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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-27-2009
08:14 UT
|
Here's a second one, just to keep things honest:
________________________________________________________________ __________
Leaving
the lodge's restaurant Vall and Dalla took the walk leading back toward
their cabin, then paused at one of the intercabin courtyards and sat on
a bench there, arms entwined.
"Vall, thanks for insisting I come. This is proving a great vacation."
He laughed. "Quiet, we're working. Don't tell anyone different."
She
chuckled, and responded, "Of course. I plan to file a paper on
Hispano-Columbian resort and park economics. It may even get
published."
She looked upward, and said, "The stars here are so bright. The same as home, but better."
"Clear
air and altitude, we're in a wilderness here. The locals call that
constellation you're looking at Orion the hunter. Typical."
"Closer to barbarism than us. Where are we going tomorrow?"
"The nation to the south for a while, I have to meet with..."
The
sky behind them, to the north, lit up like a sunrise. Vall grabbed
Dalla and slammed her to the gravel, covering her with his body.
"Vall!"
"Be
still" The glare faded, and Verkan stood up, looking north. There
was....had been.. a city near a military base two hundred miles that
way. As he watched, more suns rose, farther away. He helped Dalla to
her feet.
"Vall, those are nuclear explosions."
"Yes. I
think our plans must change." And we're five hundred miles from the
nearest conveyor head, if it's still there, he did not say out loud.
Jim Sparr, Copyright 2009
|
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-27-2009
04:38 UT
|
Here's an example, just for fun. This is before the attack, to
introduce some people, and makes a nice little story all by itself.
----------------------------------------------------------- ---------------
Melanie awoke first, snuggled back into Jim's spoon, and then registered the whackings outside and the trillings inside.
"Oh, damn" she whispered, and started to nudge him gently in the ribs. "Honey, HONEY, wake up!"
Jim Manteuffel released some gas, wriggled, snuggled back up, and then awoke.
"Damn all, she's at it again. Sorry. What time is it?"
Mel looked at the clock. "Oh-four-thirty-six. Pullease, do something before the kids or Dusty wake up."
"No problem. " Then he heard the antler sounds. "Oh goody, meat!"
"What?"
"Deer. Some bucks are fighting over the scent. That's probably what set Opera Singer off."
"Jim! If you shoot, everybody will wake up."
"Tough. I've been setting this up for weeks. Go back to sleep." Then softer, "I love you."
"You too. G'night."
"Sweet
dreams." He swung his legs out of the queen-size waterbed, onto the
floor, grabbed his jeans off a chair, and then found his socks and
boots. After putting those on over his briefs, he got a Texas State
Guard marked BDU jacket out of the closet, added that, grabbed his
loaded FAL from the wall by the bedside, and headed into the hall,
softly closing the bedroom door behind him.
Once in the hall,
he slowly and quietly racked a round into the chamber, checked the
safety, and slinging the rifle over his right shoulder, addressed
himself to the noisy creature in front of him.
In the large
rabbit cage on a shelf to his left was, besides chewed up newspaper and
cardboard boxes, three pounds of noisy red furred female guinea pig that
he didn't need light to find. Opera Singer was named for her habit of
cutting loose with trilling soprano "arias" which were beautiful, except
at o'dark thirty, like now. The decibel level was earsplitting this
close.
He opened the cage and grabbed a plump, furry, wriggling
mass that quit singing, and emitted a querelous "Wheet!". Taking the
little beast into his arms and petting her, he reached to an upper shelf
and took down a large carrot, with greens. Opera Singer pulled this
stunt frequently, so treats to shut her up were kept outside the
refrigerator, because the sound of the door would set off every other
cavy in the trailer. They all knew where the veggies were kept.
"Okay,
sweetheart, calm down, nibble this." Jim stuck the carrot's tip next
to her lips and was rewarded with a stiff yank followed by prolonged
crunching. "Cool, let's put you back".
