|
David Johnson
10-31-2009
21:39 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> Remember the F-111 Edwards "white bird" on Karf's farm? The one
> with the IWE hyperdrive? Very nasty mess.......
Afraid I don't recognize the reference. Was that from one of John's sequels?
Down Styphon!
David
P.S.
Jim: let's take the "glory day" reminiscences off-line; they're
certainly "off-topic" for this list. I've blind-copied you here which
should give you my direct e-address too.
--
"And when somebody
makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask
him what he means." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), _Space_Viking_
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr  10-31-2009
11:53 UT
|
Roger that, David, the GAU firing and the disengagement would probably
damage the wing, but Lt. Col.'s Teague and Millsap wrestle her back that
time. After all, you don't annoy Col. Miles (real character, cmdr.
Test Pilot School)if you don't have to. I spent some time in debriefs
with the gentleman.
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-31-2009
11:35 UT
|
Remember the F-111 Edwards "white bird" on Karf's farm? The one with the IWE hyperdrive? Very nasty mess.......
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-31-2009
11:16 UT
|
81755!!! Damn, you gotta recognize that. We stamped it on
everything. David, I was in 243 (AGE) and then in Field Service, later
Product Support Engineering, and various other places. I'm currently
enjoying my Lockheed paid retirement. Where were you and did you know
Gertie Poort down in the Composites Area? Dang, it's a small world
sometimes!! The Aardvark flight occurred but at o'dark thirty
and without any Paratime BS (unfortunately!) An AF puke and I were
doing an engine trim. I was heavily mixed up in the F16-XL and LANTIRN developments. Edited 10-31-2009 11:23
|
|
David Johnson
10-31-2009
05:23 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> If you were interpenetrated and blew the other conveyor away,
> relative to you, would it just disappear?
That
would be my guess, but who knows? Presumably, the destroyed conveyor
is not destroyed "instantaneously" so it would take some non- finite
amount of time for its transposition field to collapse. The other
conveyor would keep traveling and so perhaps the final failure of the
destroyed conveyor might no longer be visible to it.
(Presumably,
the wreckage of the "destroyed" conveyor would drop out of
"transposition space" onto the timeline where it was when the field
collapsed.)
If you're envisioning someone on some sort of
reverse-engineered prototype conveyor doing the "blowing away" then
you've thrown yet another variable into the mix. Who knows what the
effect would be when this reverse-engineered transposition field
interacts with a "standard" transposition field? From a dramatic
standpoint, I
believe you could portray just about any reasonable outcome and still maintain verisimilitude.
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_
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-31-2009
05:09 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> While the Aardvark lacked an integral cannon, it could mount 20
> and 30 MM gun pods, among other toys. Now imagine some poor
> individual in a dark green uniform standing up behind his
> control desk, staring at the pod decorated wing unit protruding
> into his conveyor, realizing that a sigma ray needler is about
> to come off a distant second best to a crude little Fourth Level
> 30 mill Gatling.........
Can't
wait to see how the Paratimers mop up the mess when this one is
finally sorted out! It's going to be a bit more complicated than just
dropping Calvin Morrison's trooper hat where it can be found. . . .
Down Styphon!
David
P.S.
I worked in the aircraft plant in Fort Worth when the last few
Aardvark's were there for retrofit in the late 1980s. (Mostly we were
building F-16s by then.)
--
"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_
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-31-2009
01:42 UT
|
If you were interpenetrated and blew the other conveyor away, relative to you, would it just disappear?
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-31-2009
01:23 UT
|
Thanks for the kind comments.
For those who've never seen the
name before, "Aardvark" was the unofficial nickname for the F-111
series, due to its long and drooping radome. The reference is to
Edwards AFB, where I spent some time in the 1980's. What was originally
going on in this story was a test of some reverse engineered technology
mounted in the bomb compartment(remember my earlier comment about
safety of the Paratime secret). I mentioned this story sme time back.
After seeing David's posting, I may add an interpenetration, as "kill
it" could apply to "Fire!"
While the Aardvark lacked an integral
cannon, it could mount 20 and 30 MM gun pods, among other toys. Now
imagine some poor individual in a dark green uniform standing up behind
his control desk, staring at the pod decorated wing unit protruding into
his conveyor, realizing that a sigma ray needler is about to come off a
distant second best to a crude little Fourth Level 30 mill
Gatling.........
|
|
Jack Russell
10-31-2009
00:49 UT
|
I don't want to pick nits, but Piper died in 1964, not the 50s. There should be a correction on the website.
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
|
Lensman
10-31-2009
00:16 UT
|
David Johnson wrote:
> I want to encourage you along these lines. I think there's some
> interesting stuff to do with a Piper-inspired setting of multiple
> parallel worlds which takes into account our contemporary
> understanding of the universe.
Indeed.
Jim, just because you're using some premises that are different from
some of *our* premises doesn't mean there can't be good stories there.
One of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories is /The Seven-Percent
Solution/, by Nicholas Meyer. It's not compatible with canon, but it's a ripping good yarn!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Lensman
10-31-2009
00:06 UT
|
David Johnson wrote:
> Let's consider how Gavran Sarn may have gotten his nighthound from
> his estate on Home Timeline Venus to the Fourth Level timeline
> where he met his maker--and his nighthound got loose--in rural
> Pennsylvania. Most likely he traveled by paratemporal conveyor
> located on or near his estate on Venus to a Fifth Level timeline
> and then took some sort of interplanetary spacecraft (likely imported
> from a Second or Third Level timeline) from Fifth Level Venus to
> Fifth Level Earth. From there, he and his pet took another
> paratemporal conveyor from Fifth Level "rural Pennsylvania
> equivalent" to the Fourth Level timeline of the story.
Hmmm,
I hadn't considered the possibility of taking a spaceship via conveyor
to another timeline. I was presuming they were still using
rocketships, which would require extensive ground support facilities,
bulky rocket fuel, and a boatload of trained personnel.
But
skimming thru "Police Operation" I note they're using antigravity disc
probes-- which apparently were the origin of the W.W. II "Foo Fighter"
reports on *our* timeline-- which does indeed support your scenario
that a spacecraft might be transported to another timeline and function
there without requiring extensive ground support.
But I'm not
sure we need a complicated scenario to explain the presence of the
Venusian nighthound in "Police Operation". If it's legal to own
nighthounds on the Home Timeline Earth, then all Sarn has to do is to
have one imported, and then clandestinely use a conveyor to take it to
the fourth-level timeline which is the setting of "Police Operation".
Someone of his apparent status might have the clout to be able to take
the nighthound directly from the Home Timeline to his destination, but
it would be much easier to avoid being caught by taking it to some
outtime place less closely watched, perhaps even a minor estate he owned
somewhere, then take a conveyor from *there* to the fourth-level
timeline of "Police Operation".
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
23:44 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> Can you tell me what chapter that's in, please?
It's at the very beginning of the book.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"I
remember, when I was just a kid, about a hundred and fifty years
ago--a hundred and thirty-nine, to be exact--I picked up a fellow on
the Fourth Level, just about where you're operating, and dragged him a
couple of hundred parayears. I went back to find him and return him
to his own time-line, but before I could locate him, he'd been
arrested
by the local authorities as a suspicious character, and got himself
shot trying to escape. I felt badly about that. . . ." - Tortha Karf,
"Police Operation"
~
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
23:12 UT
|
David Johnson wrote:
> "Fourth Level was the big one. The others had devolved from low-
> probability genetic accidents; it was the maximum probability."
>
> No mention of any colonization from Mars. Indeed, the words
> "Mars" and "Martian" never appear in _Lord_Kalvan_.
Thanks, David. Can you tell me what chapter that's in, please?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Mike Robertson
10-30-2009
21:35 UT
|
Dietmar Wehr wrote:
> Haven't been back here for a long time but I wanted to let all
> of you know that my novella sequel to Cosmic computer is on
> Lulu.com entitled The Tides of Chaos.
Congratulations Dietmar!
I see there have been some changes to that draft I saw a few moths ago. I recommend Dietmar's story to anyone on the list.
Mike Robertson
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
19:27 UT
|
~
Dietmar Wehr wrote:
> Haven't been back here for a long time but I wanted to let all
> of you know that my novella sequel to Cosmic computer is on
> Lulu.com entitled The Tides of Chaos.
Congratulations! I found the direct link here:
http://www.lulu.com/product/e-book-downloa...es-of-chaos/5038457
I
can see from the preview that you had more in mind than simply a
sequel to _Cosmic_Computer_. Both the Gilgameshers and the Alliance
refugees from Abigor appear in the first chapter!
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
David
--
"I hope I've made the point, without over-making it, that the
proletariat aren't good and virtuous, only stupid, weak and
incompetent." - H. Beam Piper (on "A Slave is a Slave")
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
18:44 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> The Aardvark pitched up, and then it happened. Runway 22, the
> mountains beyond Rogers Dry Lake, the Army rocket base, all
> started to crawl around and flow like a Dali painting. The very
> rocks moved around. But the attitude ball in front of him froze
> in place as if nailed to the ground.
>
> "Teague, what in Hell?..........."
>
> "Christ, Jim, I see it too!"
>
> "Kill the goddam thing! Kill it NOW!"
