David "PiperFan" Johnson  06-05-2017
01:15 UT
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~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> makes a good point though about no satellites throughout. HE
> came pretty damn close in Uller Uprising though, when they fit
> orbital repair unit with sensors and send it up.
That
converted spacecraft was originally used to repair satellites which
were part of a telecommunications network. (The Kragans have a
telecast-station at Kankad Town which communicates with the satellites.)
It may be that these are surplus devices which the Company has brought
to Uller from Niffelheim (where artificial satellites are, of
necessity, ubiquitous).
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I checked the copyright dates of the stories, hoping to see Uller
> Uprising written after Four Day Planet - which would make sense,
> satellites would have been around longer and a better idea of
> their capabilities would have gotten out to people, but from
> what I see, they were actually written in the other order.
Yes,
~Uprising~ being the first Terro-human Future History yarn makes the
paucity of satellite technology in later yarns especially awkward. That
does tend to support linkage to the unusual situation on Niffelheim,
though why the Uller Company didn't sell more of those satellites on
other planets still seems odd.
Znidd Suddabit!
David
--
"You
either went on to the inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, in time,
that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together on the same
planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of
knowledge." - H. Beam Piper, ~Uller Uprising~
~
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Jon Crocker 06-05-2017
00:53 UT
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>I think more than just a convenient plot device, satellites were simply a sort of technology that Beam never envisioned.
I
think you're right - and I was going to point out that Uller Uprising
is where he came closest to having them, but someone beat me to the
punch!
I checked the copyright dates of the stories, hoping to
see Uller Uprising written after Four Day Planet - which would make
sense, satellites would have been around longer and a better idea of
their capabilities would have gotten out to people, but from what I see,
they were actually written in the other order. Someone please correct
me if I'm wrong.
Shrug. This won't be the first time we've
noticed technical inconsistencies between stories - I think Piper was
more concerned about the storytelling angle than technical uniformity.
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jimmyjoejangles 06-04-2017
16:02 UT
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Could be the Fenris company never got around to putting them up.
There was still a large portion of uncharted land. Or maybe they were
something the company could pluck out of orbit to recoup some of the
losses. Maybe some enterprising freighter captain stole them to sell on
another planet. But the state that Fenris is in when our story takes
place is a poor planet that may not be able to support a satellite
system. This was not what my original post was about but I got a convo
going at least. DAvid makes a good point though about no satellites
throughout. HE came pretty damn close in Uller Uprising though, when
they fit orbital repair unit with sensors and send it up. Edited 06-04-2017 16:15
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-04-2017
16:01 UT
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~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> > but I'll be darned if I can explain why a planet like Fenris
> > doesn't seem to have any satellite telecommunications
> > technology. . . .
>
> Plot requirements probably cover that one. Fenris having a
> satellite makes far too much sense for it to be otherwise.
Sure,
I can see that (like the haphazard-but-plot-convenient transporter
malfunctions on ~Star Trek~), especially given the state of disrepair
into which Fenris had fallen.
But there is little or no satellite
technology throughout the Terro-human Future History. The crew of the
~Stellex~ seems to have surveyed Fenris from their ship. Even the
Empire task force that attacks Aditya relies primarily upon its
starships for "situational awareness."
If I were a Space Viking
one of the first things I'd do when raiding a planet like Beowulf would
be to throw out a swarm of satellites (orbital versions of the
"snoopers"--we'd call them "drones" today--that the crew of the ~Hubert
Penrose~ used to keep tabs on the Svant village and that Conn Maxwell
used to scout pirate-held Barathrum Spaceport). Even though the
missiles and "counter-missiles" of the Viking era are able to transmit
imagery back to the ship, adversaries still disappear "behind the
planet" in the midst of battles because no one thinks to deploy a few of
these things in orbit (especially defenders who could deploy them ahead
of time thereby allowing them a fair chance of stealthily avoiding
detection by "satellite killers").
I think more than just a convenient plot device, satellites were simply a sort of technology that Beam never envisioned.
Monster Ho!
David
--
"A
lot of technicians are girls, and when work gets slack, they're always
the first ones to get shoved out of jobs." - Sylvie Jacquemont (H. Beam
Piper), ~Junkyard Planet~
~
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Jon Crocker 06-04-2017
15:23 UT
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>but I'll be darned if I can explain why a planet like Fenris doesn't
seem to have any satellite telecommunications technology. . . .
Plot requirements probably cover that one. Fenris having a satellite makes far too much sense for it to be otherwise.
