David "PiperFan" Johnson  09-29-2018
04:35 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Well, obviously, their batteries have gone through
> dramatic improvements over what any Fourth Level
> Europo-American would call a battery. And, given the
> room-temperature superconductor main coil in the
> boomerang unit, such a charge was more than adequate
> for the small-scale power requirements.
Perhaps.
What seems clear is that Beam saw the small devices as not being able
to carry their own power, unlike the vehicle- / craft-size conveyors.
This may have been some of the same "pre-miniaturization" mindset which
led to Merlin being so large in the Terro-human Future History.
> I've been thinking on that part, and perhaps a good
> analogy would be the layers of rock strata in a hilly
> region. Yes, this main belt is shale, but that belt curves
> with the terrain, and bits of shale have broken off into
> the sandstone above, and occasional bits of sandstone
> have crumbled down into cracks in the shale.
Could
be. There is this basic uncertainty about what it means to travel
"through" Paratime. We know about the "thirty minutes" of travel time
for the transposition field to form and un-form but what we don't know
is whether it takes "longer" to travel from any particular place in
Paratime to another. For example, are Second Level time-lines "closer"
to First Level (because they are more similar in character) than are
Third Level time-lines?
In other words, is there a sort of
"linearity" in "para-distance" which corresponds in some manner to
Paratime Levels? If that's the case, "where" is Fifth Level? Is it, as
its name suggests, "beyond" Fourth Level? And if that's the case, then
is any trip from First Level to Fifth Level "longer" than any trip from
either of those Levels to a Fourth, Third or Second Level time-line?
Or could it be that Fifth Level is actually in the "opposite" direction,
"closer" to First Level than it is to Second, Third or Fourth Level?
(And let's not even talk about the possibility of "orthogonal"
directions in Paratime!)
I think the answer to these questions, based solely upon what we get from Beam, might be "don't know."
> there was a comment in Lord Kalvan that the University
> was going to get 'those five adjoining timelines for
> controls' but we don't know if there were only five
> adjoining timelines, or there were a bunch of adjoining
> timelines and the University only got five of them.
That's interesting. I'd always assumed the latter.
> > There is an off-hand sort of comment somewhere
> > about the Paratimers traveling about the time-lines
> > "within range of the Ghaldron-Hestor transposition
> > field" or something like that.
>
> I remember that - given the ability of the Paracops to
> put a staging base pretty much anywhere, I don't know
> what that range would be.
In
other words, this observation would tend to imply that the Paracops
_haven't_ established any "way-stations" because, you're right, there
would be no such range limitation were "way-stations" to be used.
> > I think if this is what the structure of Paratime was like
> > then you wouldn't have the level / sector / subsector /
> > belt framework. It wouldn't be "Hispano-Columbian
> > subsector" but merely "X023, Y587, Z614, Q461, B3901"
>
> Perhaps. To get all 'meta' about it, I can't see an editor
> readily agreeing to that. To a Paratimer that had perfect
> recall, no problem - the casual reader, no.
I
think you're right. Things like "Europo-American Sector,
Hispano-Columbia Subsector" are great hooks to readers. Beam would get
that as a storyteller before it ever went to an editor. So perhaps he
was merely tending more to his storytelling here than to his
universe-building.
> Vall nodded and handed him the time-line designation
> list. "See any kind of pattern in there?" he asked. ..."Yes.
> I'd say that all the numbers are related in some kind of
> a series to some other number. Simplified down to
> kindergarten level, say the difference between A and B
> is, maybe, one-decillionth of the difference between X
> and A, and the difference between B and C is
> one-decillionth of the difference between X and B, and
> so on-"
>
> From that we can assume two things. Home Time Line
> has kindergarten,
;)
> and the timelines are all designated solely by numbers,
> unless they automatically translated the letters into ascii
> values, or binary, or something. If it's just numbers, that
> suggests that it's not a 'brick wall' approach.
There
is another scene somewhere where Verkan and Tortha are guessing the
general "location" of a time-line solely from an explicit numerical
designation (which seems to be using something greater than a base-ten
numerical system).
But numerical designation could still suggest a
"grid" system. Consider the simple, two-dimensional hex numbering
system for Traveller subsector maps. Even though I prefer a "taxonomy /
strata" model of Paratime for dramatic reasons, unfortunately, I don't
believe what we get from Beam precludes a "wall / grid" model.
> > Couldn't you stop on some intermediate time-line to
> > take a break?
>
> Oh, definitely, and I'm assuming that's been done, just
> as you say, but at some point, with your earlier points
> about how the trading companies would be in things for
> the long haul, centuries of established operations and
> the like, if you have a listing of a zillion empty planet
> earths just waiting for fishing boats and strip-mine
> operations, is there a need for another twenty or thirty?
Well,
one possibility that fits what we get from Beam, including the notion
that "Known Paratime" is "bounded," would be that any "way-stations"
themselves are very old, perhaps having been established in an early era
of Paratime "exploration." There are no Paratimers alive today whose
great-great-grandparents were born when the last "way-station" was
established, or something like that.
It could even be that these
"way-station" time-lines have themselves come to be considered to be
part of "Fifth Level" by now even though they are not "para-proximate"
to the "main collection" of Fifth Level time-lines. . . .
Cheers,
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 (H. Beam
Piper), "Police Operation"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-29-2018
03:29 UT
|
~
[Changing gears a bit here.]
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Or maybe the Paratime version, Crossroads of Destiny.
I recently acquired the classic alternate history anthology ~If It Had Happened Otherwise~:
http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label/squiifitha.html
First
published in the U.S. in 1931 as ~If: or History Rewritten~, it's
certainly possible that Beam had read this book. It has an interesting
piece by Winston Churchill which begins with a Confederate victory in
the American Civil War:
http://www.uchronia.net/label/churleehad.html
Beam's
approach in "Crossroads of Destiny" is the same one adopted by
Churchill: the story is written from the perspective of someone in an
alternate universe grasping at our actual universe. Churchill's piece
also ends with some musing about an alternative Prussian ruler that
could be "Wilhelm II in Exile at Doorn," the image mentioned by Selim
von Olmhorst in "Omnilingual" (when folks are trying to decide whether
image captions might help them to understand the ancient Martian
language). (There is another piece in the anthology which uses, in
part, the "correspondence" style Beam uses in "Operation R.S.V.P.")
