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Jonathan Crocker
11-28-2015
00:52 UT
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Piper certainly did put a lot of clues in his stories, good work hunting them all down.
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David "PiperFan" Johnson  11-22-2015
18:16 UT
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~
What was the "debacle" in the United States in year 114 of the Atomic Era?
In
~Uller Uprising~, the first Terro-human Future History yarn, published
just seven years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
that ended World War II, Beam tells us about "the old U.S. [atomic bomb]
data that General Lanningham brought to South America after the debacle
in the United States in A.E. 114." Copies of this information are
discovered in the end papers of an historical novel by the Terran
nuclear engineers on Uller who trying to build an archaic atomic bomb.
The description of a "debacle in the United States" is the only
reference to the United States in all of Beam's Terro-human Future
History works (except for "The Edge of the Knife" in which the role of
the United States in the initial formation of the "first" Terran
Federation is described).
What could this "debacle" be and what might it tell us about the fate of the United States?
The
first clue comes with the date, 114 AE. This is five years after the
end of World War IV in 109 AE (according to Beam's essay "The Future
History"). Thus, we must conclude that the United States survived the
Fourth World War, in some fashion, at least, but the United States in
the aftermath of the Fourth World War must be something very different
from what it looked like to Beam when he was writing in the 1950s and
1960s (and even from what it looks like to us today).
The next
clue also comes from "The Future History." Beam tells us that there
were "minor wars for ten years" after World War IV, suggesting that the
"debacle" in the United States--and Lanningham's arrival in South
America--occurred in the midst of these "minor wars."
Beam also
tells us in "The Future History" that World War IV (and presumably World
War III--the Thirty Days' War--before it) and the subsequent "minor
wars" result in the complete "devastation of [the] Northern Hemisphere
of Terra." Here then is the third clue about the "debacle" in the
United States: it occurs in the aftermath of the "complete devastation"
of those parts of the United States--the parts which constituted the
United States at the time Beam was writing--in North America.
It
would therefore seem that when Lanningham brought the atomic bomb
information to South America, he was coming from a United States which
existed _outside_ of North America. Now, I've written previously about
why I believe this was most likely from U.S. settlements in Antarctica
but Beam gives us an additional possibility in "The Future History." In
a parenthetical reference he describes World War IV as the "First
Interplanetary War." We get no details about what this "interplanetary
war" might have looked like other than vague comments here and there in
the Terro-human Future History yarns about revolts by colonies on Mars
and Venus.
We know from "Omnilingual" that the first expedition
to Mars was undertaken, not by a national government but by the "first"
Terran Federation in 53 AE, in the years between World Wars III and IV.
Still, the possibility exists that, in addition to territory in
Antarctica, the United States might also have expanded in the decades
after this initial expedition to include territories on Mars and/or
Venus. Thus, Lanningham might also have come to South America from
United States territory off-world.
The final clue to the
"debacle" in the United States also comes from "The Future History."
Beam tells us that in the aftermath of World War IV and the post-War
"minor wars," the "second" Terran Federation is "organized by South
Africa, Australia [and] New Zealand, Brazil, the Argentine, etc."
Despite Lanningham's arrival in South America, the United States is
noticeably absent. We still have no specific details about the
"debacle" but apparently it is something which led to the United States,
which had been central to the formation of the "first" Terran
Federation, not being party to the formation of the "second" Terran
Federation. This is the "second" Terran Federation which goes on, as
Beam tells us in "The Future History," through a series of "wars of
colonial pacification and consolidation," to impose a "System-wide pax"
(and, eventually, to colonize interstellar Federation space).
Rather
than playing a part in this "pacification" it would seem that the
United States--at least those territories which remained in Antartica
and off-world on Mars and/or Venus--was _subject_ to it at the hands of
the "second" Terran Federation. (This idea of remnant nations of the
pre-Federation era being "pacified" by the "second" Terran Federation
also fits with the description Beam provides in "The Keeper" of Britain
being "the last nation to join the Terran Federation," presumably also
from its own redoubts in the Southern Hemisphere and/or off-world.)
