Jon Crocker  11-29-2018
04:08 UT
|
We'd talked a bit about 'transpolar air invasions' - I came across this
link shortly afterward, it said it was a US Air Force film from 1958.
Yes, it's ten or twelve years after Piper wrote that story, but it's an
interesting look at the sort of procedure that would have been involved
with that sort of technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pps1xNGRzdY
With
a few changes, it could be Governor General von Schlichten taking a
similar briefing in Uller Uprising, there was certainly enough smoking
on screen.
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David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-26-2018
14:28 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Maybe it's not a secret discovery? Maybe the powers-
> that-be prod the tabloid press to give coverage of the
> 'ancient alien menace that kidnapped Terrans and
> stranded them light-years from home', especially
> before the budget debates in Parliament.
Given
Von Schlichten's suggestion of the size of the Federation Navy--even if
he was engaged in a bit of hyperbole, I have to imagine that there was
some form of this, even if it was just something like "one day, somebody
like the Thorans, but in starships, is bound to show up in Federation
space."
> Or, another wild theory - maybe the citizens don't.
> Every industry we hear about on Terra is part of a
> 'cartel', what if all those cartels were formed so that
> they could survive the staggering corporate surtaxes
> the Federation levied to support the Navy? There's
> no room for real competition, not with Executive
> Special Agents roaming the boardrooms of Terra
> and making certain the tax payments go through
> on time. The personal taxes and golf course fees
> goes to support the 'normal' stuff on Terra, and then
> the cartels and Chartered Companies pay for the
> Navy that keeps the spacelanes safe for their profits.
This
is an interesting idea too. One of the reasons the Dutch East India
Company was supplanted by the British East India Company was that the
company was unable to meet the increasing security demands of its
commercial operations and the Dutch Republic government was unable to
supply them for the Company. Eventually, the British East India Company
faced a similar challenge and, like every good capitalist enterprise,
dumped those costs upon the British Navy--and British taxpayers--which
eventually led to British government control of former Company holdings.
Perhaps
the early (second) Federation government remembered this history when
the Chartered Companies were established and part of the "chartering"
included built-in taxation which was meant to enable Federation security
efforts at the outset (rather than having the security mission dumped
on the public sector after the companies were unable to fund it
themselves). That sort of foresight is rare in a government but it's
not like there weren't plenty of historical examples for them to draw
upon.
Such an arrangement, of course, would support a view of the
(second) Federation as being an institution focused primarily on
protecting the interests of interstellar investors.
> You can have fun extrapolating from too few data
> points. :)
Hear! Hear!
David
--
"The
Federation Government owns a bigger interest in the Company than the
public realizes, too. . . ." - Carlos von Schlichten (H. Beam Piper),
~Uller Uprising~.
~
|
Jon Crocker 11-25-2018
18:54 UT
|
David “Piperfan” Johnson wrote,
>Arctic operations--and later, antarctic operations--seemed like a reasonable and interesting science-fictional theme at
>the time Beam was writing (especially when someone was also writing about the first explorations of the Moon and Mars).
Piper
wasn't the only one - I remember a story by Arthur C Clarke that had a
throwaway line about 'battles on the antarctic front', it was likely
written about the same time. (I can't remember the title, but it was
about 'The Master', a new and global would-be dictator. His last
redoubt was dug into the sides of Everest, and he had a suspended
animation chamber ready to convey him a hundred years into the future.
Kicker was, it used photocells to count days, and when artillery fire
smashed that part of the mountain, there went his wake-up call...)
That's
a good point about the IGY - for all of those radar chains, and I think
the Alaskan Highway too, they could only really operate in the summer,
that must have played a part in those decisions.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-25-2018
17:27 UT
|
~
James "jimmyjoejangles" Romanski wrote:
> So if we all know that the most likely Soviet attack was
> coming from the polar region, why is it such a sticking
> point?
As Jon suggests, it's merely about how _unlikely_ a "transpolar air invasion" seems to us in hindsight.