I
suppose we'll never know if ~If It Had Happened Otherwise~ was a source
of inspiration for Beam but, if not, there are some remarkable
coincidences between it and his work.
Cheers,
David
--
"Ideas
for science fiction stories like ideas for anything else, are where you
find them, usually in the most unlikely places. The only reliable
source is a mind which asks itself a question like, 'What would happen
if--?' or, 'Now what would this develop into, in a few centuries?' Or,
'How would so-and-so happen?' Anything at all, can trigger such a
question, in your field if not in mine." - H. Beam Piper, "Double: Bill
Symposium" interview
~
|
Jon Crocker 09-28-2018
05:13 UT
|
>Agreed, and yet, in "Temple Trouble" the wires are described
as being attached to a "hand-held battery" before the ball is
>activated and disappears. This is why it seems like some sort of
"charge-up" function to me, like a power-storing >capacitor or
some-such thing. . . .
Darn, forgot about that. Hmmm...
Well,
obviously, their batteries have gone through dramatic improvements over
what any Fourth Level Europo-American would call a battery. And, given
the room-temperature superconductor main coil in the boomerang unit,
such a charge was more than adequate for the small-scale power
requirements.
>(Given that most of the Paratime yarns were
written before most of the Terro-human Future History yarns, perhaps
Beam >hadn't quite figured out just exactly what "nuclear-electric
conversion" was yet. . . .)
I hadn't realized that. Interesting.
>Unlike
a grid or matrix, a "taxonomy" allows for undiscovered "para-regions"
which, when discovered, would simply be added >as new
"branches"--sectors, subsectors, belts--to the "taxonomy."
I like
that, actually. I've been thinking on that part, and perhaps a good
analogy would be the layers of rock strata in a hilly region. Yes, this
main belt is shale, but that belt curves with the terrain, and bits of
shale have broken off into the sandstone above, and occasional bits of
sandstone have crumbled down into cracks in the shale.
There's
not much reference about what sort of arrangement there is - there was a
comment in Lord Kalvan that the University was going to get 'those five
adjoining timelines for controls' but we don't know if there were only
five adjoining timelines, or there were a bunch of adjoining timelines
and the University only got five of them.
> Or flesh out the "taxonomy." ;)
Agreed.
>There is an off-hand sort of comment somewhere about the Paratimers traveling about the time-lines "within range of
>the Ghaldron-Hestor transposition field" or something like that.
I
remember that - given the ability of the Paracops to put a staging base
pretty much anywhere, I don't know what that range would be.
>I've posited a "Sixth Level" before, those time-lines "beyond" Fifth Level where the Paratimers haven't bothered
>to venture. Perhaps you get far enough into those multitudes of "empty earths" and the divergences start to get
>pretty radical, leading not to just "empty earths" but rather to time-lines where, among other things, sapience
>emerges in a different family of species besides _Homo_. . . .
Ah, what a Twilight Zone episode this would have made!! Or maybe the Paratime version, Crossroads of Destiny.
>I think if this is what the structure of Paratime was like then you wouldn't have the level / sector / subsector /
>belt framework. It wouldn't be "Hispano-Columbian subsector" but merely "X023, Y587, Z614, Q461, B3901"
Perhaps.
To get all 'meta' about it, I can't see an editor readily agreeing to
that. To a Paratimer that had perfect recall, no problem - the casual
reader, no.
The only hint on the designations would, I think, be in Time Crime, it took me a little while to find the quote -
Vall nodded and handed him the time-line designation list.
"See any kind of pattern in there?" he asked.
..."Yes.
I'd say that all the numbers are related in some kind of a series to
some other number. Simplified down to kindergarten level, say the
difference between A and B is, maybe, one-decillionth of the difference
between X and A, and the difference between B and C is one-decillionth
of the difference between X and B, and so on-"
From that we can
assume two things. Home Time Line has kindergarten, and the timelines
are all designated solely by numbers, unless they automatically
translated the letters into ascii values, or binary, or something. If
it's just numbers, that suggests that it's not a 'brick wall' approach.
>Given that the balls can't move in physical space this wouldn't seem to provide much more information than would a
>high-speed camera taking pictures or shooting video through the "walls" of a conveyor while it's transpositioning.
True,
sorry - I was thinking the first run would be a quick-and-dirty proof
of destination - if you're thinking that paratime is not a perfect grid
of timelines, your first job would be determining the boundaries of each
timeline, then the follow-up missions with photorecon flying saucers.
>Couldn't you stop on some intermediate time-line to take a break?
Oh,
definitely, and I'm assuming that's been done, just as you say, but at
some point, with your earlier points about how the trading companies
would be in things for the long haul, centuries of established
operations and the like, if you have a listing of a zillion empty planet
earths just waiting for fishing boats and strip-mine operations, is
there a need for another twenty or thirty?
Jon
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-27-2018
20:17 UT
|
~
Reminder: 10th Anniversary Celebration!
Zarthani.net's Piper Mailing List (and Discussion Forum) will celebrate its 10th anniversary on October 4, 2018:
42/H/tnfVKeAH3s4T/p0001.0001
In
celebration of this anniversary Zarthani.net is holding a fundraising
"virtual raffle." One each of the 1975 Garland hardcover editions of
~Space Viking~ and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~ will be given away as
raffle "prizes." Don't These hardover facisimiles of the respective
original Ace paperback editions are both used books in very good
condition.