Once Opera Singer was
settled, he went through the kitchen into the den. Dusty Freeman, all
110 blonde pounds of her, was curled up under a blanket on the couch,
snoring like a chainsaw. No sound came from the kids' rooms. Crouching
down, and bringing his weapon to port arms with the sling wrapped
around his left elbow, he popped the safety off, opened the front door,
and rolled silently out onto the front porch.
Thirty yards to the
north stood a rope guyed aluminum pole which was a 20 through 10 meter
vertical trap dipole for his amateur station. Dangling from one of the
ropes ten feet up was a cloth bag containing cotton balls soaked in doe
scent. Silhouetted in an arc light from down the road were two buck
deer locked in combat. Some other deer were about, but not very
visible.
Jim drew a bead on the buck to his right in the side just behind the left foreleg, and squeezed the trigger slowly.
BLAAM!
In the flash that got around the flash supressor, he could see the
buck he had hit surging forward into the antlers of the other one. That
buck disengaged and, along with the other deer, bolted across the fence
into a cattle pasture, while the shot buck fell over on his side
kicking.
Jim got up, went down the steps, and approached the
downed buck at the ready. People were not uncommonly killed by wounded
deer, and he didn't plan to be one of them. The buck kicked
uncoordinatedly, and Jim gave it a head shot from ten feet away. After
one more spasm, the deer collapsed. Jim came up and examined it,
fingering the rack.
"Damn, damn, damn, a hundred-fifty pounds and
twelve points. This'll be a good Thanksgiving." He headed back inside
after knives and a flashlight.
Jim Sparr, Copyright 2009
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David Johnson
09-26-2009
14:29 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> The finished products will be a while as I am slogging through
> the necessary research to ensure historical accuracy, compliance
> with Canon, etc., as well as merely creating. (Ha! Merely!) The
> "Explorer's Report" is also in process.
Looking forward to both--and best of luck with that "mere creation." ;)
Down Styphon!
David
--
"Naturally.
Foxx Travis would expect a soul to be carried in a holster." - Miles
Gilbert (H. Beam Piper), "Oomphel in the Sky"
~
|
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David Johnson
09-26-2009
14:27 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> Oh, yes, "Operation Triple Cross", etc.
>
[snip]
>
> Wars generally begin with foulups and bad ideas, IMHO.
This
seemed to be a central theme for Piper. His take on the early Cold
War mutually-assured destruction stand-off was less focused on how one
side (or the other) might prevail but rather upon the madness of it
all.
And Beam was clearly a pessimist. Whether it be the "Thirty
Days' War" (the first of the Atomic Wars) or the Interstellar Wars (a
millennium later) there were never any real winners in Beam's
apocalyptic visions.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
David
--
"You
either went on to the inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, in
time, that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together on
the same planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a
piece of knowledge." - H. Beam Piper, _Uller_Uprising_
~
|
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David Johnson
09-26-2009
14:19 UT
|
~
Re: List Moderation
> Back in 1980, during the Iran Hostage Crisis. . . .
Okay,
folks, just a gentle reminder here to review the "moderation"
guidelines at the top of the discussion forum page. We're wandering
away from Beam and his work--and even (post-)apocalyptic science-
fiction fiction generally--into "real world" history and politics and
therefore dangerously close to the bounds of what's "on-topic" for
this list.
> I would have liked to see a Piper Paratime story
> with an alternate timeline showing what would have happened if. . . .
This
sort of comment is just _barely_ enough to keep a post "on- topic."
Let's work a bit harder to talk about Beam and his actual work,
please.
Thanks,
David
--
"At the time of his death,
H. Beam Piper was writing at the top of his form and certainly with
the best of his contemporaries." - John. F. Carr, Introduction to
_Empire_
~
|
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-26-2009
06:41 UT
|
Jack,
Back when our people were getting kidnapped in Lebanon
left-right-and-center and an officer from the Corps got hanged on video,
some militants kidnapped two Soviets working at the embassy in Beirut.