Arctic
operations--and later, antarctic operations--seemed like a reasonable
and interesting science-fictional theme at the time Beam was writing
(especially when someone was also writing about the first explorations
of the Moon and Mars).
But even by the time the DEW and the two
other "lines" Jon mentioned were developed, they were intended to
provide advance warning of a strategic bomber--and later, ICBM--attack,
not of an "air invasion" by ground troops which might go on to capture
Ottawa and lay siege to Buffalo.
The idea of a troop invasion
became increasingly less conceivable with time, likely in no small part
due to the U.S. and Canadian experience constructing the DEW. It was a
major military operation simply to get the people and materials in place
to build the radar sites in that harsh climate, much less to do any
actual war-fighting. No doubt that's (part of) why there weren't
follow-on efforts to "fortify" the Arctic.
That experience in the
Arctic likely also contributed to the subsequent International
Geophysical Year (IGY) efforts in Antarctica and ultimately to the
Antarctic Treaty which "demilitarized" (and "internationalized")
Antarctica. Folks truly came to recognize how harsh the Arctic and
Antarctic environments were and realized they would never be able to
maintain a "transpolar" military logistics operation that was less
difficult than that required to launch an invasion via a
longer-but-less-inhospitable route.
But as Jon has pointed out,
that was all in the future at the time Beam was writing "Time and Time
Again." Still, it seems Beam was paying attention to Arctic and
Antarctic developments, writing about characters like Glenn Murell and
using disputes over the "demilitarization" (and "internationalization")
of Luna as key elements leading to the Thirty Days' War in "The Edge of
the Knife" (submitted for publication as planning for the "IGY" was well
underway).
Cheers,
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~
~
|
Jon Crocker 11-25-2018
16:17 UT
|
Only the people in Red Army general staff know what the 'most likely'
attack path would have been - the transpolar one certainly worried a lot
of people on this continent, or else they would not have bothered to
set up NORAD, and the various radar chains, that sort of thing.
It's
not a sticking point as such - it's a perfectly logical attach path.
The problem is, with hindsight, NORAD would have made the attack a very
costly one. We now know that the Soviet economy was so badly run and
mismanaged, they never could have mounted such an attack. But, the west
didn't find that out until after the Soviet Union fell, which was
roughly 45 years after Piper wrote the story.
It's still a good story.
|
jimmyjoejangles 11-25-2018
14:20 UT
|
So if we all know that the most likely Soviet attack was coming from the polar region, why is it such a sticking point?
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-25-2018
03:59 UT
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(Courtesty of Wikipedia)
|
Jon Crocker 11-25-2018
03:40 UT
|
David “Piperfan” Johnson wrote,
>Bit of a tangent here, but
that statement from Von Schlichten--I hadn't remembered that
"fifty-odd-ship task-force" >detail--contradicts the premise that the
Federation Navy isn't a particularly large force. If fifty-odd ships is
just
>a "task-force" then there are likely hundreds, if not thousands of ships in the Federation Navy. Why in the
>_universe_ does the Federation have a navy of that size when it has no external adversaries? Even if we go
>with Jon's suggestion that perhaps they _have_ secretly discovered evidence of star-faring extraterrestrials--
>whether it be star-faring Fuzzies or ancient star-farers who transported humans from Terra to Freya (or someone else)
>--why do Federation taxpayers _pay_ for this Navy to protect against a potential foe they don't even know about?
>
>It's a conundrum. (End of tangent.)
Maybe
it's not a secret discovery? Maybe the powers-that-be prod the tabloid
press to give coverage of the 'ancient alien menace that kidnapped
Terrans and stranded them light-years from home', especially before the
budget debates in Parliament.
Or, another wild theory - maybe the
citizens don't. Every industry we hear about on Terra is part of a
'cartel', what if all those cartels were formed so that they could
survive the staggering corporate surtaxes the Federation levied to
support the Navy? There's no room for real competition, not with
Executive Special Agents roaming the boardrooms of Terra and making
certain the tax payments go through on time. The personal taxes and
golf course fees goes to support the 'normal' stuff on Terra, and then
the cartels and Chartered Companies pay for the Navy that keeps the
spacelanes safe for their profits.