Virtual raffle "tickets" are US$10 each, submitted via PayPal using the two buttons here:
http://www.zarthani.net/anniversary.htm
You
can purchase as many "tickets" as you want. The raffle "drawings" will
be held on or shortly after October 25, 2018, so buy your raffle
tickets now!
Cheers,
David
P.S. Please share this
message with any Piper fans who might be interested in participating in
the raffle. If someone here could also "cross-post" this message on the
Yahoo Piper list that would be much appreciated.
--
"Oh, my
people had many gods. There was Conformity, and Authority, and Expense
Account, and Opinion. And there was Status, whose symbols were many,
and who rode in the great chariot Cadillac, which was almost a god
itself. And there was Atom-bomb, the dread destroyer, who would some
day come to end the world. None were very good gods, and I worshiped
none of them." - Calvin Morrison (H. Beam Piper), ~Lord Kalvan of
Otherwhen~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-27-2018
20:09 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I'd think any "n-e c" cell would have more power than
> anything the return units could pick up from field effects,
> so I don't know if I'd suggest they were power leads.
Agreed,
and yet, in "Temple Trouble" the wires are described as being attached
to a "hand-held battery" before the ball is activated and disappears.
This is why it seems like some sort of "charge-up" function to me, like a
power-storing capacitor or some-such thing. . . .
Though the
Paratimers mention nuclear-electric technology several times it's
usually in the context of some out-time time-line. I don't recall Beam
ever describing nuclear-electric conversion being used on/by First
Level. So maybe there aren't any "n-e c" cells in those message and
"boomerang" balls. (Given that most of the Paratime yarns were written
before most of the Terro-human Future History yarns, perhaps Beam hadn't
quite figured out just exactly what "nuclear-electric conversion" was
yet. . . .)
> Exploration - If each and every timeline had strictly defined
> limits that never varied, you'd never need to survey
> anything, you'd just spin the dial and go there. It would
> be like bricks in an infinitely large wall, once you figure
> out the pattern, you could go to any given brick at any time.
Possible,
yes, but the way a given time-line designation--and the Paratime
"structure" of levels and sectors and subsectors and belts--allows
Tortha and Verkan to guess the character of a given time-line suggests a
"taxonomy" for time-line identification rather than a grid or
(three-dimensional) matrix, your "brick wall" model. Unlike a grid or
matrix, a "taxonomy" allows for undiscovered "para-regions" which, when
discovered, would simply be added as new "branches"--sectors,
subsectors, belts--to the "taxonomy."
Still, I think both of these models fit with what we have from Beam.
> If they do explore, that means that timelines are not
> constant in the paratime reference system - the bricks
> are shaped differently, arranged differently, so someone
> would have to go 'map the bricks'.
Or flesh out the "taxonomy." ;)
> Or - the physical timeline is exactly that, an infinite brick
> wall.
There
is an off-hand sort of comment somewhere about the Paratimers traveling
about the time-lines "within range of the Ghaldron-Hestor transposition
field" or something like that. This statement implies that there's
"more" to Paratime than what First Level civilization has "come to
recognize" (whether fully "explored" or not). But this observation
doesn't help us to understand which of these two models is the one that
best describes Paratime.
> The reason to survey then becomes finding out who will
> be there. Is that brick in the Macedonian-Mithras belt, or
> is it part of Ninth Eternal Constantinople belt instead?
The
way a time-line designation allows Tortha and Verkan to guess the
sector and/or subsector suggests that the character of a time-line is
related to its "location." If Paratime is a "brick wall" then a
time-line at any place on that wall will tend to be similar to the
nearby time-lines. So "surveying" would be done to understand the
differences which establish subsectors and belts (and whatever
"intermediate" category names there might be between the centuries-long
variations between sectors, e.g. "Europo-American"--diverging half a
millennium ago, and belts, diverging just a handful of decades back,
e.g. "Axis Victory").
> Which leads to fifth level - everybody knows that fifth
> level is basically empty. After four zillion empty earths,
> who needs more? So the exploration office is a nice quiet
> place.
I've
posited a "Sixth Level" before, those time-lines "beyond" Fifth Level
where the Paratimers haven't bothered to venture. Perhaps you get far
enough into those multitudes of "empty earths" and the divergences start
to get pretty radical, leading not to just "empty earths" but rather to
time-lines where, among other things, sapience emerges in a different
family of species besides _Homo_. . . .
> Let's agree the physics of it is a "change the settings on
> the dials" approach. There would be five or seven
> variables, XYZQB or whatever.
I
think if this is what the structure of Paratime was like then you
wouldn't have the level / sector / subsector / belt framework. It
wouldn't be "Hispano-Columbian subsector" but merely "X023, Y587, Z614,
Q461, B3901" (or whatever set--or range--of coordinates identify it).
There's no reason for Paratimers to pay attention every time some Fourth
Level "Italian," working for the "Spanish monarchy," sails from the
Major Land Mass to "discover" the Minor Land Mass.
> You'd set a squadron of return balls to cover the range of
> x.1, x.2, x.3, y.1, y.2, y.3 etc between the top and bottom
> range that you'd be surveying on this run.
Given
that the balls can't move in physical space this wouldn't seem to
provide much more information than would a high-speed camera taking
pictures or shooting video through the "walls" of a conveyor while it's
transpositioning. What you really need for a survey is something which
can travel around on a given time-line (like those contragravity drones
which get mistaken for "flying saucers" on some Hispano-Columbian
subsector time-lines.)
> You could further say that the autoreturn units have a
> limited range - you'd need a manned mobile platform
> within fairly short range, so it's not a matter of letting
> your autonomous units continually survey forever.
These devices seem more like those contragravity disks than the message or "boomerang" balls. . . .
> but, there's going to be a limit on how much time people
> want to spend in transit. After a couple days in a
> conveyor, most people are ready to call it.
