Friday 20 September 2013

Byworlders

In the early twenty first century -

Byworlders:
leave "Ortho" society not to join the organized crime of the Underworld but to found diverse sub-cultures like -

Theontologists:
an eclectic religious community.

Sigaroons:
drifters, migratory workers;
do odd jobs and provide personal services or entertainment;
ostracize any of their number who beg, bully or steal;
can exercise a right to a public works billet, doing, e. g., clean-up work.

Skip, a sigaroon (interior decorator, carpenter, mechanic, repairman, singer and story-teller) spends time with Theontologists and sea gypsies.

Sea Gypsies:
sail international waters indefinitely in nuclear-powered ships;
re-use equipment developed for the Moon and Mars;
fish;
harvest plankton;
process water for minerals;
process sea weed for food and fabrics;
prospect for ore or oil;
carry cargo;
employ land-based brokers.

The Viking fleet preserves Northern virtues.
The fleet flag ship carries four thousand people with command posts, offices, electronic communications, schools, hospital, culture, recreation and private enterprises.
The other ships include a service vessel with machine shops, a mineral-extractor craft, a trawler, a submarine and a factory ship processing harvested kelp.

I expect to learn about several more Byworlder cultures while rereading Poul Anderson's The Byworlder. So far, by page 79, of 190, we have met these three groups.

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