The Psychotechnic History II

See The Psychotechnic History.

In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, clones (not yet called that) are grown exogenetically, not in a host mother.

On reflection, this History should definitely be collected in two omnibus volumes:

Vol I, THE SOLAR UNION - the entire contents of The Psychotechnic League and Cold Victory plus The Snows Of Ganymede;

Vol II, THE STELLAR UNION - the entire contents of Starship plus "The Acolytes," "The Green Thumb," the longer version of "Virgin Planet" and The Peregrine but maybe minus "The Chapter Ends."

For comparison, the first three omnibus volumes of the Technic History should be:

RISE OF THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE;
DECLINE OF THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE;
RISE OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE -

- and we know that the political framework of the League is the Solar Commonwealth. Thus, in Anderson's first future history, the Solar Union is succeeded by the Stellar Union whereas, in his second, the Solar Commonwealth is succeeded by the (interstellar) Terran Empire.

Recently, when I began to reread this future history, I became entirely focused on the future historical content of its opening three stories:

Etienne Fourre;
Stefan Rostomily;
political gangsterism;
the protean enemy;
the Pacific Colony;
the three class education system.

However, this post-World War III period is dwarfed by the much vaster context of two Dark Ages and two periods of interstellar civilization. The Un-man, Naysmith, flies his air boat to the Rockies; the Stellar Union Coordination Service field agent (Cordy), Trevelyan, flies his air car to that same mountain range but over a thousand years later in a different civilization facing different problems.

Naysmith identified the UN's protean enemy as man himself. This "enemy" destroys the Solar Union. Trevelyan, psychologically integrated, instead confronts the external problem of cosmic complexity overwhelming any cerebral or computational attempt to coordinate it. This problem destroys the Stellar Union.

What We Expect

In a Poul Anderson story, we expect:

action;
intelligent, informed analysis of society;
scenery and sunsets.

If the story is futuristic sf, we additionally expect road vehicles that are also VTOL aircraft. Thus, in "Un-Man," Naysmith:

shoots his way past armed Security men;

explains world politics;

flies his boat "...east until it was following the mighty spine of the Rockies, an immensity of stone and forest and snow turning gold with sunset." (The Psychotechnic League, p. 75)

Analysis
I have come to understand what was meant by the "protean enemy." The UN tries to move society towards a single sane world civilization. Thus, the UN's enemies include every opponent of either unity or sanity, every kind of separatist or ideologue. These disparate groups can seem to be diverse manifestations of a single enemy and indeed they do temporarily unite under the leadership of "the gang," which explains why the title character of "The Sensitive Man" later refers to a return of "...political gangsterism." (p. 138)

After the defeat of the gang, Naysmith even more clearly delineates the enemy:

"The enemy was old and strong and crafty, it took a million forms and it could never quite be slain. For it was man himself - the madness and sorrow of the human soul, the revolt of a primitive against the unnatural state called civilization and freedom. Somebody would try again. His methods would be different, he might not have the same avowed goal, but he would be the enemy and the watchers would have to break him. And who shall watch the watchmen?" (pp. 125-126)

That question is central to the Psychotechnic History, where the successive watchers are the UN, the Psychotechnic Institute and the Coordination Service.

In Anderson's Brain Wave, human intelligence is enhanced and wins its ancient battle against instinct but a disparate gang of conspirators, including one Hindu, tries to return humanity to its previous state. Fortunately, they are easily outmaneuvered. Mystics seek either regression or transcendence. Transcendent mystics should welcome the change in Brain Wave.

In James Blish's The Night Shapes, surviving dinosaurs are found in an African valley but the hero realizes:

"'...the shapes are inside us. They've always lived there. They always will.'"
-James Blish, The Night Shapes ( London, 1965), p. 125.

Chronology

In January this year, I posted in detail, from here to here, about Poul Anderson's Genesis, a late single volume future history covering geological epochs. This December, I have become entirely focused on the first three installments of Anderson's first future history series, the Psychotechnic History.

In this early period of the Psychotechnic History, Secret Servicemen work for the UN whereas, in a transitional period of Genesis (see here), a gifted woman works alone liaising between humanity and the planet-controlling Artificial Intelligence. Ideas of the future change as we move into it.