Enjoyed the detail here. First encounter with a paratemporal conveyor?
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_
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
18:40 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> 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.
Well,
that's certainly attention getting! Presumably, Vall will eventually
encounter Jim Manteuffel, and his wife Melanie and Dalla will become
the best of friends, right?
Looking forward to reading more.
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 Johnson
10-30-2009
15:03 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> but the
> reality would be that the Paratiming lines would have some kind
> of UN-like oversight body that would keep things straightened
> out involving trade, settlement, and the like. They'd probably
> have devised a coding method to keep each other's conveyors off
> each other's claimed lines so this would be largely invisible in
> the stories, but it would add to the number of conveyors
> interpenetrating and picking things up.
I
agree with Lensman that this approach takes us immediately away from
canon. While I believe the idea of multiple paratime-traveling
civilizations presents some remarkable dramatic possibilities--see the
discussion a while back about a possible "Sixth Level"
civilization
of sapient theropods--it's really very difficult to incorporate such a
concept into Beam's Paratime. (Unless, of course, there was some
sort of catastrophic schism among the Paratimers themselves, which may
be the path Beam had started down in "Time Crime.")
A
Piper-inspired setting of multiple parallel worlds, which wasn't quite
Paratime, would work for such a dramatic purpose quite well. And it
would have the added advantage of being immediately
accommodating to your impulse to incorporate our contemporary
understanding of the universe into the yarns too.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"You
know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that
everybody believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
"Graveyard of Dreams"
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
14:50 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> All good arguments, by the way. I may change what I'm doing,
> and start something entirely new. Derivative, of course, but
> what isn't these days.
I'm
going to have more to say about the excerpts you've posted here
(later today, I hope) but meanwhile I want to encourage you along
these lines. I think there's some interesting stuff to do with a
Piper-inspired setting of multiple parallel worlds which takes into
account our contemporary understanding of the universe.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"You
know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that
everybody believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
"Graveyard of Dreams"
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-30-2009
07:01 UT
|
All good arguments, by the way. I may change what I'm doing, and start
something entirely new. Derivative, of course, but what isn't these
days.
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-30-2009
06:54 UT
|
Sorry, Lensman. I'm the author. It's part of something I'm working on.
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
06:03 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> Despite the fact I've read all the Paratime stories at least
> twice, I still am fuzzy on how a cross-time conveyor works.
> *If* the conveyors only travel from one timeline to another,
> and must exist in the same *physical* location on both
> timelines, then it certainly makes sense that the Paratime
> culture has no *direct* commerce with any Venus except that on
> the Home Timeline. Transport by crosstime travel may be
> relatively cheap and inexpensive, but interplanetary transport
> is *not*. If the Home Timeline gets imports from outtime
> Venus, then it's by way of interplanetary transport by
> outtimers on their *own* timeline. In other words, trade goods
> would travel from an outtime Venus to the Earth of *that*
> timeline using the normal transport systems of that timeline,
> and only *then* would they be picked up by Paratimers or their
> outtime agents, for transport back to the Home Timeline.
I
believe you have it right. Let's consider how Gavran Sarn may have
gotten his nighthound from his estate on Home Timeline Venus to the
Fourth Level timeline where he met his maker--and his nighthound got
loose--in rural Pennsylvania. Most likely he traveled by
paratemporal
conveyor located on or near his estate on Venus to a Fifth Level
timeline and then took some sort of interplanetary
spacecraft
(likely imported from a Second or Third Level timeline) from Fifth
Level Venus to Fifth Level Earth. From there, he and his pet took
another paratemporal conveyor from Fifth Level "rural
Pennsylvania equivalent" to the Fourth Level timeline of the story.
Another
possibility might have been for him to have transposed from his
estate on First Level Venus to a Second or Third Level timeline where
interplanetary travel was commonplace, taking a local
spacecraft
from Venus to Earth and transposing from there to Fourth Level rural
Pennsylvania. This option might present a bit more risk of exposure
to non-Paratimers but has the advantage of not requiring an extensive
interplanetary transportation infrastructure on Fifth Level.
Still,
I'm guessing it may not be uncommon for a Venusian green-seal thavrad
to have an interplanetary spacecraft always ready for his personal
use on Fifth Level Venus equivalent. . . .
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"Good things in the long run are often tough while they're
happening." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), _Space_Viking_
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
05:45 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> Authors are of course entitled to make these changes in their
> stories. After all, the series belong to *them*. But IMHO we
> fans have no such luxury. What's written *is* canon. We
> cannot pick and choose between different assumptions in
> different stories; we must assume they are *all* true, except
> where they *directly* contradict one another. And even then, I
> think the correct approach is to assume that what *appears* to
> be a contradiction wouldn't be, if only we knew more about the
> *entire* situation.
I
agree generally. Obviously though, this presents the opportunity for
great differences in opinion in interpreting what constitutes a
direct contradiction. For myself, I'm not all that interested in
rectifying the multiple Home Timelines of "Police Operation" with the
single Home Timeline of Beam's subsequent Paratime yarns nor am I
interested in rectifying the explanation offered in _Lord_Kalvan_ for
the differences in the Levels of Paratime with Beam's earlier account
of different prehistoric outcomes of a Martian attempt to colonize
Earth. In each case, I'm comfortable accepting Beam's later choice
and am content to overlook his earlier framings.
Assassins' Truce!
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_
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
05:33 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> QT - David Johnson wrote:
>
>> So, if the nighthound
>> environment on "our" Fourth Level Venus is the same as that on
>> First Level Home Timeline (where Sarn's nighthound came from)
[snip]
>
> Or at least, it hasn't been terraformed enuff to cause the
> nighthound species to die out. There *might* have been some
> minor terraforming, altho as you say there's no evidence for
> that, and you've certainly demonstrated there was no *major*
> terraforming.
Agreed.
The point isn't so much whether or not there might have been some
minor terraforming of First Level Venus in Home Timeline
prehistory.
The point is that the Venus of the Fourth Level timeline where
"Police Operation" takes place--which I presume is the same timeline
on which Calvin Morrison learned to make gunpowder--is more like the
First Level Venus of Gavran Sarn's nighthound than it is like the
Venus we understand to be orbiting Solward from us today.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"Naturally.
Foxx Travis would expect a soul to be carried in a holster." - Miles
Gilbert (H. Beam Piper), "Oomphel in the Sky"
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-30-2009
05:21 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
> QT - David Johnson wrote:
>
>> but by the time he got to the Lord Kalvan yarns Beam had explicitly
>> _abandoned_ the "Martian hypothesis," writing instead of
>> "low-probability genetic accidents" as the source of variation in
>> development across the different Levels of Paratime.
>
> Quote, please?
Here's the text explaining the different Levels of Paratime from _Lord_Kalvan_:
"Twelve
thousand years ago, facing extinction on an exhausted planet, the
First Level race had discovered the existence of a second,
lateral,
time dimension and a means of physical transposition to and from a
near-infinity of worlds of alternate probability parallel to their
own. . . .
"Second Level that had been civilized almost as long
as the First, but there had been dark-age interludes. Except for
paratemporal transposition, most of its sectors equaled First Level,
and from many, Home Time Line had learned much. The Third Level
civilizations were more recent, but still of respectable antiquity and
advancement. Fourth Level had started late and progressed slowly;
some Fourth Level genius was first domesticating animals long after
the steam engine was obsolescent all over the Third. And Fifth Level
on a few sectors, subhuman brutes, speechless and fireless, were
cracking nuts and each other's heads with stones, and on most of it
nothing even vaguely humanoid had appeared.
"Fourth Level was
the big one. The others had devolved from low- probability genetic
accidents; it was the maximum probability."
No mention of any colonization from Mars. Indeed, the words "Mars" and "Martian" never appear in _Lord_Kalvan_.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"And
you know what English is? The result of the efforts of Norman
men-at-arms to make dates with Saxon barmaids. . . ." - Victor Grego
(H. Beam Piper), _Fuzzy_Sapiens_
~
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
02:59 UT
|
David Johnson wrote:
> (This must also presume that no Fifth Level paratemporal conveyors
> are located on Venus to aid transposition to Venus on Second--and
> perhaps Third--Level timelines or on Home Timeline. In other words,
> despite the fact that Fifth Level is used as a sort of "grand
> central terminal" for operations across Paratime, these are all
> focused only on Terra despite the fact of spacefaring Second--and
> perhaps Third--Level civilizations which sometimes encompass Venus.)
Despite
the fact I've read all the Paratime stories at least twice, I still am
fuzzy on how a cross-time conveyor works. *If* the conveyors only
travel from one timeline to another, and must exist in the same
*physical* location on both timelines, then it certainly makes sense
that the Paratime culture has no *direct* commerce with any Venus except
that on the Home Timeline. Transport by crosstime travel may be
relatively cheap and inexpensive, but interplanetary transport is *not*.
If the Home Timeline gets imports from outtime Venus, then it's by
way of interplanetary transport by outtimers on their *own* timeline.
In other words, trade goods would travel from an outtime Venus to the
Earth of *that* timeline using the normal transport systems of that
timeline, and only *then* would they be picked up by Paratimers or
their outtime agents, for transport back to the Home Timeline.