You can have fun extrapolating from too few data points. :)
|
Jon Crocker 11-25-2018
03:39 UT
|
>It seems that you are not aware of the DEW Line. Distant Early Warning. A very extensive and expensive ring of
>radar stations that was in place to warn of a transpolar attack.
Oh yes, quite aware of it, I knew someone that worked there.
DEW
line was actually the third radar chain, the first one was much further
south and called the Pine Tree Line. The second was the Mid Canada
Line. DEW line was up and running in 1957.
None of these existed when Piper wrote that story, if it was written in '47.
There
was also the small matter of the Royal Canadian Air Force, we had a few
hundred Sabre jets in that era. The powers that be had also developed a
few nasty air-to-air missiles for just such a situation, look up the
AIR-2 Genie.
But, if you're the USSR and just flush with forces,
and are able to use vast reserves of equipment and not care about
niggling things like casualties in the great marxist struggle, then
you're able to mount transpolar air invasions and drop great big nukes
during the Siege of Buffalo.
Sometimes, all that hindsight makes a plot line more scary, not less! Yes, I'd vote the Hartley ticket to avoid all that.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-25-2018
02:07 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> > I choose to assume a sort of "middle ground." I think
> > there's space, with enough imagination--a planet is
> > a big place, for a Venus that would both look familiar
> > to a science-fiction reader who grew up with the
> > "romantic Venus" and yet still seem plausible to a
> > budding planetary scientist working at the time Beam
> > was writing his last Terro-human Future History yarns.
>
> Again, quite possible. And a good place to do so might
> have been if he went back and rewrote “When in the
> Course—”, recasting the Freyans with different names and
> politics, since he had used these in only slightly altered
> form for the Paratime tales of Lord Kalvan.
I
tried that first part, in a bit of fan-fiction called "In Congress
Assembled--," which was posted at Zarthani.net for a while. ("When in
the Course--" is not yet in the public domain though, so I've since
taken it down.)
> Details of the revised Venus could have been given
> through the character Roger Barron.
I
closely followed the original text, simply replacing the references
which were duplicated in "Gunpowder God" with new details. You're right
that more "back story" for Barron could have given us a bit more
insight into the Future History Venus.
> > Heck, consider what might happen if a planet like
> > Yggdrasil--or the investors in a company like the
> > Chartered Yggdrasil Company, to be more accurate--
> > decided, say, to stop shipping guano to Terra for the
> > Reclamation Projects?
>
> The Banking Cartel angle is an interesting point, but
> your example may have not been the best possibility
> to raise. I think refusing to supply guano for the
> reclamation projects would likely be considered a
> political threat to Terra itself, the capital of the
> Federation.
Perhaps,
but the actual threat is not the point. The point is who would be
making it: not folks actually _on_ Yggdrasil but rather _investors_ (in
the CYC) on _Terra_. That's the thing we need to keep in mind about the
(second) Terran Federation. It's not so much a collection of "Member
Republics" as it as a collection of various interstellar investors (and
their colonial administrators) _based_ on Terra (and perhaps on the
larger colonial planets). We read ~Uller Uprising~ (or ~Little Fuzzy~)
and focus on Von Schlichten (or Grego) and the other Company employees
on Uller (or Zarathustra) but the folks with the _real_ power are the
CUC (or CZC) _investors_ back on Terra (and perhaps elsewhere). We
don't see them because they don't play a role in the story Beam is
telling but we know they're there nonetheless.
> What this planet needs, though, is a visit by a
> fifty-odd-ship task-force of the Space Navy, just
> to show the geeks what we have back of us. After
> a show like that, there’d be a lot less znidd suddabit
> around here.” (UU, p. 71)
Bit
of a tangent here, but that statement from Von Schlichten--I hadn't
remembered that "fifty-odd-ship task-force" detail--contradicts the
premise that the Federation Navy isn't a particularly large force. If
fifty-odd ships is just a "task-force" then there are likely hundreds,
if not thousands of ships in the Federation Navy. Why in the _universe_
does the Federation have a navy of that size when it has no external
adversaries? Even if we go with Jon's suggestion that perhaps they
_have_ secretly discovered evidence of star-faring
extraterrestrials--whether it be star-faring Fuzzies or ancient
star-farers who transported humans from Terra to Freya (or someone
else)--why do Federation taxpayers _pay_ for this Navy to protect
against a potential foe they don't even know about?