"A Chronology Of The Psychotechnic Series" on pp. 283-284 of Poul Anderson, Starship (New York, 1982) is:

"Prepared by Sandra Miesel, based in part on the chronology published by Poul Anderson in Startling Stories, Winter, 1955." (p. 284)

So we do not know how much of the 1982 Chronology is by Anderson and how much by Miesel - unless someone has a copy of that Startling Stories? The 1982 Chronology begins:

1958  World War III
1964   "Marius"
1965  First Conference of Rio makes U.N. world government
1975   Psychotechnic Institute established Expeditions to Mars and Venus, then colonization
2004  "Un-Man"
2009  "The Sensitive Man"

It should read:

1958  World War III, followed by Years of Hunger
1964  "Marius"
1965  First Conference of Rio makes U.N. an instrument of multilateral negotiation
           Years of Madness
1975  as above plus Pilgrims emigrate to Mars
           the Socialist Depression and other economic breakdowns
2004  as above
2009  as above

At the time of "Un-Man":

"'The U.N. is in the process of becoming a federal world government.'" (p. 71)

More Background Details

It is too easy to categorize the opening installments of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History merely as action-adventure fiction and thus to miss their background contributions to the future history.

In "The Sensitive Man":

"Even the hulking bodyguard was probably a college graduate, Third Class."
-Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), p. 138.

Someone with a third class University degree? No. The educational system is outlined in the preceding installment, "Un-Man." Modern technology replaces not only unskilled laborers but also routine intellectuals. First class education, starting early and remaining free for those who are able to keep passing exams, produces large numbers of graduates trained to the limit of their capacity, PhD's at twenty or younger. The complex global civilization requires this educational elite but relegates the less able to Second and Third schools, with consequent social friction.

Another social factor: the family had been an economic and social unit but technology destroyed the first function; World War III and subsequent upheavals destroyed the second. Creches, schools and public entertainment take children away from the home. Old style marriage becomes extremely rare.

Thirdly, there are global anachronisms like Hindu peasants. Many people want to restore the old ways without realizing that technology has changed human nature. Geriatrics and birth control are making the population old and rigid just when new thinking is required.

This is a complex and well realized future history. The World Wars, the Years of Hunger and Madness and the economic breakdowns are parts of its fabric and should be included in the Chronology.

A Link To Holmes And Dreyfus

For the first time, the enemy possesses the dead body of a member of the Rostomily Brotherhood, Martin Donner, and will be able to apply:

fingerprinting;
retinals;
bloodtyping;
Bertillon measurements; (Read this Wiki article!)
autopsy;
etc.

"'We can expect them to check that set of physical data against every ID office in the country. And when they find the same identification under different names and numbers in each and every file - all hell is going to let out for noon.'
"'It will take time, of course,' said Fourre. 'We have put in duplicate sets of non-Brother data too, as you know; that will give them extra work to do. Nor can they be sure which set corresponds to Donner's real identity.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), p. 58.

I do not fully follow this. The Brothers are clones who live in different parts of the country with different names and occupations. Because they are clones, their physical data are identical. Trying to establish Donner's identity, the enemy will check the records, will find the same data under different names and therefore will not know which of these names is Donner's but will know that something strange is going on. But why and how has the UN Secret Service put in duplicate sets of other data and how will that give the enemy extra work?

When I read the reference to "Bertillon measurements," I took this to mean some kind of credible scientific system. However, according to Wikipedia, although Bertillon was commended by Sherlock Holmes, he was involved in the framing of Dreyfus, who is mentioned in the Time Patrol series. It is impossible to predict emergent links.

Atomists

Another reference to "atomists," albeit without a capital initial. Section V of "Un-Man" informs us that Etienne Fourre:

was in the French Resistance during World War II;
liaised with the European undergrounds of World War III;
fought fascists in the Years of Hunger;
fought atomists in the Years of Madness;
fought jihadists in the Near East;
became head of the UN secret service;
initiated the Rostomily Brotherhood;
assassinates opponents.

Although we still do not know what the "atomists" stood for, we receive confirmation that they belong on the list of enemies between Communists and Americanists.

The incorporation of World War II into Fourre's career neatly links twentieth century history with future history. Fourre is still active at eighty, thanks partly to medical advances. But is his strategy of coups and assassinations the right way forward? Can any good ends be attained by such means?