> And therefore it is possible--if perhaps not quite reasonable--to
> conclude that one could shoehorn contemporary stories into (something
> not quite) Beam's Paratime universe which include a Fourth Level
> Venus akin to the actual Venus which we understand in a "rivet-seeing
> reality" sense today.
It
seems that Jim Sparr's intent here is to postulate that the Venus of
one particular Fourth Level Europo-American timeline-- which at the time
the Paratime stories were published, *appeared* to coincide with our
own world, but no longer appear so-- has a Venus indistinguishable from
the "real world" Venus.
But even if we accept Jim's premises,
which would require us to assume that a great deal of what Piper wrote
is simply *wrong*, then it's insufficient to explain away the
inconsistencies.
A fundamental assumption of the Paratime series
is that the phenomenon described in the Real World as "Chaos Theory"
simply does not have noticeable affect across the timelines. There is
no variation in the landscape-- and therefore no variation in the
movements of continental drift, glaciation or erosion patterns-- and
it's even said that the weather does not vary from one end of Paratime
to the other. Evolution clearly works precisely the same across all
timelines, too.
In fact, *all* the evidence we have, with the exception of the
"low-probability
genetic factors" mentioned upstream by David J., point to /human
decisions/ as being the only thing that varies from one timeline to
another.
This cannot be dismissed as "misperception" or
"ignorance" on the part of the Paratimers. This can only be a result
of direct observation. This is how the Paratime universe "works", and
clearly it works
differently than how *our* universe works. Here, Chaos reigns.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
02:29 UT
|
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> The Aardvark pitched up, and then it happened. Runway 22, the
> mountains beyond Rogers Dry Lake, the Army rocket base, all
> started to crawl around and flow like a Dali painting.
Jim,
if you're going to quote from a story, it would be nice if you'd
identify the story, and if the author is not Piper, then it would be
nice if you'd identify the author too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
02:18 UT
|
QT - Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> In this scenario Mars was a stopover planet due to "Green"
> considerations mixed with what one could call "Belter/Spacer"
> fears of biological contamination and general prejudice against
> "going down a hole". Any mature deep space civilization will go
> after rocks and comets first, terraform second, and only set
> foot on a "biosewer" when it's profitable ("thionite",
> "vergaline") or they absolutely have to. Check the literature on
> "interstellar exploration". See "Von Neumann probe". Some of
> the things that made the Villas-Boas UFO story believable were
> his disinfection and most of the crew wearing suits around him.
It
would, of course, help your case if there was the *slightest* evidence
of *any* galactic civilization pre-existing the Mars colony in any
Paratime story. Instead, what we have is a few passing statements that
on some second- or third-level timelines, Earth has (apparently only
recently) developed interstellar travel and perhaps has a few
interstellar colonies.
Niven's Belter civilization (unconsciously
swiped from Randall Garrett's Belter civilization), and "Doc" Smith's
interstellar/intergalactic Civilization, are concepts which are not
compatible with the Paratime stories. I may be wrong, but offhand it
sounds like you're assuming something like the "Newton-Wold Universe"
hypothesis, where many/most fictional universes are linked. Obviously
there are *some* fans which enjoy that sort of thing, since you can
find a few Newton-Wold Universe fan websites, but in reducing any one
fictional universe to being just one piece of a "patchwork quilt", it
marginalizes the importance of any one.
Personally, I think that
*any* fictional universe worthy of analysis is worthy of consideration
alone, as it "stands on its own two feet", and not as just one
ill-fitting piece in a mismash.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
01:54 UT
|
QT - David Johnson wrote:
> The different probabilities of success of the Martian effort to
> colonize Terra is discussed in Beam's early Paratime yarns--"Police
> Operation," "Last Enemy," "Temple Trouble," (all published before
> "Genesis") and "Time Crime" (published four years after "Genesis")
> but by the time he got to the Lord Kalvan yarns Beam had explicitly
> _abandoned_ the "Martian hypothesis," writing instead of
> "low-probability genetic accidents" as the source of variation in
> development across the different Levels of Paratime.
Quote, please?
> In other words, by the early 1960s when he was writing about Lord
> Kalvan, Beam seems to have adjusted his conception of Paratime on the
> basis of what science was telling us about the planet Mars. . . .
When
writing new works, it is perhaps unsurprising that authors update the
background of their stories to make them relevant to then-current
readers. Frex Larry Niven's first published story was set on a one-face
Mercury. The fact that Mercury does rotate was established using
radar, and this occurred between the time Niven's story was accepted
and when it was published. In a much more recent story, also set in
the Known Space universe, Niven has Mercury rotating just as it does in
ours.
Authors are of course entitled to make these changes in their
stories. After all, the series belong to *them*. But IMHO we fans
have no such luxury. What's written *is* canon. We cannot pick and
choose between different assumptions in different stories; we must
assume they are *all* true, except where they *directly* contradict one
another. And even then, I think the correct approach is to assume
that what *appears* to be a contradiction wouldn't be, if only we knew
more about the *entire* situation.
Of course, this method of
retcon isn't *always* possible. It's an ideal, and ideals cannot
always be realized. But perhaps in the case described above, we can
postulate that "low-probability genetic
accidents" is the cause for the variation in how well the Martians' attempt to colonize Earth worked... or didn't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
01:32 UT
|
Jack Russell wrote:
> Has anybody considered the possibility that information
> available on Venus in the 1950s was much sketchier than today?
> Piper wrote about a Venus based on the understanding of the
> planet at the time.
Sure,
we understand that. But that doesn't stop fans *and* authors from
engaging in the "game" of trying to retcon older stories to fit new
scientific discoveries and theories.
We do this because we find it to be interesting and *fun*. If it's neither interesting nor fun for you, then just ignore it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
01:24 UT
|
QT - Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> Another issue I differ on is the uniqueness of Home Time Line.
> All the evidence is that billions of lines exist in any sheaf.
> Beam probably avoided this for structural reasons but the
> reality would be that the Paratiming lines would have some kind
> of UN-like oversight body that would keep things straightened
> out involving trade, settlement, and the like.
Sorry,
but that directly contradicts canon in the most fundamental manner.
You are of course free to assume any sort of premises you like for some
*other* universe, but you can't claim that a Paratimer universe with a
multiplicity of Paratime-traveling cultures is what's described in
Piper's stories.
Piper did make the mistake in the first Paratime
story of suggesting there were multiple Home Timelines-- and that
needs a major fanfix retcon to explain away, which I've recently done--
but he quickly corrected the error in later stories and repeatedly
said there was only one.
In a Paratimer universe with a multiplicity
of Paratimer cultures, paratime travel would *not* be any secret... at
least, not for long.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
Lensman
10-30-2009
01:12 UT
|
QT - David Johnson wrote:
> Clearly, Venus on "our" Fourth Level timeline has not been
> terraformed by the First Level Paratimers (doing so would have
> also put the Secret at risk someday). So, if the nighthound
> environment on "our" Fourth Level Venus is the same as that on
> First Level Home Timeline (where Sarn's nighthound came from)
> then there must not have been any terraforming of First Level
> Venus either.
Well argued, sir!
Or
at least, it hasn't been terraformed enuff to cause the nighthound
species to die out. There *might* have been some minor terraforming,
altho as you say there's no evidence for that, and you've certainly
demonstrated there was no *major* terraforming.
And yes, I think
we must conclude that the natural condition of Venus is more-or-less
identical in all the timelines, just as the landscape of Earth is the
same across all timelines. If continental drift and erosion patterns
on Earth do not vary from timeline to timeline, if even the *weather*
is the same-- except (as a fanfix) for local variations caused by human
alteration of the landscape-- then Venus must be pretty
indistinguishable from timeline to timeline, just as an uninhabited
Earth on one timeline is indistinguishable from an uninhabited Earth on
another.
Yet, Humans alter the landscape at need, or even for
convenience. We drain swamps, we cut down and burn out forests to
clear land for farming. We alter the course of rivers-- even the
Romans did that at times.
If we were to colonize the Mars of
Bradbury or Piper, would we not "improve" the planet by dropping some
ice-teroids onto the surface? Of *course* we would! It's not
believable to think that we wouldn't. Yes, in the Paratimer universe,
Venus was and is inhabitable. But it seems remarkable to me to suggest
that they did not alter the planet in any significant way after
colonization to make it even *more* inhabitable. And if they didn't,
then why?
Following your argument, David, we might suggest that
if the Venus of the Paratime universe was not terraformed even
slightly, then this indicates it is even closer to Earthlike than the
"warm wet swampy Venus" of Victorian SF.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
|
David Johnson
10-29-2009
14:46 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> If you look at my earlier comment, I specifically note Second
> Level as having a terraformed Venus.