It's a conundrum. (End of tangent.)
> > Again, we don't know, but I don't think a good
> > model is to think about regular U.S. military
> > forces dealing with an imagined troublesome
> > state governor. . . .
>
> Being that the Federation was originally founded
> by the United States, and has an American-style
> President and Constitution, I think the American
> model is appropriate. (Or at least two-thirds
> appropriate, since it has a British-style Parliament.)
Again,
we seem to disagree on who founded the (second) Federation but there
are nevertheless many other "non-American" markers in Beam's portrayal
of the (second) Federation. All those "Government Houses" and "Company
Houses" that seem to be based on British Imperial models which persist
in Southern Hemisphere nations like Australia and New Zealand and South
Africa. Those "Resident-Agents" and "Resident-Generals" are also
markers from the British colonial experience. (One would expect a
"governor" or perhaps "governor-general"--as the early U.S. executive in
the Philippines was known--for an American model.) And, of course,
there are the Chartered Companies, which recall the chartered companies
of the British (and Dutch) Empire (and have no analog in American
history).
> It also has a marine corps, the TFMC in Little Fuzzy,
> which seems to be modeled on the USMC.
I'm
not sure why it seems this way. They might just as easily have been
modelled on Britain's Royal Marines. Australia and New Zealand
didn't/doesn't have marines but Argentina, Brazil and South Africa all
had marine forces at the time Beam was writing.
Of some interest
here is the "Space Force" of "Omnilingual." This is a (first)
Federation military force, a new service of ground-based troops
apparently created especially for off-planet operations (though Penrose
also has experience fighting the post-atomic "barbarians" on Terra). No
such organization is ever mentioned in a (second) Federation era yarn
(as we might expect, given that the U.S.--and presumably it's (first)
Federation institutions--was completely destroyed in World War IV).
Also
of interest are the officer insignia, both of that (first) Federation
Space Force and of the (second) Federation Army (and of the company
armies and colonial constabularies that seem to follow the Federation
Army model), which seem to be patterned on the insignia of the
Confederate States Army. That seems an odd choice--in both
instances--for a force which had evolved from the U.S. military. It may
be that Beam was simply using a system with which he was familiar but
that would nevertheless indicate that it was something _different_ from
U.S. army (and air force) officer insignia that he could reasonably
assume many of his readers would recognize. But the point is, it's
_different_, suggesting he was specifically trying to indicate that the
Terran Federation was _not_ an evolutionary descendant of the United
States.
> So its military has recruits from all over the
> Federation, which are melded into a single force,
> much like recruits from the various US states make
> up the American military. And as there is no
> external enemy for them to fight, yes, I think
> they will be expected to understand that they
> may be called upon to take action against their
> home planet, if necessary.
This
may be--it's conjecture; we get no details one way or the other from
Beam--but it does make it much harder to explain how the System States
Alliance put together a force which managed to fight the Federation for
nearly a decade. . . .
> The System States War, however, is modeled on
> the US Civil War, so I believe at that time the
> Federation military will fracture much as the US
> military did in 1861.
I
think it's fare to assume that the Civil War was used as a model by
Beam, but there were obviously some stark differences. There was no
slavery at the heart of the conflict; it was entirely one of
political-economic differences. (It would have been easy for Beam to
suggest that one side was interested in sophont "emancipation" but no
such indication is ever mentioned.) But more importantly, just because
the System States War may have been modelled on the U.S. Civil War it
doesn't obviously follow that the (second) Federation was modelled on
the United States.