Couldn't
you stop on some intermediate time-line to take a break? It would be
relatively easy to construct a "hidden way station" on many primitive
Fourth Level time-lines but even on the more advanced time-lines,
including Third and Second Level time-lines, you just have to choose a
time-lime where some sort of apocalyptic destruction has occurred.
These way-stations could then be easily resupplied from Fifth Level on a
routine basis.
Cheers,
David
--
"Oh, my people had
many gods. There was Conformity, and Authority, and Expense Account,
and Opinion. And there was Status, whose symbols were many, and who
rode in the great chariot Cadillac, which was almost a god itself. And
there was Atom-bomb, the dread destroyer, who would some day come to end
the world. None were very good gods, and I worshiped none of them.” -
Calvin Morrison (H. Beam Piper), ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~
~
|
Jon Crocker 09-27-2018
02:43 UT
|
Lots to cover -
No idea what the lose wires on the autoreturn
balls would be. If we're going to stipulate they use small
nuclear-electric conversion cells, which certainly makes sense for one
of Piper's worlds, I'd think any "n-e c" cell would have more power than
anything the return units could pick up from field effects, so I don't
know if I'd suggest they were power leads.
I'd submit that
paratemporal transits would take a lot of power, I'd go with them being
field sensors as opposed to power transfer coils, sort of like the pitot
tubes on modern jets. The wires cannot be mounted to antennas for many
and various technical reasons I won't bore you with here, and in
transit, it hardly matters. ;)
Exploration - If each and every
timeline had strictly defined limits that never varied, you'd never need
to survey anything, you'd just spin the dial and go there. It would be
like bricks in an infinitely large wall, once you figure out the
pattern, you could go to any given brick at any time. If they do
explore, that means that timelines are not constant in the paratime
reference system - the bricks are shaped differently, arranged
differently, so someone would have to go 'map the bricks'.
Or -
the physical timeline is exactly that, an infinite brick wall. Any
brick can be reached at any time by adjusting the settings on the
control desk. Since each and every one of those time lines is the same
physical earth, just stay away from the trouble spots at certain times -
Mount Saint Helens, Krakatoa, that sort of thing. The reason to survey
then becomes finding out who will be there. Is that brick in the
Macedonian-Mithras belt, or is it part of Ninth Eternal Constantinople
belt instead?
Which leads to fifth level - everybody knows that
fifth level is basically empty. After four zillion empty earths, who
needs more? So the exploration office is a nice quiet place.
Let's
agree the physics of it is a "change the settings on the dials"
approach. There would be five or seven variables, XYZQB or whatever.
You'd set a squadron of return balls to cover the range of x.1, x.2,
x.3, y.1, y.2, y.3 etc between the top and bottom range that you'd be
surveying on this run.
You'd send them out, get them back, and
see how many ended up where. It may turn out that x.1 and x.2 take you
to the same place - just like on a radio dial, if you have an analog
dial, you can get the radio station not just at top dead center but a
little to each side as well. For example, if you have a constant XYZ,
and vary Q - q.1 thru q.4 take you to the same timeline, but q.5 and
q.6 are completely separate.
You'd send out bunches at a time,
see where they ended up, and note which ones did not come back. You'd
add the viable settings to your report, and move on to the next batch.
You
could further say that the autoreturn units have a limited range -
you'd need a manned mobile platform within fairly short range, so it's
not a matter of letting your autonomous units continually survey
forever.
Also, any conveyor has a maximum efficiency. Given
the ten thousand years the Paratimers have been doing this, I'd say
there have been improvements and refinements and the unit that Vall uses
can transit through a lot further range of paratime than the early Mark
1s could - but, there's going to be a limit on how much time people
want to spend in transit. After a couple days in a conveyor, most
people are ready to call it.
Some thoughts!
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-26-2018
02:45 UT
|
~
John Carr writes:
> I'm working on a Paratime novel (the one that explains what
> happened to Verkan and Dalla at the end of "Down Styphon!")
Very much looking forward to this, by the way. ;)
> 1.) I assume, from the fact that the Paratime Police are able to
> limit unrestricted Paratime travel to non-police First Level
> inhabitants, that the Paratime Police conveyors do not have a
> governor, that is, are not restricted.
I
think Jon raises some interesting points about how the Paratime Police
might accomplish these restrictions: whether they do it technologically
(e.g. via "governors" in individual conveyors) or through regulatory
regimes such as "licenses." Unfortunately, we can't tell from "Temple
Trouble" which it might be because both out-time companies have
"franchises"--one for uranium, one for oil--on that time-line and so are
both "authorized" to be there.
> How else could they travel to un-surveyed time-lines otherwise,
> such as their search for Kalvan throughout Aryan-Transpacific,
> Styphon's House Subsector?
There's
clear indication they travel to "un-surveyed" time-lines but it's not
clear to me that anyone ever travels to an _undiscovered_ time-line.
Let
me see if I can explain what I mean. We know that as a conveyor is
traveling through a given time-line that time-line is briefly visible
and potentially even "visitable" in the fashion by which Calvin Morrison
ends up in Hostigos. So while a conveyor might travel through an
"un-surveyed" time-line like those around the one where Morrison ended
up these are still "discovered" time-lines (that may even have been
"catalogued" through automated means which are able to distinguish each
time-line as a conveyor travels trough it, even if they're being
traversed too quickly for humans to distinguish them).
So, those
other Styphon's House Subsector time-lines might be "un-surveyed" but
they may very well have been identified and "catalogued" previously.
Still,
this begs the question of how the Paratimers travel into genuinely
"new" time-lines (which they had to do, at some early point, even of
it's possibly an unlikely occurrence during Verkan Vall's tenure as a
Paracop).
> We know from "Temple Trouble" that outtimers are restricted
> in where they can travel. I assumed that the Paratime Police
> Routing Department provides the companies with a route to
> and from the exploited time-lines. One of the Paratime Police's
> jobs is to keep outtimers from straying from their designated
> time-lines.
Yep.