My
apologies for not paying close enough attention. Perhaps you've
found a big-enough shoehorn then. Despite the lack of any supporting
evidence from Beam himself, it is indeed possible--if perhaps not
quite reasonable--to assume that:
a) Ancient Home Timeliners
terraformed their Venus in prehistory (yet "contemporary" Paratimers
like Verkan Vall are generally unaware of this).
b) That
Second-Level civilizations on Akor-Neb _also_ terraformed their Venus
at some point (and that "contemporary" Paratimers find this
terraforming to be unremarkable enough not to consider it when
thinking about their own Venus).
c) That no Paratimer has ever
visited Venus on any Fourth or Fifth Level timeline to discover that
it does not look like (terraformed) Home Timeline Venus. (This must
also presume that no Fifth Level paratemporal conveyors are located on
Venus to aid transposition to Venus on Second--and perhaps
Third--Level timelines or on Home
Timeline. In other words,
despite the fact that Fifth Level is used as a sort of "grand central
terminal" for operations across Paratime, these are all focused only
on Terra despite the fact of spacefaring Second--and perhaps
Third--Level civilizations which sometimes
encompass Venus.)
And
therefore it is possible--if perhaps not quite reasonable--to
conclude that one could shoehorn contemporary stories into (something
not quite) Beam's Paratime universe which include a Fourth Level Venus
akin to the actual Venus which we understand in a "rivet-seeing
reality" sense today.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"Heinlein can do what he likes. I prefer to keep my heroine
_virgo_intacto_ until the end." - H. Beam Piper
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-29-2009
11:12 UT
|
The Aardvark pitched up, and then it happened. Runway 22, the
mountains beyond Rogers Dry Lake, the Army rocket base, all started to
crawl around and flow like a Dali painting. The very rocks moved
around. But the attitude ball in front of him froze in place as if
nailed to the ground. "Teague, what in Hell?..........." "Christ, Jim, I see it too!" "Kill the goddam thing! Kill it NOW!" _______________________________________________________ Be
careful what paradise you deal, what hope you make other dreamers feel,
for if too many hear it, they will struggle to draw near it, and in the
search they just might make it REAL! ----Leslie Fish, "Valhalla" Edited 10-29-2009 11:35
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-29-2009
05:44 UT
|
If you look at my earlier comment, I specifically note Second Level as
having a terraformed Venus. I did that because of the reference you
refer to, but assumed everyone here knew about it and would know why.
|
|
David Johnson
10-29-2009
03:38 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> Yes, basically I"m saying Karf and Vall messed away some
> taxpayers money to no good purpose, but they couldn't know that
> at the time.
I
suppose it's possible that no Paratimers have ever visited Venus on
_any_ Fourth Level timeline but for your claim to work it would have
to be more substantial than that. For the Paratimers to not realize
their Home Timeline Venus had been terroformed by their ancient
ancestors in prehistoric times they would have to have never visited
Venus on _any_ Level besides First. For surely, if they visited Venus
on a Second or Third Level timeline--which hadn't itself
terraformed Venus--they would know immediately that outtime Venus differed from Home Timeline Venus and the jig would be up.
We
know, of course (from "Last Enemy"), that the Paratimers _have_
visited Venus on at least one Second Level timeline (on Akor-Neb
Sector). So the question is not just why Tortha and Verkan have
(mistakenly) assumed that Fourth Level Venus is the same as
(prehistorically terraformed) Home Timeline Venus but why they
haven't
assumed it is like, say, Second Level Akor-Neb Venus which is also
apparently inhabitable despite _not_ having been terraformed by
prehistoric Home Timeliners. . . .
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"The
Terro-Human Future History . . . has a historian's attention to
sociological and political detail that is unsurpassed." - John F.
Carr, Introduction to _Empire_
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-29-2009
01:53 UT
|
Roger that. "Assassins' Truce!"
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-28-2009
23:51 UT
|
Yes, basically I"m saying Karf and Vall messed away some taxpayers money
to no good purpose, but they couldn't know that at the time. As Vall
makes clear in one of his introspections, they're cops, not scientists,
and even Home scientists would have been largely ignorant of outtime
planetology. Consider the economics, why would anyone explore a fourth-
or fifth-level solar system. Dhergobar U. would get a grant for that
when Hell froze over.
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-28-2009
23:38 UT
|
"I Told You So", now seriously entitled "Timewrecked" (a multiple
entendre) is circling in on its slow orbit, much like an earth crossing
asteroid. When it sells (I follow "Heinlein's Law"), we'll see what
happens. My questions had to do with firming up an interplanetary chase
sequence (partially outtime) in "Timewrecked"
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
23:02 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> Reality in fiction is reflecting what "is", that we know of.
Perhaps, but if so "reality" in Beam's fiction reflects what
_he_knew_
not what we, living half a century after he was writing, bring to his
work today. The Venus which orbits sunward from Earth in 2009
_did_not_exist_ in H. Beam Piper's "reality."
> The incoming facts are going to do some damage,
Beam understood this phenomenon. Just read his comments about
Sputnik in "The Future History":
http://www.zarthani.net/Images/zenith.pdf
> "Paratime" is as real
> as "space travel" was in the 1950's.
Not
quite. A similar sort of multidimensional universe of "parallel
worlds" might be a fictional construct which we can consider today
with our contemporary sensibilities but Beam's Paratime is locked
firmly in the historical and cultural milieu in which he was writing.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"_Space_Viking_
itself is . . . a yarn that will be cited, years hence, as one of the
science-fiction classics. It's got solid
philosophy for the
mature thinker, and bang-bang-chop-'em-up action for the space-pirate
fans. As a truly good yarn should have!" - John W. Campbell, 1962
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-28-2009
22:28 UT
|
I'm not "merely a fan", I'm a colonist, you might say. I realize
some here are mountain men, but the miners have arrived. Let's get
along, please. Edited 10-28-2009 22:31
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-28-2009
22:13 UT
|
Oh, my! Now THIS kind of interaction is what I joined the forum for!
In
this scenario Mars was a stopover planet due to "Green" considerations
mixed with what one could call "Belter/Spacer" fears of biological
contamination and general prejudice against "going down a hole". Any
mature deep space civilization will go after rocks and comets first,
terraform second, and only set foot on a "biosewer" when it's profitable
("thionite", "vergaline") or they absolutely have to. Check the
literature on "interstellar exploration". See "Von Neumann probe". Some
of the things that made the Villas-Boas UFO story believable were his
disinfection and most of the crew wearing suits around him.
Reality
in fiction is reflecting what "is", that we know of. This is nearly a
definition of "Hard sci-fi". I write so hard you "can see the rivets".
Back when I was a physics major, I absorbed Hugh Everett's many-worlds
interpretation of quantum mechanics. It permeates current theory in
some areas. To deny that, be sure and don a Kevlar helmet and duck
behind a granite desk. The incoming facts are going to do some damage,
particularly as quantum gravity matures. "Paratime" is as real as
"space travel" was in the 1950's. Piper's observations on politics and
society are as real as the morning news.
David, my comments on
rereading were targeted at everyone, not you in particular by any means.
We've got to read the canon to stay knowledgeable, just like we have
to in any field.
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
22:05 UT
|
~
Jack Russell wrote:
> Oh, I agree that "Genesis" was forth level. But the central
> idea was that Earth was colonized by Mars with greater or
> lesser degrees of success.
I'm not so sure this is the central idea. The different
probabilities
of success of the Martian effort to colonize Terra is discussed in
Beam's early Paratime yarns--"Police Operation," "Last Enemy," "Temple
Trouble," (all published before "Genesis") and "Time Crime"
(published four years after "Genesis") but by the time he got to the
Lord Kalvan yarns Beam had explicitly _abandoned_ the "Martian
hypothesis," writing instead of "low-probability genetic accidents" as
the source of variation in development across the different Levels of
Paratime.
In other words, by the early 1960s when he was writing
about Lord Kalvan, Beam seems to have adjusted his conception of
Paratime on the basis of what science was telling us about the planet
Mars. . . .
Down Styphon!
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
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
21:53 UT
|
~
Jack Russell wrote:
> Has anybody considered the possibility that information
> available on Venus in the 1950s was much sketchier than today?
I don't believe this is news to anyone here.
This
List/Forum is devoted to Piper's (life and) fiction. There are
plenty of places on the 'Net where one can talk about the challenges
of terraforming Venus with a 21st Century understanding of
planetology. This just isn't one of them. . . .
> If Piper were writing
> "Police Operation" today, the Nighthound would have come from
> another star system or he would have added a blurb about
> Terraforming Venus.
Perhaps,
but Piper is not writing today. I can see how this might present
challenges for folks trying to write yarns set in Beam's universe for
audiences with today's sensibilities but it's not an issue for those
of us who are merely fans of Piper and his work.
Remember Ashmodai! Remember Belphegor!
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_
~
|
|
Jack Russell
10-28-2009
21:19 UT
|
Oh, I agree that "Genesis" was forth level. But the central idea was
that Earth was colonized by Mars with greater or lesser degrees of
success. The rest is all a matter of probability factors affecting the
corse of each timeline's developement...or lack thereof. So, if Earth
was settled 50,000 to 75,000 years ago on 4th Level, it is reasonable
to assume that the same occured on 1st level at aound the same time.
As
for Mars being a stop-over planet, well, I've heard this pet theory
floating around, but never found any canonical evidence to support it.
Fankly, no matter how far back you go, earth was always a better planet
than Mars. Why go there instead of earth in the first place?