Three days later two militants were found with their gonads inserted in
their eyesockets in addition to other damage, all fatal, and a nasty
note in Russian attached. The two Russkis got released soon after.
Richard Preston states in his book "The Demon in The Freezer" that they
loaded tons of weaponized smallpox into warheads ready to go. This is
insanity, and was what we expected from them back in 1985.
Ruthless
doesn't cover it, but it doesn't work in all cases. They lost over a
million troops in Finland, and Finland is still there. At the end of my
novel, so is Texas, which gives little away. Bad tactics and poor
logistics will tell, as will courage and determination.
The
finished products will be a while as I am slogging through the necessary
research to ensure historical accuracy, compliance with Canon, etc., as
well as merely creating. (Ha! Merely!) The "Explorer's Report" is also
in process.
Best regards to all,
Jim
"Rub her feet" -Lazarus Long (RAH)
|
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Jack Russell
09-26-2009
03:50 UT
|
Back in 1980, during the Iran Hostage Crisis, the was a political comic
in the Stars and Stripes (where they got it I don't know) that showed
two Russian ambassadors standing behind the fence of their embassy with
the caption: "Why do they not attack the Russian embassy? Because,
Comrad, in Russia we do not allow such things."
Definately more
ruthless. Though Reagan was no slouch after he was elected. I would
have liked to see a Piper Paratime story with an alternate timeline
showing what would have happened if the hostages were not released
before Reagan took office.
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-26-2009
02:54 UT
|
Oh, yes, "Operation Triple Cross", etc.
I never considered the
Soviets smarter, just more ruthless and less constrained by
Western-style politics and having different budgetary procedures where
readiness was concerned.
The war in my scenario begins with
mutual blundering based on a couple of actual incidents in Germany, only
here-and-now things got caught in time, mostly by luck, and nothing got
fired. The first strike wasn't planned, and the Soviet task force was
in Cuba for a routine visit. Nobody had any warning until things
already were beyond control. The lunge at the oilfields begins with
ripping open one of those colorful sealed envelopes both sides had
moldering in safes and never expected to use, and turns out to be a bad
idea.
Wars generally begin with foulups and bad ideas, IMHO.
|
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David Johnson
09-26-2009
01:19 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> have awakened on "The Day After" with their hands full, but most
> of their outfits intact, because they lived locally.
>
> Then, the Soviet task force previously dispatched via Cuba
> arrives on the Gulf Coast
I look forward to reading your story--and Explorer's Report.
I've
always wondered though, why did it seem that so many people expected
the Americans to be so dumb and the Soviets to be so smart? Beam, at
least (in the Terrohuman Future History and also in "The Return"),
didn't see it that way. . . .
Down Styphon!
David
--
"A
girl can punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them knew
what buttons to punch, and why." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
_The_Cosmic_Computer_
~
|
|
|
Spam deleted by QuickTopic 03-04-2013 07:09
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-23-2009
09:04 UT
|
Oh, by the way, Recessional DOES wind up with Paratime connections, but
I'm not giving that away yet, though something resembling a holstered
soldering iron may appear somewhere....
I've been going over the
Sixth Level theropod comments. Anybody else remember the African grey
parrot cognition experiments at (I think it was) Arizona State some
years ago? They had one talking, counting, abstracting, teaching other
parrots, etc.. All this with a brain the size of my thumbnail and no
frontal lobes at all. This gave me an idea for a novel I will probably
go back to eventually. What if some dinosaurs had human level (or
beyond) technical intelligence but were more dependent on hindbrain
instinct (read: emotions, etc.) than on forebrain reasoning for their
social skills. No philosophy or art, but lots of territoriality,
industry, weapons. Seasonal breeding and a rut. Bloodline tribalism
based on scent. Writing but no literature. The Chichulub impact
resulting from an attempt at asteroid mining gone to asteroidal warfare,
and then gone wrong. I'll note that Charles Fort and Corliss mentioned
alleged anomalous artifacts from the Cretaceous. Hmmmmm.......