> But since we know from Space Viking that the
> Federation government has become somewhat
> tyrannical by this time,
No,
what we know is that the descendants of a small number Alliance
refugees who fled a devastating defeat taught their children and
grandchildren that the Federation was corrupt and "tyrannical." In some
sense, what we get from the Space Vikings is sort of like what we'd get
if the great-grandchildren of those wing-nuts who hole-up with some
guns in some Interior Department reserve from time to time were telling
us American history (or as if the children of Carlos Von Schlichten and
Paula Quinton were trying to explain the Vichy France government . . .).
We
get a much better view of the late (second) Federation era government
in ~Junkyard Planet~. There is much that is wrong with the Federation
in this era but Conn Maxwell didn't see it as "tyrannical" when he was
studying at the University of Montevideo. Foxx Travis isn't seen by
those on Poictesme as some sort of tinpot soldier when he's speaking
from his bedroom on Luna. . . .
> > Unless . . . there is some countervailing force
> > _early_ in the (second) Federation which pushes
> > the Federation to take a "hands-off" approach to
> > local governance. A Federation comprised mostly
> > of multiple "Member Republics" on Terra itself
> > might do that.
>
> Right, that’s what I meant. Its more relaxed form
> of government comes after the Federation
> forcefully unifies the Solar System. Barron’s
> statements suggest that corruption is
> commonplace in Third Century Venusian
> politics.
But
it seems we still disagree about the source of this "relaxed" or
"hands-off" (second) Federation approach. I think it must come from
elements _on_Terra_ which didn't want to see a powerful "world" (and
later "system-wide") Federation government.
> > If we want to grasp what Beam was up to, we
> > need to "think outside the box" of the United
> > States of the 1950s and early 1960s in which
> > he was writing. . . .
>
> All kidding aside, you may be right. I’m no expert
> on industrial or corporate espionage. I tend to
> think it is more common than we know, but
> maybe I’m just becoming old and cynical. :)
I'm
no expert either and have no idea what's actually happening, but what
we know is that it's not commonly _recognized_ that it's happening. On
the other hand, many people on planets like Fenris early in the (second)
Federation era and on Zarathustra later on take it for granted. That's
very different from circumstances in the United States at the time Beam
was writing.
> In turn, I certainly understand how “The Future
> History” has contributed to your scenario for these
> events, and admit that seems to be what Piper is
> saying. But that document has problems; most
> notably a major error in the date for Four-Day
> Planet, which it says takes place in the “Mid-IV
> Century”. It does not; internal evidence indicates
> that the story occurs in the late Fifth Century,
> meaning that when Beam wrote “The Future
> History”, he himself was wrong by about a century
> and a half.
I
agree that there are issues with "The Future History," and that dating
~Four-Day Planet~ (which as you say is a mess internally, and as
compared to ~Uller Uprising~ too) is one of them. In particular, it
also seems that Beam may have "had to count on his fingers to transpose
to Christian Era and . . . usually remembered too late that there was no
C.E. Year Zero." ;) But on the other hand, "The Future History"
remains the primary and most expansive commentary we get from Beam
himself.
> So “The Future History” is not a completely reliable
> guide, and we must be careful when applying it.
Agreed,
but--with no disrespect to John Carr intended whatsoever--we have even
less understanding of the provenance of some of the dates in the
~Empire~ chronology. (Well, most of us do; perhaps whatever you learned
back in 2000 gives you some insight the rest of us don't have.) So,
when there's a conflict between "The Future History" and the ~Empire~
chronology that can't be resolved by referring to Beam's yarns, I'm
inclined to go with what Weston transcribed from Beam in "The Future
History."
Cheers,
David
--
"There was a lighter oval
on the side of his beret, where something had been removed, and the
collar of his tunic showed that his major's single star had quite
recently replaced a first lieutenant's double bars." - Jack Holloway (H.
Beam Piper), ~Fuzzy Sapiens~
~
|
jimmyjoejangles 11-25-2018
01:05 UT
|
It seems that you are not aware of the DEW Line. Distant Early Warning.
A very extensive and expensive ring of radar stations that was in
place to warn of a transpolar attack.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-24-2018
21:21 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> Apart from these concerns, however, I have a much
> more important reason for sticking with the timeline
> in Empire. It's something I've known since the summer
> of 2000, and have only revealed to a few people.