Future History Continuity

In "Un-Man":

"...Sofie [was] an engineer on the Pacific Colony project..."
-Poul Anderson, "Un-Man" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 31-129 AT p. 49 -

- and, in "The Sensitive Man," published later the same year, 1953, the narrative begins in the Mermaid Tavern which is in deep water under the caissons of one of the gyro-stabilized stations of the floating city called "the Pacific Colony," near the main anchor cable. An elevator takes the title character up from the tavern past storehouses, machine rooms, kitchens etc to a kiosk opening onto an upper deck thirty feet above the surface with a view of tiers descending to the main deck where there are people and a small park.

This "Pelican Station," holding shops, theaters, restaurants, services and entertainment is linked by bridges and boat traffic to other stations, where there are mineral-extracting plants, fisheries and experimental and research facilities. Nearby are a sea ranch and the undersea settlement of oil wells, mines, and exploration tanks.

Sofie says:

"'I remember the tail-end of the Years of Hunger, and then the Years of Madness, and the Socialist Depression...'" (p. 51)

We saw the "Years of Hunger" in the first Psychotechnic History story, "Marius," but, since "Un-Man" is only the second story, we must understand that the Madness and the Depression have meanwhile happened off-stage.

A man called Stefan bursts through a window near the end of "Marius." A man called Stef has died on Mars before the beginning of "Un-Man." We learn:

that "Stef" was "Stefan";
that his full name was Stefan Rostomily;
that he was the original of the cloned "Un-Men."

The Role Of Cross-References

A future history is built on its cross-references. I quoted here a list of "enemies":

Fascist
Nazi
Shintoist
Communist
Atomist
Americanist

and remarked that:

the first three are World War II;
the fourth is Cold War and maybe World War III;
the fifth and sixth must be post -WWIII?

In fact, as I am reminded by rereading the series out of order, the Americanist Party was the collective villain of the preceding installment of the Psychotechnic History - so that is where they came from. The first and second installments are linked by the character of Fourre; the second and third by their common reference to Americanists. In these opening episodes of this future history series, groups with incompatible philosophies fight to determine the course of their future history.

And any series by Poul Anderson has a rich vocabulary.

While investigating the Americanists, the Un-Man "...painted his fingertips with collodoin." (The Psychotechnic League, p. 31)

"...he inserted a few cubic cenitmeters of levinite [?]..." (p. 34)

"He had only time to see the stet-gun [?] within..." (ibid.)

"'Mr. Wade is...Rodney Borrow, Exogene Number -'" (p. 37)

The Early Years Of Two Future Histories

Thank you all for hundreds of page views despite few posts. It is getting too near Christmas for regular posts. I have also had to cancel some other regular activities.

Poul Anderson's The Infinite Voyage has arrived but meanwhile I have got back into rereading some early instalments of Anderson's Psychotechnic History. In Heinlein's Future History, the first four stories are set before space travel. In the Psychotechnic History, just the opening story, "Marius," is. Heinlein's first four stories show technological advances affecting familiar American society whereas "Marius" instead describes European partisans rebuilding among the ruins after World War III, but helped by automation.

In both Histories, Mars is both inhabited and colonized from Earth. Mars is a dry planet and this affects place names. Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways:

"...holed up with the prospectors and archaeologists at How Far? for a month or so, and could probably have stayed forever in exchange for his songs and his accordion playing. But spacemen die if they stay in one place; he hooked a crawler over to Drywater again and thence to Marsopolis.
"The capital was well into its boom..."
-Robert Heinlein, "The Green Hills Of Earth" IN Heinlein, The Green Hills Of Earth (London, 1967), pp. 131-141 AT p. 135.

"Barney Rosenberg drove along a dim, rutted trail toward the sheer loom of the escarpment. Around its corner lay Drygulch."
-Poul Anderson, "Un-Man" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981) pp. 31-129 AT p. 39.

Heinlein's History has the "Crazy Years" (The Man Who Sold The Moon, p. 7) between 1951 and the Strike of '66, also the "False Dawn" (ibid.), 1960-70, and the first rocket to the Moon in 1978, whereas the Psychotechnic History has Puritan fanatics emigrating to Mars during the Years of Madness.

"The Green Hills Of Earth" anticipates the freshness of an early age of interplanetary travel whereas Anderson, writing later, seems to be more familiar with space travel - even though it still remains a merely fictional concept.