Now
a critter like that, with smarts but no cultural introspection and
strong, violent, instinctual drives might start a war with First Level
because they mentally had no other alternative.
I hope there's nothing like that lurking among the stars for us to run into. It would be nasty.
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-21-2009
10:08 UT
|
Thanks, David
"The Texas Israeli War, 1999" is a favorite book of
mine, but "Recessional" differs from it, "Red Dawn", "Free Flight",
etc., in many ways. It deals with militia and volunteers (the latter
CAP primarily)from the rural areas having to assume the initiative under
backup plans (which existed, at least in that timeline, it's fiction,
right? :-)) because the bulk of the regular, reserve, and National Guard
personnel not previously deployed to Europe lived mostly in the
destroyed military bases and urban areas. Much of the equipment at
rural armories and dispersed storage areas would survive a first strike,
but the troops intended to use it would be gone. Just for example,
Fort Hood (Kileen)would probably have gotten flattened along with a lot
of tanks and tankers; Carswell AFB (Ft. Worth), and Dyess AFB (Abilene),
both SAC bases, would have been cloverleafed several megatons worth
taking the manpower of 90th. ARCOM with them along with the associated
NG people in the area. There were a LOT of crucial units manned from
these areas.
Then there were some folks, who having read "The
Slopes of Vesuvius" and "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons", as well as
used the circular slide rule in the latter's back pocket, bought land
accordingly, and been raising healthy kids and livestock, would have
awakened on "The Day After" with their hands full, but most of their
outfits intact, because they lived locally.
Then, the Soviet task
force previously dispatched via Cuba arrives on the Gulf Coast to
seize the on- and offshore oil wells, but is more logistically isolated
than their opposition.
And the games begin...........
Regards,
Jim
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David Johnson
09-19-2009
04:38 UT
|
~
Riss Wiebe wrote:
> Finally got the Gashta Homepage up and running
> again...come have a look. http://www.gashta.net
Glad
to see your site back up. Nice work getting that piece from Ardath
Mayhar! Interesting to learn that she's convinced the Fuzzies are not
native to Zarathustra.
Why no entry for Bill Tuning on the "Author Bios" page?
Yeek!
David
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), _Fuzzy_Sapiens_
~
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Riss
09-19-2009
02:26 UT
|
Hey Everybody...Finally got the Gashta Homepage up and running again...come have a look. http://www.gashta.net
|
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David Johnson
09-18-2009
17:12 UT
|
~
Jim "Rhino" Sparr wrote:
> 1. I'm staking a claim (preliminary) to Fourth Level,
> Europe-American Sector, Hispano-Columbian Subsector, currently
> unclaimed, based on two parallel time stories I'm working on:
I've recorded your claims at the Colonial Office Claims Bureau:
http://www.zarthani.net/landgrab.htm
> A: RECESSIONAL (Yes, I've read Kipling) founded in my
> experiences in the 1980's in the Texas State Guard but
> transitioned to a Nuclear War Timeline.
Why does this leaving me thinking of The Texas Israeli War:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResu...=texas+israeli+1999
:) Looking forward to reading your story.
> B: Working title: I TOLD YOU SO. Tortha Karf finds a
> wreck in the north part of his Sicily estate and calls in Verkan
> and Dalla. First, it's an F111 variant with Edwards AFB
> markings and a lot of orange wire. Second, Verkan can see that
> a lot of the inclusions are Second Level IWE, Third, it's been
> there for over a thousand years.............
My goodness! Now that's an interesting pickle.
Again, welcome Jim. And let me know if you'd to post your Explorer's Reports at Zarthani.net.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"You know any kind of observation that doesn't contaminate the thing observed, professor?" - Tortha Karf (H. Beam Piper),
_Lord_Kalvan_of_Otherwhen_
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson  09-18-2009
04:57 UT
|
 Raptorex: A "Sixth Level" Theropod Edited 09-18-2009 04:58
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-18-2009
04:56 UT
|
Speaking of theropods.
|
|
David Johnson
09-16-2009
13:39 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
Let me add my welcome to Lensman's; it's always good to run into fellow Piper fan.