It remains to be determined whether they accomplish this
technologically or through regulation (and enforcement). I don't recall
any evidence one way or the other (but this wouldn't be the first thing
I've overlooked in Beam's work). My vote is via regulation both
because it sets up more interesting dramatic possibilities and because,
practically, a technological restriction can be defeated relatively
easily with sufficient funds and effort (e.g. just hire a former
conveyor governor technician who's fallen down on his luck--or is mad at
his old boss).
> 2.) The big question is how do the Paratime Police find or travel
> to these "new" time-lines? What mechanism do their conveyors
> use or have that the commercian conveyors do not?
So, if we assume the prohibitions are regulatory, it may simply be a matter of launching a conveyor off into the "unknown."
But
it's possible that most conveyors--civilian / commercial _and_
Police--aren't even able to do this because there is no "Setting 11," no
way to activate the controls in a fashion that would take the conveyor
"beyond" known time-lines. Ordinarily, few folks (try to) do this,
partly because it's "prohibited" and partly because there's plenty to
exploit among the "known time-lines." That uranium franchise in Temple
Trouble is _centuries_ old. These are not nimble commercial enterprises
intent upon finding new opportunities. When they're looking to "grow
the business" they look to do it at the expense of a competitor working
in established time-lines.
It's sort of like why space travel has
faltered in the "real universe." There's no money that can be made in
orbit, or on the moon, or on Mars or Venus, that can't more easily be
made somewhere right here on Earth. (I'm talking about making money
doing something, not merely doing something that can only be done in
space.) The same premise holds for the First Level civilization and
"Known Paratime." There are already plenty of "discovered" but as yet
"un-surveyed" time-lines so why bother looking for new ones?
Furthermore,
First Level civilization is stagnant and parasitic. There are no First
Level para-explorers looking to go "where no one has gone before."
> Certainly, Piper had them traveling all over Paratime, but
> omitted mentioning how? Or did I miss it?
I
don't recall him having any Paratimers travel to "un-discovered" or
uncatalogued regions of Paratime. They were, instead, ingestigating
previously "un-surveyed" time-lines which were nevertheless already
known to exist. (If we think about the way those "short numeral"
time-line designation codes allow folks like Verkan and Tortha to get a
general sense of where a time-line is located we can assume that there
is a sort of "taxonomy" of designations which allows them to identify
time-lines they have "discovered" but haven't visited.)
Presumably
it's possible to build an "exploration conveyor" that is able to seek
out new time-lines but for most conveyors, Police or civilian /
commercial, this is simply an unnecessary function. The destination
controls can be set for any time-line "in the catalogue" but don't have
the ability to choose destinations which aren't "catalogued." (Sort of
like trying to put "outer space" coordinates into the auto-pilot
latitude-longitude selector on a commercial jet inertial guidance
system. "Co-pilot, come to 201 mark 15. . . .")
Bottom line is
that "boldly going where no one has gone before" is a specialized--and
possibly obsolete or archaic--activity for First Level civilization,
beyond the general purview of the Paratime Police.
>3.) Which brings up another question, what "drive" or "force"
> is used to propel the conveyors from Home Time Line to other
> levels and sectors?
This
is a whole other can of para-worms! I'm always confused by those
"loose wires" on the automated surveillance "balls." What in the heck
were those for? Were they transmitting _power_ to some onboard battery
or were they transmitting some sort of "initiation" signal to a
primitive onboard computer that could only initiate the "boomerang"
return sequence? I could never figure out a purpose that required the
external signal--or power--in the first place. (If it's a signal why
not simply build in a switch, after having "programmed" the mission
details in advance?)
The only thing that even makes any kind of
sense is that they are activating some sort of "wind (or "charge")-up
power" device. The power from the wires transfers power to the ball
which is stored mechanically / electrically in some sort of
gyroscope-battery-thingy that runs down after a bit and the ball
returns. But that's still ridiculous from the standpoint of the
full-size conveyors which--however they're powered--don't require those
wires.
(And let's not say it has something to do with the size.
The Paratimers mention time-lines which have the "nuclear-electric
conversion" technology which is ubiquitous throughout Beam's Terro-human
Future History yarns so why not use a small one of those?)
Bottom
line is, I don't think we get much at all from Beam about how the
conveyor's--or the "boomerang" balls--are powered. Jon's "right hand
rule" about the transposition field dynamics is as good as anything else
we have (and is pretty clever, you have to admit). It might be called
the "Crocker Effect." ;)
Down Styphon!
David
--
"Why, you--You parapeeper!" -- Morvan Kara (H. Beam Piper), "Police Operation"
~
|
David Sooby 09-26-2018
02:17 UT
|
Jon Crocker said:
> Finding new timelines is another decision - is it a matter of "tuning the dial"
> to the right settings to take you outtime? Or does each new timeline have to be
> plotted by the supercomputers down in the secure vaults underneath the Paratime
> Commission Building?
I submit it's merely a matter of setting dials.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When
he [Verkan Vall] was alone, he went to the coffer, an almost
featureless rectangular block without visible lock or hinges...
Inside were four globes of gleaming coppery mesh, a few instruments with dials and knobs...
..."I
will find a location for an antigrav conveyer to land, somewhere in the
woods near Hostigos Town; when I do, I will send a message-ball through
from there."
Then he replaced the mouthpiece, set the timer for
the transposition-field generator, and switched on the antigrav.
Carrying the ball to an open window, he tossed it outside, and then
looked up as it vanished in the night. After a few seconds, high above,
there was an instant's flash among the many visible stars. It looked
like a meteor; a Hostigi, seeing it, would have made a wish.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN, ch. 6, pp. 61, 66
Clearly
this describes use of a "message-ball"; it seems likely that a
"boomerang-ball" is similar in function and in appearance. Presumably
the boomerang-balls are only used for high-altitude aerial surveys;
close-up surveys are apparently made in person by explorers or police.