Remember Wells

The Great War was renamed the First World War when there had been a Second. The Third World War is a concept and a possibility though not yet history. HG Wells predicted the Great War and called it The War in The Air. This novel is narrated from the perspective of a later scientifically based peaceful world civilization, a perspective that is echoed in Sandra Miesel's Foreword to Poul Anderson's The Psychotechnic League:

"From the standpoint of our mature integrated culture, World War III was a painful childhood illness of our race."
-Sandra Miesel, Foreword IN Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 10-11 AT p, 10.

Miesel's Foreword also echoes the Time Chart of Robert Heinlein's Future History, which culminates in:

"...the end of human adolescence, and beginning of first mature culture."
-Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon (London, 1963), pp. 6-7 AT p. 7.

Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come outlines the emergence of a scientifically based peaceful world civilization.

In his Author's Note to The Psychotechnic League, Anderson cites Heinlein and Olaf Stapledon as earlier future historians. Wells preceded both:

Stapledon combines the Wellsian themes of space travel, time travel, Martian invasion and future history in a single volume;

Heinlein has the same four themes in separate works - if we change "Martian invasion" to "alien invasion," - including three "first men in the moon" stories;

 the title character of the title story of The Man Who Sold The Moon somewhere mentions having read Wells, Verne and Smith;

the suspended animation company in Heinlein's The Door Into Summer distributes Wells' The Sleeper Wakes as promotional literature.

Anderson indirectly acknowledges Wells in There Will Be Time - and even less overtly in "Time Patrol" by sending Manse Everard to the year of publication of The Time Machine. I recently discussed references to communism in The Time Machine and Anderson's "The Sensitive Man."

"Remember Wells" is a continual refrain on this blog - but also appreciate Poul Anderson as a major successor.

A Few More References

See here.

"'...the psychology of Freud and his successors...gave the first real notion of human semantics.'" (p. 188)

The successors must include Jung? There is the reference to semantics again. But "human semantics"? General semantics is clearly relevant and different from linguistic semantics.

"'Comparative historians like Spengler, Pareto, and Toynbee realized that history did not merely happen but had some kind of pattern.'" (ibid.)

James Blish's Okies future history is Spenglerian.
Poul Anderson's Technic Future History is Hordian.
Isaac Asimov's Robots and Foundation future history is Gibbonian.

Not much is known about Hord.

Some References In "The Sensitive Man"

Why was "semantics" regarded as so important?

"'...a state of semantic equilibrium on a world-wide scale, which of course has never existed...'" (The Psychotechnic League, p. 147)

"He didn't notice the vicious cholla through which he raced..." (p. 163)

"They climbed up on one of the hogback rocks... (p. 170)

"'You war against the sunset-glow. The judgment follows fast, my lord!'" quoted Dalgetty. Heriot's Ford was one of the few poems he liked." (p. 173)

(Kipling again!)

"'Francis Bacon speculated about a genuine science of man. Boole did some work along those lines as well as inventing the symbolic logic which was to be such a major tool in solving the problem.'" (p. 187)

Logic is merely consistency between propositions as semantics is meanings. I get the impression that, in an earlier period, it was hoped that these disciplines would contribute to a science of man.

"'Cybernetics developed such concepts as homoeostasis and feedback... Games theory, the principle of least effort, and Haeml's generalized epistemology...'" (p. 188)

I can't find Haeml.

"'Read Voltaire's Micromegas.'" (p. 190)

"The Old And Protean Enemy"

The title character of Poul Anderson's "The Sensitive Man," reflecting on "political gangsterism," thinks:

"The old enemy - the old and protean enemy, who had been fought down as Fascist, Nazi, Shintoist, Communist, Atomist, Americanist, and God knew what else for a bloody century - had grown craftier with time."
-Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), p. 138.

He is a very protean enemy if he can take all those forms! The first three are World War II. The fourth is the Cold War and maybe World War III. The fifth and sixth must be post-WWIII? In their real meanings, "Communist" and "Nazi" do not belong on the same list but, of course, Dalgetty is thinking of the meanings that those words came to have. Stalin's Communism was not international socialism but "socialism in one country." Sounds familiar? Should: Naziism is National Socialism.

Somewhere between the ages of seven and eleven, I read a Classics Illustrated comic book adaptation of The Time Machine. This authentic adaptation accurately reproduced short sections of the text. The Time Traveler, observing that the Eloi lived communally in large, palatial buildings, made two comments that I did not understand. First, that the private house had disappeared. I (mis)understood this literally. Thus, I thought that the Time Traveler had seen a single building, although I had not, and that that building had then vanished or become invisible. This was not only puzzling but also quite disturbing. Secondly, he remarked, "Communism." (Chapter 6, "The Sunset of Mankind.") I did not understand this because I did not yet know that the original meaning of the word was simply common ownership.