> How do I post an "Explorer's Report" ? I've staked a claim but
> am not sure it is valid.
You can post it here to the discussion forum (as a text file) or there's an e-mail link here:
http://www.zarthani.net/landgrab.htm
where you can send an HTML or PDF file to the Colonial Office Claims Bureau for posting at Zarthani.net.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"[R]evolutions don't originate with slaves or starveling
proletarians,
but with men who have enough liberty and material well- being to
realize how much more they ought to have." - Dominic Flandry (Poul
Anderson)
~
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-16-2009
10:02 UT
|
Thanks, Lensman!
How do I post an "Explorer's Report" ? I've
staked a claim but am not sure it is valid. I prefer "Belter's Rules"
but it's hard to fire a De Lameter over the Internet. Klono!
Regards,
Jim
|
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Lensman
09-16-2009
07:56 UT
|
QT - Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> I'm new here, but an old Piper fan.
Welcome to the forum, Jim!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-16-2009
06:12 UT
|
Hi, all
I'm new here, but an old Piper fan.
1. I'm
staking a claim (preliminary) to Fourth Level, Europe-American Sector,
Hispano-Columbian Subsector, currently unclaimed, based on two parallel
time stories I'm working on:
A:
RECESSIONAL (Yes, I've read Kipling) founded in my experiences in the
1980's in the Texas State Guard but transitioned to a Nuclear War
Timeline.
B: Working title: I
TOLD YOU SO. Tortha Karf finds a wreck in the north part of his Sicily
estate and calls in Verkan and Dalla. First, it's an F111 variant with
Edwards AFB markings and a lot of orange wire. Second, Verkan can see
that a lot of the inclusions are Second Level IWE, Third, it's been
there for over a thousand years.............
I'm a former General
Dynamics tech rep, computer engineer, and geologist, and currently fix
and sell violins. My hobbies include astronomy, ham radio (N5IGU),
scuba, hunting, and sailing.
Regards,
Jim
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-08-2009
13:53 UT
|
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-08-2009
04:24 UT
|
~ Piper-Inspired novella coming soon from John G. Hemry Folks, You will recall a post from a while back which mentioned an interview
with author John G. Hemry talking about the influence Beam has had on
his work. Well, I recently received this news from Mr. Hemry: ----------------------- From: John Hemry Date: September 1, 2009 4:55:22 PM MST Subject: Piper-Inspired novella It took a bit longer than expected (Analog had a backlog of novellas) but Stan Schmidt has officially bought SWORDS AND SADDLES. Based on experience, I'd say it should appear in the magazine in about four months, give or take a month. As I mentioned before, Piper fans should see an echo of the Lord Kalvan tales in SWORDS. ----------------------- I've been enjoying Hemry's Lost Fleet novels and so am looking forward to reading this new Piper-inspired yarn. Down Styphon! David ~ Edited 09-08-2009 04:25
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Jack Russell
09-08-2009
02:51 UT
|
If you must go with a Flash Gordon ref, the original source material is
the way to go. Then Buster Crabbe, then the 80's movie. That insipid
series on SciFi doesn't even make the list.
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 10-28-2012 07:16
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Jon Crocker 09-08-2009
01:28 UT
|
To step back a bit, I'm not seriously advocating finding something like Flas Gordon in Paratime.
But if I did, it would have to be the "1980-film-version" sector, not the "black-and-white classic version." :)
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Lensman
09-07-2009
17:20 UT
|
QT - David PiperFan Johnson wrote:
> David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
>> but I don't think the canon supports a war.
>
> Agreed, but four decades have passed since the _chronological_
> point at which Beam's Paratime yarns were set. Calvin Morrison,
> if he survives, is an old man today. So, it would not
> _conflict_ with canon, at least, if a conveyor full of
> Paratimers traveling _today_ were to find themselves on a
> Theropod timeline. . . .