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
|
Jack Russell
10-28-2009
21:10 UT
|
Has anybody considered the possibility that information available on
Venus in the 1950s was much sketchier than today? Piper wrote about a
Venus based on the understanding of the planet at the time. Today we
know that Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system (yes, beating
out even Mercury) and lacks the water originally believed to be in
abundance. Guess what, he wasn't the only one. Isaac Asimov wrote
about a Mars with a breathable atmosphere. Edgar Rice Burroughs would
have you think Jupitor was livable. Eventually science fact killed a
lot of science fiction...basically they beat Dejah Thoris to death with
telescopes and satellites. If Piper were writing "Police Operation"
today, the Nighthound would have come from another star system or he
would have added a blurb about Terraforming Venus.
It's not the writer's fault that science changed its mind about the facts.
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
15:13 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> Beam probably avoided this for structural reasons but the
> reality would be that. . . .
I'm
afraid I don't understand this point at all. What "reality" could
there possibly in _Beam's_fictional_setting_ which he may have
"avoided for structural reasons"? Paratime is not a _real_ thing;
it's a fictional construct of H. Beam Piper! It has no "reality"
outside of how he chose to portray it.
Sure, his ideas about
Paratime may have _changed_ over time (as evidenced by the way he
drops the paradox of multiple Home Timelines which occurs in his first
Paratime yarn), which may create some intractable continuity
challenges, but that doesn't mean there is any "reality" of Paratime
other than how Beam portrayed it.
Down Styphon!
David
--
"Heinlein can do what he likes. I prefer to keep my heroine
_virgo_intacto_ until the end." - H. Beam Piper
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
15:08 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> LOL! No, reread it closely.
Did
you really intend to imply that I've not read it closely, or do you
merely mean to note that your own reading of the yarn leads you to a
different conclusion?
> Vall ASSUMED it would be a problem
> when the people on that timeline got there. He'd no more been
> to their Venus than he'd been to Disneyland.
Are
you claiming that Verkan Vall (and Tortha Karf) conducted the entire
"Police Operation" unnecessarily? That if they'd just
bothered to
take a spacecraft over to Fourth Level Venus they'd realize its
biosphere looked nothing like their own, First Level Venus (also,
thereby finally discovering that their ancient ancestors had
terraformed their own Venus in their own prehistory)?
Again, I
suppose that's possible but there's no evidence in the Paratime canon
to suggest it's the case. It's true that if we assume that everything
Beam told us about his characters was meant to
portray them as
unreliable reporters on actual circumstances in his fictional
universe, we can engage in all sorts of flights of fancy. I'm not
sure I understand the point of such an exercise though. . . .
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"And
when somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him
he's crazy. Ask him what he means." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper),
_Space_Viking_
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-28-2009
13:20 UT
|
Another issue I differ on is the uniqueness of Home Time Line. All the
evidence is that billions of lines exist in any sheaf. Beam probably
avoided this for structural reasons but the reality would be that the
Paratiming lines would have some kind of UN-like oversight body that
would keep things straightened out involving trade, settlement, and the
like. They'd probably have devised a coding method to keep each other's
conveyors off each other's claimed lines so this would be largely
invisible in the stories, but it would add to the number of conveyors
interpenetrating and picking things up.
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-28-2009
12:56 UT
|
LOL! No, reread it closely. Vall ASSUMED it would be a problem when
the people on that timeline got there. He'd no more been to their Venus
than he'd been to Disneyland. If you read the canon closely the First
Levelers make a lot of assumptions based on their presumed superiority.
"Police Operation" and "Time Crime" are full of them. You see this
breaking down a little in Vall and Karf's conversation at the end of
"Kalvan". What if Second Level IWE hyperdrive engineers and Fourth
Level sci-fi writers crossed paths? Remember that one? The First
Levelers have flaws and don't know everything, and the Paratime Secret
is not safe........
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
06:39 UT
|
~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> 3. First and Second Levels terraformed Venus, the others did
> not.
Why would they bother, when it's clear from "Police Operation" that Venus is naturally habitable across all of Paratime?
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"[Computers]
can't imagine, they can't create, and they can't do anything a human
brain can't." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
"Graveyard of Dreams"
~
|
Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-28-2009
06:29 UT
|
I've done some serious thinking and research on this subject and came up with the following:
1.
Beam never claimed "Genesis" as part of "Paratime". If he had, it
would pertain to Fourth level, not First, as only Fourth is claimed as
having totally forgotten its origins.
2. The First Level
Civilization are not great historians. You can assume that the original
humans in the Solar System evolved elsewhere and arrived here in a
starship. Mars was a stopover for easily derived reasons on First and
Second, Third and Fourth levels landed directly on Earth.
3. First and Second Levels terraformed Venus, the others did not.
4. The First Level Civilization have scarcely explored space outside their own level. The Ardath incident is proof.
I think this leaves the field free for the rest of us, and many more to elaborate.
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
06:11 UT
|
~
Mike Robertson wrote:
> Lensman writes;
>
> "Personally I would find a discussion of how paratimers alter a
> world to make it habitable on topic."
>
> I would agree its on topic but I don't think its likely. Having
> millions of alternate earths, including the unoccupied 5th
> Level, means there's plenty of vacant land with resource sites
> already known. Why would you have to spend time and energy
> altering another world to make it habitable?
Actually,
with a bit more reflection, it's clear First Level Venus was _never_
terraformed by Paratimers. We know this from "Police Operation"; it
is a central element of the yarn's plot.
The reason the Paratime
Secret is at risk from the nighthound which was illegally transported
from Home Timeline Venus to "our" Fourth Level timeline Earth is
because if the nighthound skeleton were preserved until such time as
"our" timeline developed spaceflight and Terran explorers traveled to
Venus, the explorers would encounter nighthounds on "our" Fourth Level
Venus, making it clear that the original nighthound skeleton was
transported to Earth _prior_ to the development of interplanetary
spaceflight. It's a simple analytical jump from there to supposing a
civilization of (cross-)time travelers.
Clearly, Venus on "our" Fourth Level timeline has not been
terraformed
by the First Level Paratimers (doing so would have also put the
Secret at risk someday). So, if the nighthound environment on "our"
Fourth Level Venus is the same as that on First Level Home Timeline
(where Sarn's nighthound came from) then there must not have been any
terraforming of First Level Venus either.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"You
know, it's never a mistake to take a second look at anything that
everybody believes." - Rodney Maxwell (H. Beam Piper),
"Graveyard of Dreams"
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
04:47 UT
|
~
Jack Russell wrote:
> Actually, they would have had something like 40,000 years to
> adapt if they got busy 10,000 years after making Earthfall.
> This is an extimate, of course, but I think "Genesis" was
> between 50,000 and 75,000 years ago. That would suggest the
> Venus Terraformation could have started 40,000 to 65,000 years
> ago.
Is this a possibility? Yes. Is there _anything_ in the Paratime canon to suggest it may have been the case? No.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"Naturally.
Foxx Travis would expect a soul to be carried in a holster." - Miles
Gilbert (H. Beam Piper), "Oomphel in the Sky"
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
04:44 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
>> it seems clear that Venus (in the Paratime multiverse) is
>> habitable to humans and other Terran species.
>
> It is *now*. But the Home Timeline has a very old technological
> civilization. Who's to say that Venus was as inhabitable when
> first explored as it is now?
I suppose Beam would be the one to say, and he's given us no
indication that Venus wasn't habitable when the first Paratime
multiverse explorers--on any Level--reached it.
> The original form of Venus on the Home Timeline must have been
> much closer to the Victorian SF idea of a "warm swampy Venus
> with dinosaurs" than it is to *our* Venus,
I think that's it, both for Home Timeline Venus and for Venus
throughout the rest of Paratime.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"I
remember, when I was just a kid, about a hundred and fifty years
ago--a hundred and thirty-nine, to be exact--I picked up a fellow on
the Fourth Level, just about where you're operating, and dragged him a
couple of hundred parayears. I went back to find him and return him
to his own time-line, but before I could locate him, he'd been
arrested
by the local authorities as a suspicious character, and got himself
shot trying to escape. I felt badly about that. . . ." - Tortha Karf,
"Police Operation"
~
|
|
David Johnson
10-28-2009
04:39 UT
|
~
David "Lensman" Sooby wrote:
>> Why would you have to spend time and energy
>> altering another world to make it habitable?
>
> Because on the Home Timeline they have *already* colonized
> Venus. (Have they also colonized Mars? I forget.) Presumably
> those colonies were established before the discovery of
> cross-time travel.
That seems likely:
"It
was because of this compulsive urge to attack and kill the deadly
poison-roach that the first human settlers on Venus, long millennia
ago, had domesticated the ugly and savage nighthound. He remembered
that the Gavran family derived their title from their vast Venus
hotlands estates; that Gavran Sarn, the man who had brought this thing
to the Fourth Level, had been born on the inner planet." (from
"Police Operation")
> Having
> established those colonies, it's natural that the colonists
> would want to make the planet(s) more Earth-like.
Well,
I don't know if I agree it's "natural" but regardless there doesn't
seem to be any _evidence_ that the Paratimers made any effort to
terraform Venus.
> But if you like, we could discuss what would happen on one of
> those... is it third-level worlds?... where they've developed
> interstellar travel and colonies. Without access to easy
> cross-time travel, the economic incentive to terraform
> non-Earthlike worlds would be much greater.