We
can make a couple of further suppositions about the "debacle" in the
United States. Because Lanningham becomes an historical figure easily
remembered by Terran Federation people centuries after his exploits it
seems reasonable to assume that his role in bringing the atomic bomb
information to South America is viewed positively by Terran Federation
historians, suggesting that Lanningham had made some sort of break with
the United States. Likely, this was over the position the United States
had taken with respect to the emerging "second" Federation. (It could
be that the historical model Beam had in mind in this case was the U.S.
failure to join the League of Nations in the aftermath of World War I.)
In any event, the "debacle" in 114 AE, just as the "second" Terran
Federation was being formed, is the last we ever hear of the United
States in Beam's Terro-human Future History.
I have the honour, etc., etc., etc.,
David
--
"I
was born in Antarctica, on Terra. The water's a little too cold to do
much swimming there. And I've spent most of my time since then in
central Argentine, in the pampas country." - Glenn Murell (H. Beam
Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~
~
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David Sooby
11-17-2015
06:57 UT
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@ David Johnson:
What would be the best way to send you a large number of archived e-mails? Sending them one at a time would be time consuming.
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Dennis Frank
11-16-2015
23:48 UT
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David, I do have some starting with 2008. Ill try to find time to forward them in the next few weeks. Dennis
On 11/13/15, 11:56 PM, "QuickTopic daily digest"
<qtopic-42-tnfVKeAH3s4T@quicktopic.com> wrote:
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David Johnson
11-16-2015
13:05 UT
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~
Jonathan Crocker wrote:
> The spherical shape of the
Mercenary Cruiser could also be a hint. Not as big a hint as the whole
"Sword Worlds" subsector and all the planet names, but still.
Traveller's
Broadsword-class Mercenary Cruiser was first introduced in an early
issue of the old ~Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society~. In the same
issue there was another article about a non-player-character who owned
and commanded one of the Broadswords.
Now, you have to recall that
Traveller's "Third Imperium" campaign setting was told from a point of
view in which the Sword Worlds were the adversaries of most
player-characters. The Broadsword commander was a woman, but also a
former noble whose husband had been killed in an attack by Sword
Worlders. Devastated by the attack she left her role in the Imperial
navy, bought a Broadsword with her family fortune, and went hunting for
the killers of her husband.
Obviously, the Traveller campaign
setting was different from the Space Viking era of Beam's Terro-human
Future History but there was more to the introduction of the original
Broadsword-class Mercenary Cruisers than merely their shape which paid
homage to ~Space Viking~.
Be well,
David
~
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Jonathan Crocker
11-16-2015
03:46 UT
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Thanks for the link to the article - it was interesting, I'd heard of
some of those books in passing, but I'm not familiar with them. The
spherical shape of the Mercenary Cruiser could also be a hint. Not as
big a hint as the whole "Sword Worlds" subsector and all the planet
names, but still.
And I hope that I'll be able to see that movie! Too bad someone isn't working on a Paratime animated series.
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Gordon Johansen
11-15-2015
16:21 UT
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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 01-19-2016 06:08
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-14-2015
18:17 UT
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~
Good article here which makes the case for ~Space Viking~ being a key inspiration for the sci-fi role-playing game Traveller:
http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10119
I was already convinced but interesting nevertheless to see the strong argument here.
Enjoy.
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].
The tools, which you don't have now, for educating yourself." - Bish
Ware (H. Beam Piper), ~Four-Day Planet~
~
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Jackson Russell
11-13-2015
15:54 UT
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Maybe you can scan them and run them through an OCR?
Jackson
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pennausamike
11-13-2015
15:16 UT
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Everything I saved from that era is printed on paper, not electronic.
Is that helpful?
Mike
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-13-2015
14:47 UT
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~
Old PML messages?
Anyone out there have any messages from
the old PIPER-L mailing list (formerly hosted at home.ease.lsoft.com)? I
have some and am working on an "archive" of sorts that I will post here
at Zarthani.net. I don't have anything like _all_ of the messages and
realize it's not feasible to build a complete archive but I would like
to capture and make available anything that's "out there."
If you have any old messages, even if just a few, please contact me at <piperfan (at) zarthani (dot) net>.
Thanks,
David
P.S. Message from this Piper forum are all archived here and will remain so as long as we can keep this resource funded.
--
"Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?" - Diamond Grego (H. Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
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Spam deleted by QuickTopic 11-06-2015 06:07
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