My
point was that there's no *rational* reason for a war. The whole of
paratime is too vast, there are far too many resources available for
there to be any need to compete over them.
But then in the same
e-mail I explored some reasons why conflict or even war might occur
anyway. I was brainstorming or free-associating there.
>> But perhaps armed conflict is inevitable. And once it starts,
>> it's hard to see how it wouldn't escalate until one
>> civilization or the other is destroyed.
>>
>> Or perhaps both.
>
> Which is what people used to say about the two sides during the
> real Cold War . . . and is also a theme which is central to much
> of Beam's work, Paratime and otherwise.
Yup.
It's been argued, plausibly, that the reason the Cold War never
escalated into W.W. III is because both the U.S. and the Soviets
recognized that an all-out war was not "winnable". Mutual Assured
Destruction.
Is there any such thing in Paratime? Any doomsday
weapons that can devastate an entire planet in one burst, or cause the
sun to go nova or whatever? And if there was, would Humans and Raptors
ever communicate well enough to get across the idea of "If you destroy
us, we'll destroy you back"?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-07-2009
14:18 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> > Might there end up being some sort of Paratime Cold War where
> > both sides competed to exploit other timelines--and fought each
> > other over them at "low intensity"--perhaps while still
> > collaborating to maintain the Secret?
>
> I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a story in which
> Paratimers competed with or warred on paratime-traveling
> Raptors, but I don't think the canon supports a war.
Agreed,
but four decades have passed since the _chronological_ point at which
Beam's Paratime yarns were set. Calvin Morrison, if he survives, is an
old man today. So, it would not _conflict_ with canon, at least, if a
conveyor full of Paratimers traveling _today_ were to find themselves on
a Theropod timeline. . . .
> But perhaps armed conflict is inevitable. And once it starts,
> it's hard to see how it wouldn't escalate until one
> civilization or the other is destroyed.
>
> Or perhaps both.
Which
is what people used to say about the two sides during the real Cold War
. . . and is also a theme which is central to much of Beam's work,
Paratime and otherwise.
Down Lizardmen!
David
--
"You
know, most of the wars they've been fighting, lately, on the
Europo-American Sector have been, at least in part, motivated by rivalry
for oil fields." - H. Beam Piper, "Temple Trouble," 1951
~
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|
Lensman
09-06-2009
21:00 UT
|
QT - David PiperFan Johnson wrote:
> What would happen, say, if Paratimers and Theropods were both
> committed to keeping their own resective versions of the
> Paratime Secret? Would they cooperate to maintain the Secret?
> Might there end up being some sort of Paratime Cold War where
> both sides competed to exploit other timelines--and fought each
> other over them at "low intensity"--perhaps while still
> collaborating to maintain the Secret?
>
> Down Lizardmen!
:)
I
wouldn't rule out the possibility of a story in which Paratimers
competed with or warred on paratime-traveling Raptors, but I don't think
the canon supports a war. Wars are fought over resources, regardless
of the reasons given. Humans don't respond well to logical arguments,
but do respond to emotional ones. So the causes for war tend to be
"Give me liberty or give me death!" and "Remember the Alamo!", not
"Liebensraum!" and "We need cheap oil!"
There's a great
canonical quote here which someone on the Piper forums used to use as a
signature line, and I wish I could find and quote directly. But it
goes something like ~"You know those wars they've been having on the
Europo-Columbian sector? Well, they're motivated by competition for
oil, mostly."~
But the Paratimers have access to so many
timelines that they haven't even explored most of them. Given that,
how could there be any rational reason for a war-- a group conflict
over resources-- with Raptors?
Of course, one could also argue that
the Paratime cops shouldn't have bothered with the Wizard Traders; they
should have left them alone. "Plenty of timelines for all", right?
Wrong. Because the Paratimers limit their own growth. Allowing the
Wizard Traders, and others, to set up organizations beyond the control
of the Home Timeline would lead to continual expansion, and eventually
there *would* be a war over
resources. In maintaining control of Paratime travel, the Home Timeline is doing some very good long-range planning.