Anderson continues Wells' serious speculation about the future of society.

The Old House

"...the old house...stood on a ridge, long and low, and weathered gray like a part of the earth. By day it had rested in a green sun-dazzle of trees or a glistening purity of snow. By night you heard the boards creaking and the lonesome sound of wind talking down the chimney. Yes, it had been good." (The Psychotechnic League, p. 150)

Very well observed. It was the nighttime description that caught my attention in this passage - the wind sounds lonesome - but the daytime description is good as well.

Poul Anderson's "The Sensitive Man" is a pulp sf story that presents such descriptions as well as a dramatized discussion of the most basic issues about humanity and society. See here.

Mars In An Early Future History

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History records future events on Earth, in the Solar System and in other planetary systems. The parts of the Solar System visited are:

a desert Venus;
a desert Mars;
asteroids;
Jupiter;
Ganymede;
the Moon.

This Mars has vegetation, including cactoids, and a few dwindling natives but will have to be terraformed before human beings can walk on its surface unprotected. Flowers live by day but die at night in the Syrtis forests, like the vegetation on Wells' Moon. Colonists ranch, mine for fissionables and build cities like Drygulch, domed and half underground. Genetic engineers adapt Terrestrial food plants to Mars and Martian plants to human needs. Colonists eat yeast-culture from factories because there are no meat animals yet but nevertheless Mars is self-supporting in essentials. Dependence on Earth would be economically prohibitive.

Regarding Mars as the planet that they inhabit, and no longer associating it with the god of war, colonists apply the feminine pronoun:

"...Mars was savage to her lovers, but she gave them of her strange beauty..." (The Psychotechnic League, p. 41).

Aircars

Much futuristic hard sf assumes not only spacecraft but also "aircars," used, like motor cars, for personal travel except that they can fly and land or take off on the street outside a dwelling or workplace. Such vehicles are in each of what I call the triad of future histories:

Robert Heinlein's Future History;
Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History;
Anderson's Technic History.

In "Un-Man," Robert Naysmith:

walks to a parking lot;
palms and thus opens the door of his "boat," described as an "...ovoid shell..."
-Poul Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), p. 49;
makes, apparently, a vertical take-off, on jets;
leaves his passenger at her house;
flies to a city where his autopilot finds its way through heavy air traffic;
lands on a downward ramp of a large building and enters the garage;
on a later journey, intersects a radio beam that lets local traffic control take over;
on that occasion, lands in a side lane, then resumes manual driving on the ground;
drives through a district where many residents commute to work by airbus;
parks his "boat" outside a house.

In "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," James Ching, while still a school student:

flits to the Riefenstahl household;
hopes that Betty Riefenstahl will join him in flitting over the ocean or down to the waters of Baja, then to a restaurant with outsystem food;
instead, accepts her suggestion to visit Adzel;
lands his car on the strip outside Adzel's hut.

Although Ching is commendably ambitious to get out into space, he already enjoys much greater freedom of movement on Earth, and through its atmosphere, than his ancestors were used to.

Social Chaos

Poul Anderson's "The High Ones" posits a future world-wide Soviet dictatorship. Usually, a story with such a premise would describe oppression on Earth. Instead, we are shown how the Terrestrial regime affects the crew of a spaceship exploring another planetary system, although one crew member reminisces about his childhood in Soviet-dominated North America.

Reading "The High Ones" made me reflect on the social upheavals that led to the establishment of the Soviet regime - a tidal wave of world events overwhelming any group trying to achieve a positive outcome. Anderson conveys exactly that feeling in his Psychotechnic Future History and in the parallel text, Planet Of No Return.

The first Psychotechnic story, "Marius," begins inauspiciously for a future history. It is raining and cold and the street lights have not been restored. There is dusk between ruined walls where tattered people dwell among rubble. This is the aftermath of a World War III so close to the "present," the time of writing, that the viewpoint character, Etienne Fourre, chief of the Maquisard Brotherhood and French representative in the United Free Europe Supreme Council, had been a partisan in World War II.

