Real And Fictional Histories

A year ago, I was rereading Poul Anderson's last future history, Genesis. Now, I am rereading his first future history, the Psychotechnic Series. In the latter, two unemployed drunks wrongly fear that self-conscious robots will replace humanity. In the former, Artificial Intelligence does replace humanity.

While rereading a future history, I am also reading some twentieth century history. Inevitably, the latter is more detailed and complicated than the former. Also, I can remember living through the second half of the twentieth century although I cannot remember any of the Psychotechnic History: there was no World War III in our version of the 1950s!

However, Anderson connects his fictitious history to our real history first by telling us what a participant in WWIII had done during WWII and secondly by letting this character draw a historical lesson from the Roman Republic.

And Anderson also wrote a historical novel set during that Republic. Such works, fictitious history and historical fiction, are so dissimilar that it is difficult to shift from thinking about one to thinking about the other. A while ago, I was totally focused on Anderson's works set in the past whereas currently I am totally focused on the Psychotechnic History.

Holmgang

"Holmgang" is like the "Green Hills of Earth" period of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:

asteroid prospectors and miners are the last private enterprisers;

there are bases on the Trojan asteroids in Jupiter orbit;

ships leave the trailing group for the outer planets and the leading group for the inner System;

Achilles and Patroclus "...have a permanent boom town atmosphere..." (Cold Victory, p. 115);

Guardsmen visit the Last Chance bar on Achilles in threes;

some bars centrifuge for artificial gravity;

Johnny Malone from Luna City says that the whole System is getting too civilized except Venus;

spaceships have upgraded to the ion drive;

the Sirius, crewed by Malone and Bo Jonsson, carries cargo and passengers.

We recognize this as an old-fashioned story about the future. Unfamiliar word: "tommicker." (p. 118)

Opening Sentences

These are the opening two paragraphs, also the opening two sentences, of Poul Anderson's "Holmgang":

"The most dangerous is not the outlawed murderer, who only slays men, but the rebellious philosopher; for he destroys worlds.
"Darkness and the chill glitter of stars, Bo Jonsson crouched on a whirling speck of stone and waited for the man who was coming to kill him."
-Poul Anderson, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), p. 112.

Is the first sentence necessary? Or appropriate? Should the story not make its point so that the reader realizes it at the end without having to be told it, especially not at the beginning? Is the omniscient narrator moralizing instead of unobtrusively imparting fictional "facts"? Darkness and stars are what Jonsson sees but does he also reflect on slayers of men and destroyers of worlds? In fact, how many rebellious philosophers have destroyed worlds?

Ideas can become destructive if (a) they gain a mass following and (b) they generate conflict. But, on the basis of recent posts, I question whether conflictive ideas would gain a mass following in the utopian economy of the Solar Union. Instead, the conflicts described in "Quixote and the Windmill" would die out as new generations grew up accustomed to the changed social conditions - which, to them, would be not "changed" but normal, just as we accept democracy and the market whereas our ancestors accepted hierarchy and serfdom.

Ideas In Three Future Histories

Robert Heinlein's Future History covers:
psychodynamics;
longevity and immortality;
a "generation ship" (multi-generation interstellar spaceship).

Isaac Asimov's future history covers:
robots;
psychohistory (a mathematical science of society).

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History covers:
psychotechnics (a mathematical science of society);
immortality;
a robot;
a generation ship.

However, the Psychotechnic History is mainly about psychotechnics. The remaining three issues are addressed in one story each. Anderson makes an original contribution to each of these sf ideas and he uses the Psychotechnic History background for this purpose.

Next, it will be necessary to reread three of the four "political" stories in the Solar Union period in order to trace the history of political opposition. I reread one work, The Snows Of Ganymede, recently.

My birthday presents yesterday included the two remaining volumes about SM Stirling's Draka and I have yet to finish rereading Volume III of that series so these regrettable characters will have to return to the agenda. In the authentic sf manner, Stirling has created an original premise and presented its logical consequences, however unpleasant.

The Solar Union: Unemployment

The issues change as we proceed through Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:

in Vol I, who is the protean enemy of human unity?;

in Vol II, what can possibly go wrong in an apparently perfect economy?;

in Vol III, is it possible to coordinate a civilization confronting cosmic complexity?

In "Quixote and the Windmill," the opening story of Vol II, machines do all the:

manual work;
routine computation;
independent research.

Therefore, the only human beings guaranteed employment are:

highly skilled and trained engineers and technicians;
scientific geniuses;
painters;
writers;
musicians;
spacemen;
tavern keepers.

Citizen's allowance covers basic necessities, including drink. A former industrial worker, disliking concerts and paintings, must settle for drink, women and stereo-film. His drinking companion, a genius but not a first rank genius, did find work as a servo-technician but was unable to tolerate its dreary routine.

Population is kept small and static and is adapting to its changed social environment. I think that, after at most three generations, the transitional problems would be resolved and there would be neither need nor incentive for the Humanist Revolution, fifty years later according to the Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series.

The Solar Union Economy

See here.