Except that, apparently in Beam's vision, Venus is _already_
habitable
in the Paratime universe. It's been habitable on First Level for (at
least) "long millennia" and it's habitable on Second Level Akor Neb
Sector.
Assassins' Truce!
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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Jack Russell
10-27-2009
21:40 UT
|
Actually, they would have had something like 40,000 years to adapt if
they got busy 10,000 years after making Earthfall. This is an
extimate, of course, but I think "Genesis" was between 50,000 and
75,000 years ago. That would suggest the Venus Terraformation could
have started 40,000 to 65,000 years ago. This is a rather slow change,
really. We came out of an Ice Age a mere 10,000 years ago and the
elephant and rhino adapted nicely. Granted, that was a much less sever
climate shift than it would be for Venus, but Venus is getting and
extra 30,000 to 55,000 years, plus Martian science to make the shift.
It only took 11,000 years for us to turn a wolf into a poodle. What a
horrible thing to do to a wolf, by the way!
And even if the indigent
life was extinguished, there was a plethera of plants and animals ready
for transplantation a mere 20,000,000 miles away, about half the
distance from Earth to Mars (34,646,418 at closest orbit.)
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Spam messages 368-367 deleted by QuickTopic 10-28-2012 02:16 AM |
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Lensman
10-27-2009
20:24 UT
|
Mike Robertson wrote:
Having
> millions of alternate earths, including the unoccupied 5th
> Level, means there's plenty of vacant land with resource sites
> already known. Why would you have to spend time and energy
> altering another world to make it habitable?
Because
on the Home Timeline they have *already* colonized Venus. (Have they
also colonized Mars? I forget.) Presumably those colonies were
established before the discovery of cross-time travel. Having
established
those colonies, it's natural that the colonists would want to make the
planet(s) more Earth-like. Of course, this would be a much different
scenario than taking *our* Venus and making *it* inhabitable, because
it's very far from being so.
But if you like, we could discuss
what would happen on one of those... is it third-level worlds?... where
they've developed interstellar travel and colonies. Without access to
easy cross-time travel, the economic incentive to terraform
non-Earthlike worlds would be much greater.
BTW one current theory
is that Venus' lack of tectonic activity is due to a lack of water,
which on Earth lubricates the slippage of the tectonic places. If so,
then dropping a few large ice-teroids onto the planet will solve
multiple problems. That is, if not having mountains and earthquakes is
really a "problem", and I'm not convinced it is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
|
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David Johnson
10-27-2009
01:50 UT
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~
Jack Russell wrote:
> 3.) W are simply trying to account for a Venusian species
> surviving in a Terran climate. Not to mention the appeal of
> going to Venus to collect one in the first place.
Actually,
no. Not only do we have the Venusian nighthound from "Police
Operation" but we also have Verkan's (and Dalla's) cover as a Venusian
planter in "Last Enemy." In other words, it seems clear that Venus
(in the Paratime multiverse) is habitable to humans and other Terran
species.
Assassins' Truce!
David
--
"Good things in the long run are often tough while they're
happening." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), _Space_Viking_
~
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Jack Russell
10-26-2009
14:56 UT
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1.) 1st Level hasn't always had paratime travel capability. Just the
last, what, 10,000 years? So Terra-forming prior to to that would have
been a logical way to go, especially if they lacked for a hyperdrive.
Martians have been on Earth for about 50,000 or so years. With
inter-planetary travel available and a ghrowing population,
alternatives like a refurbished Venus would be the sensible plan.
2.)
If the Martians got started on Terra-foming Venus 40,000 years ago, and
even assuming it took a few thousand years to get right, that would be
enough time for much of its indiginous flora and fauna to adapt to the
new conditions. Not all would survive, of course, and there is always
the likelihood of Terran species being introduced and adapted, but
that is plenty of time for a new ecosystem to be stabilized - with a
bit of help.
3.) W are simply trying to account for a Venusian
species surviving in a Terran climate. Not to mention the appeal of
going to Venus to collect one in the first place. Earth would be
fatally cold to a Venusial wolf...not to mention the lack of serious
acid rain, the over abundance of water vapor in the air and the
potentially toxic (to it) wildlife roaming around.
Naturally, once
paratime travel became a reality, the need to terraform other worlds
would become greatly reduced, but you can't just spread you entire
population over multiple timelines and maintain a stable government
indefinately. And, not everybody would want to leave the home timeline.
Sometimes it takes a nuclear strike just to get people out of their
own counties! And, of course, a forward thinking people would keep a
back-up plan in place in case of catastrophic failure of the paratime
mechinism.
And I use Terrafoming as opposed to Aresforming or
Martioforming because Mars is a dead or dying planet. No sense copying
something that is obviously failing. Terra would provide an abundance
of plant and animal species available for transplantation while Mars
clearly could not.
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Lensman
10-26-2009
04:43 UT
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QT - David PiperFan Johnson wrote:
> Piper fan Doug Brown has tracked down the source of the original
> cover illustration for John F. Carr's anthology The Worlds of H.
> Beam Piper. It's the 1968 film The Green Slime. Excellent
> detective work, Doug!
I second that-- thank you, doug!
> Anyone have any ideas about why Ace made this odd choice?
I
question that Ace knew the source of the image. Looks to me like a
so-called artist took the original and altered it, then submitted it as
his own work. In other words, a plagiarist.
There are two sources for book cover art: A piece commissioned
specifically for a work, and a publisher's art files.
Does
this cover actually suggest a scene from one of the stories in that
collection? The cover seems to suggest "Mars explorers from Earth" to
me, but the only Mars-related story is "Genesis", and none of that story
actually takes place on Mars. I suspect this is just a generic SF
cover that the publisher slapped on the book. But I could be wrong
there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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Mike Robertson 10-26-2009
04:29 UT
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Lensman writes;
"Personally I would find a discussion of how paratimers alter a world to make it habitable on topic."
I
would agree its on topic but I don't think its likely. Having millions
of alternate earths, including the unoccupied 5th Level, means there's
plenty of vacant land with resource sites already known. Why would you
have to spend time and energy altering another world to make it
habitable?
Mike Robertson
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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 01-19-2016 06:08
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-26-2009
00:58 UT
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More Green Slime
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 10-26-2009
00:56 UT
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The Green Slime (1968)
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Jim Broshot
10-25-2009
02:23 UT
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QT - Lensman wrote:
> Personally, I find a discussion of "How would the Paratimers go
> about altering a planet to make it habitable, with their
> technology?" ...to be very much an on-topic discussion.
>
> However, come to think of it, the Venusian Bloodhound, or
> whatever the name of that predator was, and the fact it could
> survive on earth, is proof that the Paratimers did *not* have
> to terraform Venus; proof that the planet already had a
> more-or-less earthlike environment, and had had one for long
> enuff to develop a complex ecosystem.
Then there's S. M. Stirling's
"The Sky People" and "In the Courts of the Crimson Kings" which
postulate inhabitable Venus and Mars, and in some small way (especially in the latter) pay tribute to Beam.
Jim Broshot
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MMoeser237@aol.com
10-25-2009
00:03 UT
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Hello all -- could someone please repost info on the early November meeting in Altoona? Thanks, Mark
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David Johnson
10-23-2009
18:41 UT
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~
Rare Garland hardcover of Space Viking on eBay
I've come across an extra copy of the rare Garland hardcover of Space Viking and am offering it for sale on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170398248719
It would be great if this ended up in the hands of another Piper fan.
Good luck,
David
--
"Do
you know which books to study, and which ones not to bother with? Or
which ones to read first, so that what you read in the others will be
comprehensible to you? That's what they'll give you [at
university] on Terra. The tools, which you don't have now, for
educating yourself." - Bish Ware (H. Beam Piper), _Four-Day_Planet_ ~
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-22-2009
05:01 UT
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From "Recessional":
"UP!" the gunner shouted. Vall settled his
helmet, moved his head back from the CGST, and, as the click came over
the radio, calmly spoke "Fire". As usual, dust rose from every surface,
everything jolted backward about a foot, and the world around him
reverberated deafeningly and slammed his uniform and seat against him
like a full body spanking as 47 Rheinmetall 120's discharged into the
night. Putting his eye back to the night vision telescope revealed a
vision of hell that even Vall, who'd considered himself a connoisseur of
bloodshed, wasn't prepared for.
The Soviet troops who had been
climbing up the ridge had disappeared, but their weapons and equipment
were scattered everywhere. The surrounding rocks appeared spray painted
with something shiny and dripping. Farther away, motionless bodies lay
everywhere. Here and there, flaming wrecks of T-80's lit the scene in
an eldrich yellow green light. The bodies he could identify all had
lungs or other organs everted through mouths or other orfices. He
suddenly realized why the colonel had hammered fire discipline into
them, and what a 200 meter "danger zone" meant.
Vall had just been part of a distributed weapon of mass destruction. He would not forget the lesson.
Jim Sparr, Copyright 2009.
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-22-2009
02:14 UT
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Thanks David,
Somebody reading over my shoulder approved and then quoted Uhura's famous response to Sulu's "Fair lady" from "Amok Time".
He didn't hold to that with Dalla, but she and Dall were multiply married.
