Historical continuities persist until the end:
the Rustumite Constitutional Convention is attended by Daniel Coffin's now grizzled son, Charlie, who had been adopted by the de Smets in "A Fair Exchange," and also by Coffin's granddaughter's husband's mother;
the Convention is addressed by Morris O'Malley, grandson of that Jack O'Malley who had salvaged equipment from the lowlands with Coffin in "My Own, My Native Land."
The Rustumites apply the term, "proletariat," to an undesirable, unemployable, dangerous social mass that must be prevented from coming into existence (!) whereas some of us on Earth apply that term to all those who work for a wage or salary, an economic class that has become the global majority in less than two hundred years.
The Convention had convened to devise a form of planetary government but we are told only the outcome of the impromptu debate about the approaching space fleet. Rustumite history will continue with:
a research program to find a biochemical or other treatment to enable all human beings to live in the denser atmosphere of the Rustumite lowlands;
the arrival, several decades hence, of the second fleet of immigrants from Earth.
For Poul Anderson's readers, the history of this timeline does continue but on another planet.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
"Proletariat" can rightly be understood as having many bad meanings.
True, we only see the beginnings of that Rustumite Constitutional Convention. As more and more people became able to live in the lowlands, wealth and power would inevitably more and more be concentrated there. We don't know exactly what political arrangements were made.
It's possible the solution to the problem of how to enable humans who could not breath the lowlands atmosphere would be something analogous to what we see in THE GAME OF EMPIRE. Targovi, a Starkadian Tigery of Imhotep, came of a species whose native atmosphere resembles that of the Rustumite lowlands. Apparently, meditechnicians of the Empire devised "oxygills," devices which Tigeries could wear to breath Terran type atmospheres after a surgical procedure. These devices could be removed when Tigeries returned to the lowlands of Imhotep, so they could breath there.
Altho not mentioned I am assuming such devices, in reverse, were possible for humans as well. There would naturally be times when humans whose business took them to the Imhotepan lowlands for more than a few hours would prefer to use "reverse oxygills." More convenient and comfortable than a helmet and air pump.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"Proletariat" can rightly be understood as meaning, in the present global economy, the majority of the human race. It was a minority in 1848.
Paul.
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