So,
would a paratime-traveling Raptor civilization been perceived as a
threat? If it was an expansionist one, then yes. If not, then perhaps
not. But... the Home Timeline has been presented as one greatly
worried about any possible competition, even to the point of killing
any unfortunate out-timers caught in inter-penetrating conveyors, just
to make absolutely certain the paratime-traveling secret is preserved
as a monopoly for the Home Timeline.
We can easily see the
argument: "Can't trust those lizards. They're not like us, you know.
They're sneaky and cold-blooded**... those lizards don't have real
emotions, like we do. Better hit them before they hit us!"
**but not literally
And what of the Raptors? What are *their* motives? Maybe they're saying the same thing about the Human paratimers.
A
war between two entrenched paratime-traveling civilizations would be
very costly for the Human Paratimers. Their civilization is set up for
trade, not for war. Maybe it would be just as costly for the Raptors,
if they're also set up for trade and not for conquest.
But
perhaps armed conflict is inevitable. And once it starts, it's hard to
see how it wouldn't escalate until one civilization or the other is
destroyed.
Or perhaps both.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-06-2009
16:47 UT
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~
Re: Sixth Level, Theropod Sector
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Of course, that makes you wonder what else could be across
> the para-years,
It
also makes me wonder if there's something "special" about the
(Martian-descended?) Home Timeliners discovering paratemporal
transposition on just a single timeline. . . .
> if the only limits to para exploration are time and
> the desire to reach farther and farther across paratime...
I
think Lensman points out some important cautions but it would be
interesting to imagine how the Home Timeliners might encounter the
Theropods. An obvious mechanism would be some sort of conveyor
malfunction which puts some Paratimers on a Theropod timeline--with them
perhaps then looking for a way to get "Home."
Or, some of the
Theropods themselves also know how to travel cross-time and find
themselves--intentionally or by accident--on one of the
First-through-Fifth Level timelines.
What would happen, say, if
Paratimers and Theropods were both committed to keeping their own
resective versions of the Paratime Secret? Would they cooperate to
maintain the Secret? Might there end up being some sort of Paratime
Cold War where both sides competed to exploit other timelines--and
fought each other over them at "low intensity"--perhaps while still
collaborating to maintain the Secret?
Down Lizardmen!
David
--
"You
know any kind of observation that doesn't contaminate the thing
observed, professor?" - Tortha Karf (H. Beam Piper),
_Lord_Kalvan_of_Otherwhen_
~
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Lensman
09-04-2009
15:33 UT
|
QT - Jon Crocker wrote:
> Of course, that makes you wonder what else could be across the
> para-years, if the only limits to para exploration are time and the
> desire to reach farther and farther across paratime...
Sure.
Once you've opened Pandora's Box, anything could come out. Allowing
for the possibility of Dromaeosaur (raptor) sectors also allows for the
possibility of much stranger things, in infinite number.
Depending
on how far away from the canon you want to go, one could even specify
that if one went far enough, more basic things start to change; the
shape of continents, the type of plants and animals. Then you'd wind
up with a setting more like classic Flash Gordon than Piper's Paratime.
Or take the idea even farther; the physical laws of the universes
start to change, and now you're in Zelazny's Shadows of Amber
territory.
But personally, I'd never go that far. If you want to
write an Amber or a Flash Gordon pastiche, then stick to that. No
need to attempt to shoehorn those concepts into Piper's Paratime.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
Jon Crocker 09-04-2009
05:06 UT
|
A few million years across the Fifth Level 'desert' would be enough to
separate the "Therapod" Sector from Piper's core region. I'd have to
check, but I think the biggest "para-distance" mentioned is something on
the order of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Para Years.
Of
course, that makes you wonder what else could be across the para-years,
if the only limits to para exploration are time and the desire to reach
farther and farther across paratime...
Jon
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