Regards
The Rhino
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David Johnson
10-21-2009
21:10 UT
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~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> really want some reaction to the writing stubs I've
> posted. I figure there's some political reason for the silence,
> so I've ignored it,
Nothing political here on my end; just haven't had the time to devote adequate attention to them yet.
David
--
"Heinlein can do what he likes. I prefer to keep my heroine
_virgo_intacto_ until the end." - H. Beam Piper
~
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-21-2009
11:39 UT
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By the way, "We're sorry 'bout the wreckage and the riots and the fuss,
at least we're sure that planet won't be soon forgetting us!" -- Banned
From Argo
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr 10-21-2009
11:08 UT
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Okay, colleagues,
Some folks here (Queens List material, call
them Clarissa and Signy) really want some reaction to the writing stubs
I've posted. I figure there's some political reason for the silence, so
I've ignored it, but I'm under some domestic pressure, so please
respond. The Red One and the Silver Fox are hard to ignore when
annoyed. And you should only have such problems, right?
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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 10-28-2012 07:16
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David Johnson
10-20-2009
13:51 UT
|
~
Re: List Moderation
Lensman wrote:
> Jack Russell wrote:
>
>> . . . and the devestation of the existing ecosystem (Earth+meteor
>> =zero dinosaurs).
>
> No, to actually alter the orbit of a major planet. . . .
Okay,
Piper fans, we're wandering off-topic again. Let's work a bit more
diligently to stay focused on Piper (whom I don't seem to recall ever
talking about terraforming--or aresforming--or dinosaurs. . .).
Thanks,
David (aka the List Moderator)
--
"John Campbell . . . is almost as big a fascist sonofabitch as I am. . . ." - H. Beam Piper
~
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Lensman
10-20-2009
11:21 UT
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Jack Russell wrote:
> Actually, I never saw /the Day the Earth caught Fire/. However,
> effect would be a matter of degree. Drop a hammer from a foot high
> and it won't crack the cement. Drop the same hammer from 100 ft up
> and you'll be filling a pothole afterward. Asteroid bombardment
> would be very effective. The trick would be in the size and timing,
> and the devestation of the existing ecosystem (Earth+meteor= zero
> dinosaurs).
No,
to actually alter the orbit of a major planet you're talking about
orders of magnitude more energy than a piffling little dinosaur-killer
asteroid impact. You're talking about something on the order of the
impact that created Luna; a Mars-sized planet hit the Earth a glancing
blow, turning it molten and smashing off large amounts of material into
orbit. Except in this case, since Venus wasn't given a moon, it would
be just a direct impact.
After that, how long would it take for
Venus to cool off enuff to have liquid water, assuming it was altered so
it *could* cool to approx. the temperature of the Earth? Hundreds of
thousands of years? Millions?
> What I don't see being workable is the contragrav. Think of the size
> it would have to be to affect a planetary mass. Then, what is it
> countering? What does it push against? Solar gravity is the only
> thing directly affecting Venus' orbit, though there is some effect
> from the other planetary bodies.
Pushing towards/ away from the sun would work, sure. If the
contragravity
effect would work at that distance, and I'm not at all sure it would.
But if they have something like Abbot lift-and-drive, that would
certainly work.
If you object it would take machines much too
powerful and massive to be practical, well then keep in mind your
asteroid strikes have to be just as powerful, and unlike the machines
they have to impart all their energy to the planet at the instant they
strike, instead of-- like the machines-- spreading out the force over
years, decades or even centuries.
> A controlled series of nuclear explosions would also alter the orbit
> and put a sizable dent in the surface, but you can't make an omelet,
> etc...
Well,
you'd need a series of nuclear explosions that would add up to the
energy of, again, something on the order of the force of a Mars-sized
planet hitting the Earth. Not very believable, and again if you *could*
do that, the energy and the damage to the planet would be orders of
magnitude more than a piffling little dinosaur-killer wrecking the
climate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
10-20-2009
01:09 UT
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Mars is much less of a problem for follow-on writers. The magnetic
field is weak, but exists, and may have once been much stronger.
There's water, oxygen bound into the surface rocks, etc., and we've far
from explored it all yet. And, the ruins, after 50K years plus, might
not look like Omnilingual at all, but maybe more like...............
________________________________________________________________ _____________-
Chris
Monteverdi opened the door to the room where his grad students were
handling control for the long since downgraded rover mission, and,
closing the door behind himself, waited for his eyes to adjust to the
semidarkness within. A chorus of "Hi, Dr. Monteverdi" and "Hi, Chris",
echoed around the small space as he moved slowly to a place behind Rita
McBride at her workstation, and looked at the rust red landscape filling
the monitor.
"Okay, guys, what did you bring me up here for?"
There
was some restless, nervous, shuffling. Then Rita cleared her throat,
and said "Chris, about two hours ago we noticed a color change off the
main traverse and decided to examine it. This is what we found."
As
her fingers danced over the keyboard the scene shifted to where the
rover had been previously, then fast forwarded to a view of a light
colored rectangle partially buried in red dust and pebbles. Centered in
the middle of it was a multicolored picture of small balls connected by
lines. Above and around the picture was what was undoubtedly writing,
in an unfamiliar script. It looked as much like a magazine cover as
anything could.
"I know what it looks like, but that's impossible"
"Impossible, hell, Rita" Mack Golder interjected, "It's there, it's real. I wonder what it says."
Chris leaned over Rita's chair and stared at the image for a moment, then said,
"That's
a molecular diagram of an iron silicate." He laughed, and then said,
mystifying most of his students, "I'll bet it says 'Mastharnorvod
Tadavas Sornhulva'".
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Jack Russell
10-19-2009
23:15 UT
|
Jim,
You bring up an excellent point about the magnetisphere.
The same problem exists for Mars. I think the "comet bombardment"
might actually help with that provided there was a significant amount
of iron and magnetite in the comets. The "dirty ice" would also be a
plus in restoring water vapor. If we could target the angle of impact
just right, we might also effect a rotational shift in the planet.
However, the only way I could think of to get the tectonics moving
would be to inject nth tons of radioactive material into its core. I
guess contra-grav and robot labor could dig a shaft for that job, but I
wouldn't plan on seeing it completed in Verkan Vall's lifetime, let
alone any 4th level denizen (what is the lifespan of 2nd and 3rd level
humans?)
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
10-19-2009
22:27 UT
|
Thanks, everybody. I was checking to see if there was a published
workaround for this that had entered the canon, and I hadn't seen it.
There isn't, apparently.
Venus, by the way, does not appear to be
easily terraformable, certainly not with the simple "bomb it with
algae" approaches considered 30-40 years ago. We have learned that,
thanks to its lack of a magnetosphere, almost all of the free
atmospheric water has been driven off by solar wind bombardment, leaving
the sulfuric acid droplets in the clouds. Algae bombing to clear the
greenhouse would fail. Another cute problem is that due to the high
surface temperatures and low rotational rate plate tectonics isn't
currently happening there and simulations suggest that
asthenospheric-like conditions (low crustal rigidity) extend to the
surface. Slamming it with a large number of comets might work over a
long period, but only if one could spin it up (to try and start mantle
convection and a magnetic field) and maybe give it a moon as well.
Oh, well, note it's fiction and keep going.
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Jack Russell
10-19-2009
21:51 UT
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Actually, I never saw /the Day the Earth caught Fire/. However, effect
would be a matter of degree. Drop a hammer from a foot high and it
won't crack the cement. Drop the same hammer from 100 ft up and you'll
be filling a pothole afterward. Asteroid bombardment would be very
effective. The trick would be in the size and timing, and the
devestation of the existing ecosystem (Earth+meteor= zero dinosaurs).
What I don't see being workable is the contragrav. Think of the size
it would have to be to affect a planetary mass. Then, what is it
countering? What does it push against? Solar gravity is the only thing
directly affecting Venus' orbit, though there is some effect from the
other planetary bodies. A controlled series of nuclear explosions
would also alter the orbit and put a sizable dent in the surface, but
you can't make an omelet, etc...
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Lensman
10-19-2009
20:49 UT
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QT - Jack Russell wrote:
> That said, it doesn't eliminate the possibility that a few of the
> more advanced timlines, 2nd or 3rd, would decide to develope some
> new beachfront property. The tricky part would be standardizing
> Venus' orbit from eliptical to circular. I would hazzard this could
> be done by controlled asteroid bombardment and precision nuclear
> explosion.
That would be about as effective as trying to make an 18-wheeler
barreling
down the highway swerve by setting off a firecracker on the bumper.
Altering the orbit would require a pretty powerful high-tech device.
But the Paratimers *do* have antigravity, don't they? Some really
powerful antigravity generators, with *very* widespread but low level
fields, turned on and off at intervals when the planet was facing a
certain direction, might do the trick, over time.
> Next, shift Venus' rotational axis to something similar to Terra. It
> currently spins on an East-West axis as opposed to our (more or
> less) North-South axis. Beats me how this would be accomplished
> though I suspect nukes would be involved.
I
think you've watched "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" too many times. A
gnat pushing on an elephant. Heck, *hurricanes* generate more energy
than nuclear bombs, albeit spaced over days instead of seconds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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Lensman
10-19-2009
20:31 UT
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Mark Olson wrote:
> Actually, if you read the sequel (set on Old Mars), you'll see
> that he does explain it all quite nicely, following up hints in
> the Old Venus book you've read.