It's possible to build a conveyor which is locked to shuttling back and forth between two timelines:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...found
out which was their conveyer. It was a fixed-destination shuttler,
operative only between Home Time Line and Police Terminal, from which
most of the Paratime Police operations were routed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--"Time Crime", PARATIME p. 166
But
I doubt most crosstime traders use fixed-destination conveyers. It
would be like buying a truck which can only travel between two
warehouses. For such restricted use vehicles, it seems you'd have to
physically replace the pre-set control mechanism for another one, to
change the route it traveled. While the Paratime Police might like such
restrictions on civilians, the logistical problem that would create for
trading companies seems like too much of a burden.
~~~~~~~~~~~
David Sooby
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-25-2018
03:16 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I just bought one ticket for each. Fingers crossed!
Thanks for participating and good luck!
> I was leafing through some of the posts, and had a look at
> "John Espley's Annotated Piper Bibliography" mentioned in
> post 1860 - sure enough, in the writeup of Four Day Planet
> it calls it the 'weakest'. Of course, it also states the story
> is about labour trouble on the planet Fenris, which I'd say
> was a bit of a miss.
Yeah, that part leaves me wondering if he didn't read what he dismisses as a "juvenile" at all.
Interesting
tidbit here. I'd described in that post the mysterious footnote
mentioning a personal letter from William Tuning. I've since found the
actual reference. It's attached to the "projected" new Ace edition of
~Crisis in 2140~ ("Book "B02b") on page 173. I don't believe Ace ever
reissued ~Crisis~ but it's interesting to see that Tuning seemed to have
known to mention this. Also interesting is the quote from Tuning in
the footnote which suggests he was working for Ace on, besides ~Fuzzy
Bones~, "some edited collections of the shorter material, gathered
together with annotative information." Presumably, this became the
Piper anthologies edited by John Carr.
> This raised the question - what story of Piper's is the
> weakest? I haven't read Null-ABC yet, and I've asked
> here if I should bother to try to track down a copy, and
> the consensus was 'no'.
Well,
I'm already on record as not being a fan of ~Null-ABC~. It's only
redeeming value is that it keeps ~Lone Star Planet~ from being my
least-favorite novel. (Others' mileage may vary, of course.)
For
me, Beam's weakest work falls among his non-Terro-human Future History
and non-Paratime yarns. The Hartley yarn "Day of the Moron" would fall
"low" here, not because I don't like the politics (though I don't) but
because the "lazy union workers" who absent-mindedly commit catastrophic
sabotage is a too simplistic plot device. I prefer my antagonists to
have some agency. . . .
Even though I enjoyed it--like
popcorn--"Operation R.S.V.P." is "low" on my list too. The basic
premise, that the "Ameer of Afghanistan" is able to completely out-smart
two imagined Commie superpowers in a futuristic version of "The Great
Game," stretches my "willing suspension of belief" beyond the limit.
"Hunter
Patrol," co-authored with McGuire, is another "low" one. It's a
complex story that I've found too difficult to understand. It also
lacks a protagonist, a character that can be identified with positively.
It's a dark yarn that isn't worth the effort to make sense of, in my
view.
> The flip side is, there are many contenders for 'best', and
> not even the absolute best writer can write their best work
> all the time.
"The
Mercenaries" is far and away my favorite short yarn among Beam's "other
works" (and might be my all-around favorite). "The Return" is a pretty
good post-apocalypse yarn too, even though I'm not a particular fan of .
. . the fictional character which inspired it. "Time and Time Again"
is also just a very well-written story with a wonderful relationship
between Allan Hartley and his dad.
"The Keeper" is my favorite
Terro-human Future History yarn. (Raud the Keeper seems the most
Piper-like of Beam's protagonists, even if Jack Holloway is the
"optimistic" version of Beam.) If we take that one off the table
because it's so far into the Terro-human future then "Oomphel in the
Sky" would be my next favorite. It's a well-crafted yarn with a
wonderful portrayal of the alien Kwanns (and does a good job of
rehabilitating Edith Shaw without making her a cliche').
It's
tough to choose a "best" Paratime yarn because they're all pretty good.
Putting aside the Kalvan novelets, "Time Crime" is my favorite because
it gives the best glimpse of First Level civilization. "Last Enemy"
though is a close second because the Akor-Neb civilization is one of the
most well-done, creatively-imagined "alternate history" societies ever
(even though I don't buy the reincarnation idea). This was the yarn
that told us Beam was doing something much grander with his Paratime
idea than merely trying to rewrite the Civil War.
Well, there's my two bits--worth exactly what you paid for 'em.
Cheers,
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 09-25-2018
00:43 UT
|
You'd have to decide if the conveyors are physically governed with
lockouts and governors, or the owners have to show a licence. At the
end of Temple Trouble, the big reveal is the other syndicate was trying
to get a franchise away from the current holder - maybe the conveyors
are so expensive that its the owner's responsibility to keep them on the
timelines they're supposed to be. After all, if they're sight-seeing
on the other timeline, they're not hauling goods from where they were
supposed to be.
If there were lockouts or governors, would the bad guys in Temple Trouble have been able to get to that target timeline?
After
all, if lots of people are packing sigma-ray needlers, as per Vall's
conversation with the rocket pilot in Police Operation, I don't think
they'd care where one-off conveyor visits would go.
On the other
hand, that could be a recurring theme - they implement the New
Unbeatable Lockout system, it works for a while and then someone
exploits a weakness, and those times are the busy periods for the
paracops. Then, with the lockouts down, they have to rely on the
licences and franchises, and as long as you have the paperwork to show
you're approved to bring in oranges, you're okay. Too many oranges, you
better show Bumper Crop Certification Form X99-7/J, and they're going
to take a close look at your 'black box' recorders. Then the pendulum
swings again with the release of the Even More Unbreakable Lockout
system.
Lots of options there.