The first story in Poul Anderson's Cold Victory (New York, 1982), "Quixote and the Windmill," confirms the picture of a utopian economy, helped by the literary device of the pathetic fallacy:

the first robot, i.e., "...independent, volitional, nonspecialized machine..." (p. 16);
green hills;
sunlight flashing off polished metal;
a bright summer sky;
sunlit fields;
groves dancing in the wind;
widely distributed, self-servicing houses;
a large, almost automatic food factory;
quiet, self-piloting carplanes;
sun-tanned people in loose bright clothes;
a colorist with a new chromatic harmony;
a composer with an omniplayer;
engineers in a transparent laboratory;
short work periods;
most people at recreation most of the time;
a picnic, a dance, a concert and children at play;
oldsters in hammocks enjoying beer and books;
live talent preferred to TV;
a gardened, colonnaded tavern with autodispensors and two drunk men;
we are about to learn what can go wrong...

The Solar Union

In the incomplete three volume collection of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History series, are Sandra Miesel's interstitial passages consistent with Anderson's texts and is the future history internally consistent? In her Foreword to Volume II, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), Miesel paints a utopian picture:

peace;
plenty;
unsurpassed output;
automation compensating for depopulation;
demand after decades of want;
soaring economy;
solar power;
synthetic fuels;
energy-storing superdielectrics;
power-beaming satellites;
regreened Earth;
ecological awareness;
Pancosmic religion;
undersea settlements;
interplanetary colonization;
domed lunar, asteroidal and Ganymedean cities;
terraformed Mars and Venus;
the Order of Planetary Engineers;
human potential maximized by the Tighe Synthesis, "...an elaborate holistic conditioning system..." (p. 12);
the science of psychodynamics;
the Rostomily Brotherhood (Miesel uses the word "cloned");
Venus liberated from dictatorship in 2065;
a clan-based Venerian society with celebrated romantic folkways and experimental local autonomy;
a powerful, prestigious Psychotechnic Institute;
high technology triumphant;
universal benefits of the Second Industrial Revolution;
no hunger or homelessness;
work a privilege, no longer an obligation;
a common rigorous language, Basic;
the Solar Union space navy guarding colonies from Venus to the asteroid belt;
the New Enlightenment;
"But there were shadows..." (p. 13)

Why shadows? If everything is so good, then why does anything go bad? Is this a consistent picture? The Solar Union period of the History comprises three "social" and four "political" stories. (See here.) One "social" story tells us about mass technological unemployment. The four "political" stories inform us of political opposition to the Psychotechnic Institute. It is necessary to reread these works in order to assess the consistency and plausibility of the History.

Films

A visit to the cinema can simultaneously update us on several familiar series. The other day:

a showing of Star Wars VII;

trailers for Star Trek, Captain America and X Men;

a poster advertising Batman v Superman.

While watching Star Wars, I tried to imagine that we were instead watching a film dramatization of Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return. In fact, imagine a serial adaptation of the entire History of Technic Civilization from "The Saturn Game" to "Starfog." There would have to be two actors for Dominic Flandry because he changes his face by biosculp between his second and third novels. Earlier, I posted suggestions for filming two small parts of the Technic History. See here and here.

The Star Trek and Star Wars series prove that hard sf series like Anderson's Technic History or James Blish's Cities In Flight could be filmed without encountering any insuperable technical difficulties. So let's see it.

(See here and here for discussion of proposed films based on works by Blish.)

Life And Art

Art reflects life but does it adequately reflect its complexities? Characters in popular fiction regularly use weapons; I am reading an account of the contemporary arms trade showing how economic, political and military interests converge with technological advances. Thus, a lot more happens than heroes killing villains. Discussion of the great novelists, e.g., see here, is beyond the scope of this blog. Robert Heinlein's Future History shows technological advances and their consequences which are:

social and psychological on Earth and the Moon;
military in space;
economic on Venus;
religious and political in the later US;
culturally beneficial longer term.

Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization shows social complexities over time, particularly in its pivotal novel, Mirkheim. SM Stirling's Draka series analyzes every aspect of the Draka Domination, including their social interactions and military hardware.

Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Mark Millar and Garth Ennis show how the mere existence of super-powered beings would warp global politics. Apart from this one fantastic premise, these fictional narratives are fully credible and realistic. Millar has the US denying that it will deploy Persons of Mass Destruction abroad, then sending Steve Rogers (codename: Captain America) to rescue hostages...

Machines

In haste between social engagements, no time to find quotes, but:

in The Infinite Voyage, Poul Anderson argues that human beings must explore space because machines cannot cope with the unforeseen;

however, in Genesis, written much later, he describes self-conscious AI's exploring space;

now I read that AI will soon be incorporated into military technology so that self-directing weapons systems will decide who and what to attack;

seemingly every country buys the latest high tech weaponry.

Is it too much to ask that even one government might give an international moral lead by announcing, "We will stop buying new weapons and will instead invest only in life-enhancing technology?"

Think what humanity could achieve with existing technology if none of it were to be used destructively. Will there be a change inside human beings, as in HG Wells' In The Days Of The Comet or in Anderson's Brain Wave? I do not expect it. So will there instead be a change in power relationships such that public priorities significantly shift away from continued prosecution of current conflicts?