I
did read it, but other than the wonderful prologue with the "spot the
SF author" scene, I found /In the Courts of the Crimson King/ to be not
nearly as interesting or amusing as /The Sky People/. But other fans
have said the reverse, that the sequel was better. Just me, I guess.
And I don't remember whatever it is you're referring to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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Jack Russell
10-19-2009
20:20 UT
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I would argue against any premise where a natural disaster varied from
timeline to timeline...at least in the Piperverse. With Piper it is all
about the probabilities as affected or effected by living beings.
Weather being the same from timeline to timeline, for example. Today
we know that human folly affects the weather, but maybe Piper didn't.
So,
out in space everything will be the same from T2T except where
humans/martians caused a change by, oh, say, asteroid mining, space
battles with nukes, stuff like that. So a happy incident where a
meteor hit Venus in one timeline would have to occur in all timelines
unless, say, the City of Konkrook star ship nuked one for target
practice.
The Martian aresforming (love the name, btw) idea is
equally unlikely as they took a five month ride just to get to Terra.
All timelines being equal, the martians wouldn't have the resources to
make such an attempt, nor would they bother if they did with a pretty
blue marble 20,000,000 miles closer with far more attractive climate.
That
said, it doesn't eliminate the possibility that a few of the more
advanced timlines, 2nd or 3rd, would decide to develope some new
beachfront property. The tricky part would be standardizing Venus'
orbit from eliptical to circular. I would hazzard this could be done
by controlled asteroid bombardment and precision nuclear explosion. I
would aim for a solar orbit as close to Terra as possible without
disturbing Terra's orbital position. This would make for a slightly
cooler Venus. Venus currently enjoys polar temps in excess of 800
degrees Farenheit. Next, shift Venus' rotational axis to something
similar to Terra. It currently spins on an East-West axis as opposed
to our (more or less) North-South axis. Beats me how this would be
accomplished though I suspect nukes would be involved. Finally, drag a
few astroids made up of ice over and drop it on Venus to create the
lakes and ocean. I doubt there would be enough water vapor to get the
job done.
My most modest estimate is that it would take 500 to 1000 years to finish this party in the Piperverse.
J&#E4;ck R&#FC;ssell
"Reality is for people without imagination."
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Gilmoure
10-19-2009
19:03 UT
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Or maybe, on some timelines, the Martians attempts to 'aresform' Venus
didn't work out so well. Perhaps a redirected comet didn't hit or
inimical aliens took up residence in the atmospheric plant or something?
Gilmoure
On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 11:54 AM, QT - Lensman <
qtopic-42-tnfVKeAH3s4T@quicktopic.com> wrote:
>
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Mark Olson
10-19-2009
19:02 UT
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Actually, if you read the sequel (set on Old Mars), you'll see that he
does explain it all quite nicely, following up hints in the Old Venus
book you've read.
-- mlo
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Lensman
10-19-2009
18:54 UT
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David Johnson wrote:
> The Paratime setting is obviously a _fictional_
> setting and therefore we should find it requiring no more
> suspension of disbelief to encounter Terrans living on the
> surface of Venus in a Paratime yarn than it does to find them
> shifting across timelines in a transpositional conveyor.
I
checked Stirling's /The Sky People/, which is a modern take on the
idea of a swampy, dinosaur-infested Venus. Stirling basically just
ignores the problem; he says the average temperature is about 10 degrees
hotter, but that the thick cloud cover reflects more sunlight.
I
agree with David here that we don't necessarily need to go into any
elaborate explanation of why things are different in the Paratime
universe. They simply *are* different, that's all. But I suppose if
someone demands that it pass a "rigid statistical analysis" (to quote
"Doc" Smith) of temperature vs. insolation, then we'd have to come up
with some hand-waving explanation like "ice crystals in the upper cloud
layer of the more humid, thicker atmosphere reflect more light away
from the planet" or even "there are prismatic bacteria floating in the
atmosphere which reflect a surprising amount of light away from the
planet".
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
David "Lensman" Sooby
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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Mark Olson
10-19-2009
14:17 UT
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: QT - Mark L. Olson
[1]
> Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 11:39 AM
> To: QT topic subscribers
> Subject: Zarthani.net's H. Beam Piper List
>
> Well, what a weird coincidence! I'm planning to be in Altoona
> on Nov. 7th for Illuxcon - barring the unexpected, I'll be
> there.
I
guess it's not a coincidence at all -- I just double-checked and it's
the *following* weekend I'll be in Altoona. If you post directions,
I'll try to stop by on my own. Sorry not to get the chance to meet you.
-- mlo
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David Johnson
10-19-2009
13:47 UT
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~
Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> If anyone has devised a generally accepted answer
I'm
afraid "generally accepted answers" are not something we're all that
good at producing here--but we seem to have a lot of fun trying to
uncover them! ;)
> to what I
> think of as the "Venus Problem" (Venus being egregiously
> nonhabitable) in the Paratime series, please share it with me.
Well,
the short answer is that Venus _is_ inhabitable in the Paratime
setting--the Venusian nighthound from "Police Operation" seems to do
quite well in Terra's ecosphere and Verkan Vall's cover in "Last
Enemy" is as a Venusian farmer.
Presumably, you're asking, as Lensman intimates, how we are to
"square" this with the fact that now, in the actual world, we
understand
Venus to be "egregiously nonhabitable." My own opinion is that this
simply isn't possible (we're not going to find the ruins of any
Martian cities either) but, more importantly, also isn't
necessary.
The Paratime setting is obviously a _fictional_ setting and
therefore we should find it requiring no more suspension of disbelief
to encounter Terrans living on the surface of Venus in a Paratime yarn
than it does to find them shifting across timelines in a
transpositional conveyor.
Assassins' Truce!
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
10-19-2009
12:42 UT
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QT - Jim Rhino Sparr wrote:
> If anyone has devised a generally accepted answer to what I
> think of as the "Venus Problem" (Venus being egregiously
> nonhabitable) in the Paratime series, please share it with me.
Do you mean: "What is a scientifically plausible scenario which could allow Venus to be habitable?"
If not, then please detail what you are asking.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman
Visit the Incompleat Known Space Concordance at:
http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
10-19-2009
09:18 UT
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If anyone has devised a generally accepted answer to what I think of as
the "Venus Problem" (Venus being egregiously nonhabitable) in the
Paratime series, please share it with me.
Thanks.
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David Johnson
10-16-2009
17:00 UT
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~
John Carr wrote:
> Great news: The unveiling of the H. Beam Piper Memorial
> headstone is scheduled for Saturday, November 7th, 2009, at
> Fairview Cemetery, Altoona!
Congratulations
to you and Dennis for leading the effort to make this happen. Wish I
were going to be able to make it to Altoona in November.
Down Stypohon!
David
--
"Heinlein can do what he likes. I prefer to keep my heroine
_virgo_intacto_ until the end." - H. Beam Piper
~
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David Johnson
10-16-2009
16:56 UT
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~
New Piper Role-Playing Game Supplement from Rogue Games (www.rogue- games.net)
Stumbled upon this interesting item on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310174313191
It's also available as retail here:
http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=RGG1010
You can peek inside here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15851275/Thousan...-Transmissions-From- Piper
It
looks like what it does is reprint the short stories "Naudsonce,"
"Last Enemy," and "Ministry of Disturbance" and then describe various
characters from them in terms suited to the role-playing game. It's
great to see something like this being produced in 2009!
David
--
"I
remember, when I was just a kid, about a hundred and fifty years
ago--a hundred and thirty-nine, to be exact--I picked up a fellow on
the Fourth Level, just about where you're operating, and dragged him a
couple of hundred parayears. I went back to find him and return him
to his own time-line, but before I could locate him, he'd been
arrested
by the local authorities as a suspicious character, and got himself
shot trying to escape. I felt badly about that. . . ." - Tortha Karf,
"Police Operation"
~
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Mark L. Olson
10-10-2009
16:38 UT
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Well, what a weird coincidence! I'm planning to be in Altoona on Nov. 7th for Illuxcon - barring the unexpected, I'll be there.
-- mlo
< replied-to message removed by QT >
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Dietmar Wehr
10-10-2009
00:46 UT
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Haven't been back here for a long time but I wanted to let all of you
know that my novella sequel to Cosmic computer is on Lulu.com entitled
The Tides of Chaos.
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John Carr
10-09-2009
22:31 UT
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Hi Everyone,
Great news: The unveiling of the H. Beam Piper
Memorial headstone is scheduled for Saturday, November 7th, 2009, at
Fairview Cemetery, Altoona!
Dennis Frank and I will be meeting
the morning of the 7th at the State College Waffle Shop on Atherton
Street before caravanning to Altoona. Contact me for details if you'd
like to join us, or you can meet us there.
This is a very special
Piper event and I welcome all H. Beam Piper fans to attend. It's taken
four years, since its inception, to turn this dream of a proper
headstone for Piper into a reality.
Thanks go out to all of you who donated money for Beam's memorial and I hope to meet many of you in Altoona.
John Carr
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Jim "Rhino" Sparr
09-27-2009
08:14 UT
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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
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