Finding new timelines is
another decision - is it a matter of "tuning the dial" to the right
settings to take you outtime? Or does each new timeline have to be
plotted by the supercomputers down in the secure vaults underneath the
Paratime Commission Building?
I like the "tune the dial"
approach myself - not every single setting gets you to a new timeline,
so if you just change the red vernier from x.32 to x.33 you end up at
the same place. There's lots you could decide there, like how they use
the 'photographic auto-return balls' from Time Crime as a first survey -
if they don't come back, scratch that setting off the 'approved' list
so no one dies trying to get there. If you set the conveyor wrong
enough, well, there's another name for that monument Vall also mentioned
to that rocket pilot.
The 'drive force' - there is the 'right
hand rule' in physics for finding the direction of a magnetic field set
up by a current moving in a straight wire. Similarly, when you activate
the Ghaldron-Hesthor field generator at exceptionally high energy
levels, and channel that energy through a mesh of silver-irridium alloy,
it exerts a force on the conveyor that takes it to the lateral time
lines. If you set the controls from A to B, you go out from home time
line, B to A takes you towards it. Or you could make it more
complicated than that, that sounds too much like 'reversing the
polarity'.
It only happens at very high energy levels, else they
would have noticed some strange effects at those big particle
accelerators they have around Fourth Level Europo-American.
It
took a long time to work out the details, but now with the main field
coil and the flux boosters for directional control, you can exactly
determine your direction and attitude and transit directly to your
desired timeline.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-24-2018
03:25 UT
|
~
[John Carr askes me to post the following.]
Hi Friends,
I'm
working on a Paratime novel (the one that explains what happened to
Verkan and Dalla at the end of "Down Styphon!") and I ran into some
interesting questions:
1.) I assume, from the fact that the
Paratime Police are able to limit unrestricted Paratime travel to
non-police First Level inhabitants, that the Paratime Police conveyors
do not have a governor, that is, are not restricted. How else could they
travel to un-surveyed time-lines otherwise, such as their search for
Kalvan throughout Aryan-Transpacific, Styphon's House Subsector?
We
know from "Temple Trouble" that outtimers are restricted in where they
can travel. I assumed that the Paratime Police Routing Department
provides the companies with a route to and from the exploited
time-lines. One of the Paratime Police's jobs is to keep outtimers from
straying from their designated time-lines.
2.) The big question
is how do the Paratime Police find or travel to these "new" time-lines?
What mechanism do their conveyors use or have that the commercian
conveyors do not? Certainly, Piper had them traveling all over Paratime,
but omitted mentioning how? Or did I miss it?
3.) Which brings
up another question, what "drive" or "force" is used to propel the
conveyors from Home Time Line to other levels and sectors?
John Carr
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 09-24-2018
03:01 UT
|
I think its hard to miss that Null-Abc was right on. HE's talking
about how kids will mostly speak in emojis and slang and not really use
our language. He basically is describing our society where you get a
"Quick STart Guide" that is all pictograms instead of an instruction
manual. The descriptions of the schools are pretty accurate for some
places when I was in High School. I think its a bit fun and a bit camp
and am pretty sure that is was a collab which will always bring up the
goofiness. I'm all about the audiobooks and it is available on
Librivox, so check it out there for sure.
|
Jon Crocker 09-24-2018
00:58 UT
|
I just bought one ticket for each. Fingers crossed! Thanks for hosting the draw, David.
I
was leafing through some of the posts, and had a look at "John Espley's
Annotated Piper Bibliography" mentioned in post 1860 - sure enough, in
the writeup of Four Day Planet it calls it the 'weakest'. Of course, it
also states the story is about labour trouble on the planet Fenris,
which I'd say was a bit of a miss.
This raised the question -
what story of Piper's is the weakest? I haven't read Null-ABC yet, and
I've asked here if I should bother to try to track down a copy, and the
consensus was 'no'.
The flip side is, there are many contenders
for 'best', and not even the absolute best writer can write their best
work all the time.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-21-2018
00:39 UT
|
~
10th Anniversary Celebration!
Zarthani'net Piper Mailing List (and Discussion Forum) will celebrate its 10th anniversary on October 4, 2018:
42/H/tnfVKeAH3s4T/p0001.0001
In
celebration of this anniversary Zarthani.net is holding a fundraising
"virtual raffle." One each of the 1975 Garland hardcover editions of
~Space Viking~ and ~Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen~ will be given away as
raffle "prizes." These hardover facisimiles of the respective original
Ace paperback editions are both used books in very good condition.
Virtual raffle "tickets" are US$10 each, submitted via PayPal using the two buttons here:
http://www.zarthani.net/anniversary.htm
You
can purchase as many "tickets" as you want. The raffle "drawings" will
be held on or shortly after October 25, 2018, so buy your raffle
tickets now!
Cheers,
David
P.S. Please share this
message with any Piper fans who might be interested in participating in
the raffle. If someone here could also "cross-post" this message on the
Yahoo Piper list that would be much appreciated.
--
"Oh, my
people had many gods. There was Conformity, and Authority, and Expense
Account, and Opinion. And there was Status, whose symbols were many,
and who rode in the great chariot Cadillac, which was almost a god
itself. And there was Atom-bomb, the dread destroyer, who would some
day come to end the world. None were very good gods, and I worshiped
none of them.” - Calvin Morrison (H. Beam Piper), ~Lord Kalvan of
Otherwhen~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-13-2018
02:41 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> One thing I did notice on a recent re-read of Lone Star Planet,
> where Ambassador Silk was getting to the barbecue - "The
> cacophony... ...was as bad as New Year's Eve in Manhattan
> or Nairobi or New Moscow, on Terra."
>
> Part of me wondered, what happened to Old Moscow? And
> is Manhattan just the borough of New York, or was there
> renaming there, too?
