well not have intervened in WW1 -- a good many Liberals (the dominant party in 1914) were pacifists. The naval race had brought a good deal of lasting hostility towards Germany, and then the invasion of neutral Belgium pushed the Liberals into the war.
The irony was that Germany abandoned any attempt to outbuild Britain's navy in 1912-13. They couldn't do that and build up their army at the same time, since Germany was handicapped by a primitive taxation system.
So the entire thing was a waste of money and a diplomatic blunder of the most deplorable kind.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! The limited State, in no matter what form, is the best we can realistically and prudently hope for. NTTB is vastly preferable to impossible fantasies of a perfect, ideal "democracy." I've long thought the political set up we see on Dennitza in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS to reflect what Anderson thought would be realistically best for human beings.
Too often, instead of rulers like Marcus Aurelius we have gotten dunderheads like Commodus or the kind of monster Nero became in his later years.
A WW I in a timeline where Germany eschewed a naval race with Great Britain and stood on the defensive along the borders of France and Belgium would have been very different! Esp. if France had been the Power which invaded Belgium attempting to get at Germany. I simply don't think France could successfully invade Germany by herself from French territory--esp. if Britain refused to declare war on Germany.
What actually happened was an extremely deplorable blunder by Germany!
Ad astra! Sean
We can vastly improve democracy.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't believe you. The fact of mankind being a Fallen, flawed, imperfect, corruptible race so prone to folly, strife, and violence make dreams of a perfect, ideal democracy totally unbelievable.
I don't believe people who think as you do even understand democracy. It's merely one of the means for managing ambitious men's cravings for power, office, status, to become top dogs. It's the system where would be top dogs agree those who get the largest count of noses gets to hold power and offices. Because it's better than just shooting your way to power.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course we believe differently!
Mankind being Fallen (with a capital "F" etc) is an article of faith, not a fact. We need to be clear about that distinction.
I don't believe people who think as you do even understand democracy. It is collective self-rule. It is not merely one way to manage ambitious men's cravings for power, office, status, to become top dogs. I have replied on each of those loaded terms several times and won't do that in detail again.
Discussing and deciding is not counting noses. Power is ability to coerce and we need not produce means of coercion. Ambitious men will not want to hold office when all office holders are elected and accountable and no longer earn higher salaries or control any means of coercion like bodies of armed men.
We can govern ourselves and stop producing guns so that no one can shoot his way to power. Phrases like "shooting your way to power" just assume the absence of social changes that are both possible and necessary.
We have said all this before. Sometimes when people repeat arguments, they are simply trying to reassure themselves.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The fact that mankind is everything I have said about us is an easily demonstrated and empirical fact. All any of us has to do is study history, read the news, look around us (and within ourselves) to see how true that is. Both an empirical fact and a matter of divine revelation.
Wrong, democracy is not collective self-rule, whatever that is. It's a system for the non-violent gaining of power and office by politicians persuading people to vote for them.
Wrong again, as Stirling said: "violence is always the ultimately decisive means of political action." Because there are going to be times when only force, or the threat of it, will make obstinate minorities agree to decisions they don't like.
Nor do I believe one bit that political tinkering about recall elections or salaries for politicians will change matters. In the US the horrible Democrats used to yelp and howl about recall elections--but they were the ones who fought recalls most fiercely.
We need bodies of armed men, like police, for maintaining internal order against those who are violent and have no wish to be peaceful. And armies for defense against external enemies.
The possibility of ambitious men shooting their way to power if old methods of gaining/transferring power break down will always exist. Because IWHBD.
I think you are trying to convince yourself that human beings will somehow change and become what you want them to be. I prefer hard realism.
Ad astra! Sean
Wrong.
We have risen, not Fallen. This is a realistic assessment based on hard evidence, not preference.
I have spelled out how we can and do change material and social conditions, not just expressed a hope that this will happen, but why do we keep saying this? Do you think that one more time will bring agreement?
Kaor, Paul!
No, all this talk about "changes in conditions" somehow changing human beings is totally unconvincing. I have never seen any proof, any evidence for what you hope. Only dreams, speculations, wishful thinking.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I really do not understand what is happening here. When I wrote above, "We can vastly improve democracy," I meant that merely as a reminder of a disagreement that we have had, that remains in the background and that is recalled every time that you again refer to "impossible fantasies" etc. I certainly did not intend us to repeat the whole argument word for word yet again as if it had never been said before. Can we please stop doing this now? (And not resume it again.)
Unconvincing? I have said more than once that I am no longer trying to convince you, if I ever was. I have shown proof and evidence that the world has been transformed, that a biped species has changed itself into rational animals who have changed their environment again and again and are now on the verge (if we don't destroy our environment and ourselves) of qualitatively transforming it much further.
You have said "dreams, speculations, wishful thinking" before and I have replied to this before. I have also asked what is the point of saying it again and again.
I will do my best not to kick this argument off again. The next time I see a reference to "impossible fantasies," I will not respond to that but you must remember my continued disagreement.
Paul.
Yes, the Germans could have hammered the Russians into surrender in about 2 years.
There were two reasons why they didn't: one was the overwhelming obsession with the offensive in pre-1914 military thought, and the other was their fear of being caught in the "Napoleonic" trap in invading Russia.
The offensive obsession was actually a response to the increased power of the defensive -- all European militaries feared a long war of attrition, and so thought "willpower" and "morale" could overcome material factors. They were wrong -- albeit largely because they underestimated their opponents.
And the Germans' fear of Napoleonic defeat in Russia overestimated the late Czarist hold on the Russian people. They'd have been better off if they concentrated on the Russo-Japanese war, which ended in internal revolution in Russia.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul. Impasse and deadlock.
Mr. Stirling: Maybe, maybe not, re Russia being defeated by the Central Allies within two years in an alternate WW I. I think that might have been possible if Germany had not been bogged down in a deadlocked Western-front against the UK/France.
Both sides got that long war of attrition that everybody dreaded. And, everybody, even Russia, proved tougher about standing the strains and stresses than expected.
Being defeated by Japan could have been a blessing for Russia! That happily abortive 1905 Revolution led to the October Manifesto, the Constitution of 1906, and the reforms of Peter Stolypin, all of which was transforming Russia for the better by 1914. You yourself said, given a few more years of peace Germany would have given all hope of defeating Russia.
Another reason for cursing the Sarajevo assassination!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We need to reflect on the nature of blog comments. Recently, I referred to two Communist characters in novels by Poul Anderson, my only point being to commend Anderson's writing abilities. Your response was your by now familiar denunciation of "all Marxist regimes"! (I have responded to this more than once before but will not do so again.) Imagine if instead I had mentioned the entrepreneur, van Rijn, and someone else had responded to that by denouncing, and not for the first time, all capitalist regimes! Would we call that fanaticism?
Paul.
Post a Comment