> Perhaps it's time I finally gave it to Piperdom at large.
>
> The 'key' to the historical models for Beam's early
> Future History.
Oh my. Talk about a teaser! I can't help but wonder what this "key" can possibly be.
Could
it be that Beam's fabled "notes" on the Terro-human Future History
actually were in the "trunk" that Mike Knerr took from Beam's apartment
after his death? Knerr died in 1999 after having some years before sold
at auction copies of several of Beam's manuscripts previously believed
to have been burned by Beam shortly before his suicide. Beam's "trunk"
apparently ended up with Knerr's widow. Is it possible you somehow
managed to have a look at what remained inside in the summer of 2000?
Do tell!
> I am currently working on an overview of these findings,
> and hope to post it here (and on Wolf's Piper-Worlds
> site) in the next few months.
It will be a long few months. . . . ;)
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
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-24-2018
21:18 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Oh, definately, nothing against Piper for coming up with
> that as an element of the story - defending against a
> transpolar air invasion makes a great story, very 'fifteen
> minutes into the future'.
>
> I've heard other writers say that the near-future stories
> are among the most difficult to get right, you have to
> balance the 'familiar enough' against the 'future cool'.
This
is why I always try to give Beam's work the benefit of the doubt. Even
if he seems to make an "error" between one work and another my favorite
explanation is the one that tries to reconcile those contradictions
rather than dismissing (one of) them.
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
~
|
Calidore 11-24-2018
19:54 UT
|
Another somewhat late response to the previous discussion.
David “Piperfan” Johnson wrote,
>I'm generally amenable to the idea of a "romantic Venus" but there is a bit
>of a difference here with respect to Beam's depiction of Mars. The "romantic
>Mars" of the Terro-human Future History occurs well in the past. What the
>early Federation explorers find are the extinct remnants of that "romantic Mars"
>(and thus a "contemporary"--for them--Mars that is closer to the "real life"
>understanding of Mars at the time Beam was writing).
>To me, that suggests we have to allow for a similar sort of modification
>of Beam's "romantic Venus," one that falls somewhere in between the
>"romantic" version of "swamps-and pseudo-dinosaurs" and the more
>"scientific" version that was emerging by the time Beam was writing
>most of his Terro-human Future History yarns. That way, at least,
>we can preserve the assumption that Beam wasn't writing "alternate
>history" from the get-go.
I
still think Piper was using the same Venus in the Future History as in
Paratime, just as he seems to have used the same Mars for both. But I
don’t have a problem with the idea that he could have used a modified
version in later THFH tales, since he had not been explicit about the
climate of Venus in that series. That also goes for those who are
writing tales in his universe.
>Well, that's the idealized question but I think the more practical one is,
>what assumptions will we make about Beam's Terro-human Future History
>Venus? I choose to assume a sort of "middle ground." I think there's space,
>with enough imagination--a planet is a big place, for a Venus that would
>both look familiar to a science-fiction reader who grew up with the "romantic
>Venus" and yet still seem plausible to a budding planetary scientist working
>at the time Beam was writing his last Terro-human Future History yarns.
Again,
quite possible. And a good place to do so might have been if he went
back and rewrote “When in the Course—”, recasting the Freyans with
different names and politics, since he had used these in only slightly
altered form for the Paratime tales of Lord Kalvan. Details of the
revised Venus could have been given through the character Roger Barron.
>Yes, I mean politically, or at least political-economically. I think the Federation
>is a more complex society than we often realize. From what we read in Beam's
>work, institutions like that Federation Parliament don't seem to play a large role.
>For example, some of the Chartered Companies--likely modelled on historical
>examples like the Dutch and British East India Companies--might rival
>governments. A planet like Odin might not have much more formal power in the
>Federation Parliament than does Terra--perhaps even significantly less, if
>parliamentary representation is based in some way upon population--but what
>does its influence look like in the Banking Cartel? Heck, consider what might
>happen if a planet like Yggdrasil--or the investors in a company like the
>Chartered Yggdrasil Company, to be more accurate--decided, say, to stop
>shipping guano to Terra for the Reclamation Projects?