Fourre's coup, described in the story, leads to the social application of the new science of psychotechnics and the Psychotechnic Institute's uphill struggle against mass irrationality is described in "The Sensitive Man" but the Institute is later overwhelmed by social upheavals that are meticulously described in four pages of The Snows Of Ganymede. In "Brake," a world in turmoil plunges down towards the Second Dark Ages.

SF And Detective Fiction

In Poul Anderson's "The Serpent in Eden," it has to be deduced that primitive bipeds on the planet Cleopatra are mere animals without intelligence. The planet is an Eden but a human explorer realizes that:

"'We are the serpent.'" (A World Named Cleopatra, New York, 1977, p. 57)

In Anderson's "The High Ones," it has to be deduced that bipeds with technology including spaceships and a computer are no longer intelligent.

In Anderson's "Wings of Victory," it has to be deduced that winged beings on the planet Ythri are intelligent, in other words that their bodies can generate enough energy to sustain both flight and intelligence.

In these and many other examples, sf resembles detective fiction. Explorers find puzzling, apparently inconsistent, clues and evidence on a newly discovered planet, then deduce the course that biological and social evolution have taken in this different environment.

Star Ship

According to the Chronology of the Psychotechnic History (Poul Anderson, Starship, New York, 1982, pp. 283-284), "Star Ship" is set in 2875. Fifty years previously, thus in 2825, ten Terrestrial married couples had been marooned on the inhabited planet Khazak.

Also according to the Chronology, the hyperdrive was invented in 2784. According to "Gypsy," a few years later, the Traveler left Sol for Alpha Centauri with "'...a load of colonists...'" (p. 19). Thrown thousands of light years off course by an unexplained phenomenon, later revealed to be a trepidation vortex, the Traveler spent over twenty years looking for home before settling on Harbor. The narrator, Thorkild Erling, was born and raised in the Traveler. His son, Einar, nine years old, is growing up on Harbor. The Chronology says that "Gypsy" is set in 2815.

If "...a few years..." is three, if over twenty years means twenty one and if Einar was born soon after the arrival on Harbor, then that would give us 2817, approximately, as the date of "Gypsy." Thorkild and his companions take another year to prepare for their return to space as the first of the Nomads. The similarity to James Blish's flying cities becomes explicit when Thorkild reflects that:

"When our descendants were many, they would build other ships until there was a fleet, a mobile city hurtling from sun to sun." (p. 32)

Blish's Okie cities are compared to pollinating bees of the galaxy. The Nomads will be "...the bloodstream of the interstellar civilization..." (ibid.)

If we try to put more detail into this section of the Chronology, then, leaving out a few minor events, we get something like:

2784 Hyperdrive invented
2787 Traveler lost because of a trepidation vortex
2800 New Hope, lost because of a trepidation vortex, crash lands on Atlantis
2808 Traveler colonizes Harbor
2818 Traveler initiates Nomadism
2825 Star Ship marooned on Khazak
2875 The events of "Star Ship" on Khazak
2900 Stellar Union and Coordination Service founded
3040 Nerthus colonized
3100 A survey man from Nerthus discovers the isolated Atlantean colony
3120 A Coordination Service field agent turns Nomad
3200 The Third Dark Ages

Terraforming Venus

In Poul Anderson's "The Big Rain," more than a million complicated airmaker machines on the Venusian surface break down paraform, yielding water. The formaldehyde reacts with ammonia and methane to produce hydrocarbons, carbohydrates etc for food, fuel and fertilizer. Carbon dioxide is broken down into soot and oxygen, the latter to be bottled for industrial use. Other substances are separated and collected to be processed in cities.

When seven million airmakers have been built, the atmosphere will be changed in twenty Earth years plus another decade due to factors like the law of diminishing returns and stratospheric gas never reaching the surface.

Artificially mutated, solar powered bacteria, living off carbon and silicon, release oxygen from rocks and ores. Pulverized stone and sand mixed with fertilizer become soil. Other engineered organisms will provide an ecology. Water brought to the surface by volcanoes is extracted from magma and hydrated minerals.

Hydrogen bombs exploded at selected locations will ignite the volcanoes while platinum catalyst sown by aircraft and Venusian lightning will attack the remaining poisonous gasses that will then fall as compounds in "the Big Rain," lasting ten Earth years to yield rivers, lakes and seas. With soil spread, bacteria, plants and animals released and heavy rain falling for centuries, reclaimed sections will get close to Terrestrial conditions in a hundred years and Venus might become a Paradise in five hundred.