It's
difficult to know because ~Lone Star Planet~ is a stand alone work. We
know there was a "Fourth World--or First Interplanetary--War" (which
presumes a Third World War, and perhaps at least one more Interplanetary
War) but we don't know much about these conflicts. We can make
assumptions about them using what Beam told us about the World Wars in
the Terro-human Future History and in the Hartley yarns but we're just
guessing at that point.
Not hard to imagine, given the era Beam
was writing in, that "Old Moscow" didn't survive those world wars. The
interesting thing here is that "New Moscow" seems to have become a major
city in the Solar League.
I'm guessing Manhattan is still just
Manhattan, with the New Year's Eve celebration there being a cultural
marker that Beam would expect his American readers to recognize. That
assumption, of course, tells us a bit about what happened in those world
wars too.
Cheers,
David
--
"You know how atomic
energy was first used? There was an ancient nation, upon the ruins of
whose cities we have built our own, which was famed for its idealistic
humanitarianism. Yet that nation, treacherously attacked, created the
first atomic bombs in self defense, and used them." - Kradzy Zago (H.
Beam Piper), "Flight from Tomorrow"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-13-2018
02:24 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I agree that "technical ability" would be a better descriptor
> than 'culture'. Unless he's making the point that technology
> is so interwoven with society?
I'm
guessing the first part. The only insight we get is into Marduk and
there doesn't seem to be anything particularly salient about technology
in the culture there.
> I don't know how uniform any 'federation culture' would be,
This
is a good point. It does seem though that there weren't any monarchies
among the "Federation Member Republics." There may have been some
which were more autocratic than democratic--as long as they weren't
expansionist, and thereby threatening to the Federation's interstellar
order--but the petty government corruption in a place Poictesme--or
early Venus, for that matter--seems rather far removed from the
"Planetary Nationalist" dictatorship of Viking era Aton.
Point
is, there does seem to be _some_ "culture" in the Federation and it's
different from what we see on Marduk and hear about on Aton.
The
interesting thing here is the "space" this leaves for the "cultures" on
other Viking era "civilized worlds" like Odin, Baldur and Osiris. Lots
of room for variety there, given the examples of Marduk and Aton. One
would guess, given the origins of the (first) Galactic Empire on Marduk
and then Odin, that Odin is also a monarchy. But the other "civilized
planets"? Who knows?
Cheers,
David
--
"There aren't
a dozen and a half planets in the Old Federation that still have
hyperdrive, and they're all civilized." - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper),
~Space Viking~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-13-2018
02:09 UT
|
~
Jim Broshot wrote:
> https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20180890
Thanks for this, Jim. Good to see Greg Weeks (along with some friends) is still doing the rest of us Piper fans this service.
Cheers,
David
--
"Why
Walt Disney bought the movie rights to ['Rebel Raider'], I've never
figured out. Will Colonel Mosby be played by Mickey Mouse, and General
Phil Sheridan by Donald Duck? It's baffling. However, I was glad to
get the check." -- H. Beam Piper, The Pennsy interview, 1953
~
|
Jon Crocker 09-13-2018
01:34 UT
|
You're probably okay right now if you're tapped for downloading from the
Canadian site. Or if you live in, say, Arizona. If you live where it
snows in the US, and it's dead of winter, well...
I agree that
"technical ability" would be a better descriptor than 'culture'. Unless
he's making the point that technology is so interwoven with society? I
don't know how uniform any 'federation culture' would be, after all
most people here-and-now can spot the differences between UK and US and
Australian culture. Maybe Canadian. Probably New Zealand too. And
that's just the anglosphere. Similar differences in the
spanish-speaking world, too.
It's interesting the things you pick
up on re-reads. One thing I did notice on a recent re-read of Lone
Star Planet, where Ambassador Silk was getting to the barbecue - "The
cacophony... ...was as bad as New Year's Eve in Manhattan or Nairobi or
New Moscow, on Terra."
Part of me wondered, what happened to Old
Moscow? And is Manhattan just the borough of New York, or was there
renaming there, too?
|
Jim Broshot 09-12-2018
14:39 UT
|
Another Piper work has been posted on the Canadian Faded Page site.
Fuzzy Sapiens
https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20180890
Again note warnings about downloading if you are not a Canadian. :)
Jim Broshot
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 09-09-2018
16:39 UT
|
~
The culture of the Terran Federation?
Here's how Beam introduces Gilgamesh in ~Space Viking~:
"Gilgamesh
was rated, with reservations, as a civilized planet though not on a
level with Odin or Isis or Baldur or Marduk or Aton or any of the other
worlds which had maintained the culture of the Terran Federation
uninterruptedly."
Beam's conception of "the culture of the Terran
Federation" seems to be focused on technological capability. He goes
on immediately to write, "Perhaps Gilgamesh deserved more credit; its
people had undergone two centuries of darkness and pulled themselves out
of it by their bootstraps. They had recovered all the old techniques,
up to and including the hyperdrive."
This emphasis upon
technological capability seems to fit with Marduk being described as
having "maintained the culture of the Terran Federation" because Marduk,
a constitutional monarchy, seems rather different "culturally" from the
bureaucratic, nominally-representative democracy which characterized
the Terran Federation.
Furthermore, Aton, with a "Planetary
Nationalist" government described explicitly as a dictatorship, is also
considered to have "maintained the culture of the Terran Federation."
Yet, putting aside the views of some radical Alliance sympathizers, the
Federation could hardly have been considered a dictatorship.
If
Beam--or his editors--had instead written "worlds which had maintained
the _technological_capability_ of the Terran Federation uninterruptedly"
would it have captured more accurately what he actually meant? Would
such a description have omitted anything Beam intended when he wrote
"the culture of the Terran Federation"?
Cheers,
David
--
".
. . in one of the big hollow buildings that had stood since Khepera had
been a Member Republic of the Terran Federation." - Lucas Trask (H.
Beam Piper), ~Space Viking~
~
|
|
|
New Topic
My Topics
Views:
35310
(Unique:
9358
) / Subscribers:
27 | What's this?