The
Banking Cartel angle is an interesting point, but your example may have
not been the best possibility to raise. I think refusing to supply
guano for the reclamation projects would likely be considered a
political threat to Terra itself, the capital of the Federation.
Parliament would probably become involved fairly quickly, with the Space
Navy ready to pay a ‘visit’ to Yggdrasil if a political solution to
whatever dispute caused the cutoff is not forthcoming. This would be a
variant of the Federation Space Navy visit proposed by Carlos von
Schlichten, in order to overawe the native Ullerans. “What this planet
needs, though, is a visit by a fifty-odd-ship task-force of the Space
Navy, just to show the geeks what we have back of us. After a show like
that, there’d be a lot less znidd suddabit around here.” (UU, p. 71)
Though
the chartered companies do have a great deal of power—Victor Grego says
“We can do anything we want as long as we don’t violate colonial law or
the Federation Constitution”—the Federation maintains Space Navy bases
at strategic points like Xerxes, as a constant reminder to the various
planetary governments and companies “that there was something bigger and
more powerful” than them. (LF, pp. 11, 13) The Federation government
on Terra seems to wield its military power lightly during the middle
centuries of its existence, but this velvet glove still contains a
mailed fist.
>Even this might be problematic. It certainly was by the time of the System
>States War: where else did the Alliance Navy (and Army) come from except
>from former Federation Navy (and Army) units which sided with the Alliance?
>Would Federation forces raised from a planet like Marduk or Aton _actually_
>support a military action against their home world ordered by commanders on
>Terra?
>Again, we don't know, but I don't think a good model is to think about regular
>U.S. military forces dealing with an imagined troublesome state governor. . . .
Being
that the Federation was originally founded by the United States, and
has an American-style President and Constitution, I think the American
model is appropriate. (Or at least two-thirds appropriate, since it has
a British-style Parliament.) It also has a marine corps, the TFMC in
Little Fuzzy, which seems to be modeled on the USMC. So its military
has recruits from all over the Federation, which are melded into a
single force, much like recruits from the various US states make up the
American military. And as there is no external enemy for them to fight,
yes, I think they will be expected to understand that they may be
called upon to take action against their home planet, if necessary.
But
there is little chance of that while the Federation remains unified
through its middle centuries, for during this period, its government
remains largely "hands-off" and benevolent. The System States War,
however, is modeled on the US Civil War, so I believe at that time the
Federation military will fracture much as the US military did in 1861.
Ninety systems secede; this is a serious breach to the unity of the
Federation, which is what the military is maintained to prevent. But
since we know from Space Viking that the Federation government has
become somewhat tyrannical by this time, a great many soldiers whose
home planets are now in the Alliance will reckon their duty to their
home outweighs their duty to the Federation (which is now perceived to
be a malevolent body), and return to defend them. Even some TF general
officers, paralleling Robert E. Lee who sided with the Confederacy, will
decide to side with the Alliance.
>That may be the case later in the Federation era but I doubt it's the case
>when the early (second) Federation is waging those "wars of pacification
>and consolidation." And, presumably, the early (second) Federation wouldn't
>put up with too much "poor governance" for a fairly long period after the
>last Federation "pacification forces" leave Venus (which makes it hard to
>believe Barron's experience of Venusian politics would have already become
>commonplace).
>Unless . . . there is some countervailing force _early_ in the (second) Federation
>which pushes the Federation to take a "hands-off" approach to local governance.
>A Federation comprised mostly of multiple "Member Republics" on Terra itself
>might do that.
Right,
that’s what I meant. Its more relaxed form of government comes after
the Federation forcefully unifies the Solar System. Barron’s statements
suggest that corruption is commonplace in Third Century Venusian
politics.
>Here, I think, are actually some good examples of why the American federal
>government--and American society generally--are poor models for the mature
>Terran Federation that we see in Beam's yarns. Yes, some federal agency might be
>investigating a company like Google, but they don't have "spies" masquerading as
>employees on the Google campus.