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David Sooby 06-04-2017
03:36 UT
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David Johnson wrote:
> Even putting aside the ubiquitous mobile communications
> we take for granted today, telecommunications technology
> generally is one of the places where Piper's writing
> seems the most clunky to the contemporary sci-fi reader."
It's
the underlying electronic tech that hasn't been miniaturized, as it has
been in our culture. I'd argue they're still using analog circuits. The
words "digital" and "transistor" appear nowhere in THE COSMIC COMPUTER.
I'd argue their entire tech has no use of transistors, and there is a
limit to how far you can miniaturize vacuum tube tech.
Cell
phones in our culture remained much too expensive for widespread use
until cheap microprocessors were developed. With no transistor tech,
that will never happen in the Piperverse.
THE COSMIC COMPUTER
mentions "positronic brains and neutrino-circuits" (ch. II), and it is
specified in chapter XXI that Merlin is a positronic computer. I'm not
sure what a "positronic" computer is -- Asimov invented that term,
naming them after the (at the time) newly discovered positrons, to give
his robots a "high tech coolness" factor. But exactly what a
"positronic" computer is in the Piperverse... who knows?
It think
it is a big mistake to try to describe Piperverse electronics as if
they are similar to what we use today. The lack of cell phones, and the
size of Merlin, are easy to understand if things can never be
miniaturized. Piperverse robots are certainly far more capable than
ours, so in many respects their computer tech is more advanced than
ours. This is pure speculation, not supported by the canon, but perhaps
their "neutrino-circuits" are the electronic equivalent of human brain
neurons, and perhaps their computers use advanced analog circuits which
don't need the massive amount of coding in their software that our
computers use. Our digital computers are thought to have an advantage
because they're universal, and can be programmed to do anything. But
perhaps Piperverse robots achieve greater ability and sophistication
because they can be given more general instructions, leaving it to the
analog circuits to interpret and carry out those instructions, rather
than having to have millions of individual instructions in the robots'
programs.
* * * * *
The lack of using satellite
communications is not as easy to explain. There is no good reason why
they wouldn't use that for high-priority messages, and to maintain
communications with a survey team down on a planet. The Piperverse
equivalent of a satellite phone might not be man-portable, but any
scientific outpost should have one, the Navy should use them as a matter
of course, and any corporation that can afford a computer (see Victor
Grego's company in FUZZY SAPIENS) should be able to afford one, too.
All just my opinion, of course, but what is not arguable is that in the Piperverse, computers remain large and rare:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Conn, from what you've learned of computers generally, how big would Merlin have to be?" old Professor Kellton asked.
"Well,
the astrophysics computer at the University occupied a volume of a
hundred thousand cubic feet. For all Merlin was supposed to do, I'd say
something of the order of three million to five million."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--THE COSMIC COMPUTER chapter II
-------------------------
Clear ether!
Lensman (aka David Sooby)
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jimmyjoejangles 06-01-2017
13:36 UT
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I'm saying that they used the camera to make blue films.
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 06-01-2017
05:22 UT
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~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> So just finished Four Day Planet. I couldn't help but notice that
> Oscar and the bachelor officers of the Pequod were the only guys
> who had video equipment on board. SO my real question is did
> Ralph Boyd run a special Channel for "home videos"?
Well,
given that ~Four-Day Planet~ was a "young adult" yarn, I'm not sure I
understand your question . . . (but I think the guy you have in mind is
Adolf Lautier, the entertainment promoter).
The interesting thing
about Boyd's (and Lautier's) telecasts was that they were broadcast
from a telecast station--the way Beam would have watched television in
Williamsport. No cable and no satellite feeds. (When the ~Javelin~ was
lost in Hermann Reuch's Land there was no satellite transmission
available.) Even putting aside the ubiquitous mobile communications we
take for granted today, telecommunications technology generally is one
of the places where Piper's writing seems the most clunky to the
contemporary sci-fi reader.
I can offer in-setting explanations
for why Merlin was so large--remnant electromagnetic pulse shielding
"locked in" from the days of the Atomic Wars--and for why everyone
smokes--the vegetable equivalent of carniculture that produces tobacco
without carcinogens--but I'll be darned if I can explain why a planet
like Fenris doesn't seem to have any satellite telecommunications
technology. . . .
Monster Ho!
David
--
"A girl can
punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them know what
buttons to punch, and why." - Conn Maxwell (H. Beam Piper), ~Junkyard
Planet~
~
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