Monday 18 September 2017

Galactic Civilization

For thousands of years, human beings have known how to control the great basic cosmic forces with a small amount of energy;

by artificial mutation, they have grown a part of the brain that can generate such controlling forces, enabling them to fly between stars;

human beings and their allies have migrated to the great clusters of the Galactic center, leaving the periphery to the inhabitants of gas giants;

the periphery includes the Sirius Sector which includes the Solar System;

that Sector has in any case been isolated and backward since the First Empire fell fifty thousand years previously;

that Empire, anachronistically, had slaves and was sacked by barbarians;

some planetary skies have been made luminous;

few planets still have cities;

individuals each controlling cosmic energies can live far apart;

Jorun's planet, Fulkhis, has hills, tundras, moors, great seas and dark nights;

he cannot see any other dwellings from his own;

other planets include the oceanic Loa with its many islands and Yunith which does retain soaring cities;

human beings have been artificially adapted to many planets and some would no longer be comfortable on Earth, which is evacuated.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, Poul Anderson rationalize the slavery seen in his first Dominic Flandry stories by showing the Empire using slavery as a punishment for crime. And this type of slavery was limited by having many "slaves" sentenced to only limited terms of slavery. And THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND mentions this kind of "slavery" also having other conditions (and probably restrictions) defined by law. Also, in his letter replying to my comments and questions about this kind of slavery, Anderson said it most developed from libertarian ideas about crime and punishment in the Solar Commonwealth.

So the slavery mentioned in "The Chapter Ends" was not per se totally implausible. Readers might also find my article "Crime And Punishment In The Terran Empire" of some interest.

Sean