Well, not that we know of. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be very good spies, would they? :)
>Likewise, there are no Google employees working "undercover" at Apple.
>There might be a few _Chinese_ or _Russian_ "secret agents" working in
>Silicon Valley--and the executives of Facebook might take this for granted
>in a way that's similar to what we see from Grego, but there are no such
>"foreign powers" in the Federation.
>Now, there might have been various sorts of "secret agents" working both
>for national governments and employed by companies like the Dutch and
>British East India Companies, but those are governments--and companies—
>that functioned rather differently than does the contemporary American
>government and society. If we want to grasp what Beam was up to, we need
>to "think outside the box" of the United States of the 1950s and early 1960s
>in which he was writing. . . .
All
kidding aside, you may be right. I’m no expert on industrial or
corporate espionage. I tend to think it is more common than we know,
but maybe I’m just becoming old and cynical. :) I wonder too if the
seemingly numerous ‘spies’ are connected with Piper’s life-long interest
in the mystery genre, which often includes various subterfuges,
espionage and cloak-and-dagger skullduggery. Not a serious argument,
just an idea.
>In his essay "The Future History," Beam describes World War IV as the "First
>Interplanetary War," so I think the rebellious colonies on Venus and Mars are
>caught up in it somehow. This is the war which results in the "complete
>devastation of [the] Northern Hemisphere of Terra." That means the end of
>the U.S.-led (first) Terran Federation. Then the "Second Terran Federation [is]
>organized by South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, the Argentine, etc."
>If there are any remnants of Northern Hemisphere nation-states left at this point
>--say,
a rump American government based in post-Thirty Days' War settlements
in >Antarctica--they are taking terms from the new (second)
Federation, not setting
>any agendas for the reformed Federation.
And,
>It is this (second) Federation which undertakes those "wars of colonial
>pacification and consolidation" and subsequently "imposes a System-wide
>pax." That doesn't sound like somebody on Venus--or Mars--uniting former
>colonies on their planet. That sounds like those colonies being "pacified and
>consolidated" by an off-planet, (second) Federation force.
And,
>We know Venus ends up as a "Federation Member Republic" (and I agree it's
>reasonable to assume a similar outcome for Mars) but that seems to be an
>outcome which is _imposed_ from off-planet, not one that unfolds organically.
And,
>Well, Beam speaks specifically about "first" and "second" Federations, both in
>his yarns and in "The Future History" essay, so they are distinctly different entities.
>They oddly carry the same name--I tried to suggest an explanation for this in
>"The Satchel"--but are distinct entities nonetheless. Beam specifically identifies
>the "second" Federation as that entity organized by the Southern Hemisphere
>nations in the aftermath of the Fourth World War, which makes it distinct from
>the U.N.-replacing, U.S.-led "first" Federation described in "The Edge of the Knife"
>that fights the Thirty Days' War.
>Bottom line is "Terran Federation" is not one thing, but rather two distinctly
>different things, which happen to have the same name. This distinction is so
>significant that it is still remembered many centuries later during the Viking era,
>long after the Terran Federation ceased to exist.
And,
>Alas, these dates from the ~Empire~ chronology don't fit with Beam's essay
>"The Future History." Here's the text:
>Second Century
>-------------
> World War IV (First Interplanetary War), 106-109 [AE]; minor wars for ten
>years thereafter. Complete devastation of [the] Northern Hemisphere of Terra.
>Second Terran Federation [is] organized by South Africa, Australia and New
>Zealand, Brazil, the Argentine, etc. Wars of colonial pacification and consolidation;
>the new Terran Federation imposes a System-wide pax.
>Keene-Gonzales-Dillingham Theory of Non-Einsteinian Relatively, AE 172.
>Now, Beam doesn't specifically date the formation of the "second" Federation,
>but this suggests it's shortly after those "minor wars" which follow the end of the
>Fourth World War, i.e. circa, say, 125 AE (2068 CE), very near the 2070 CE date
>for a "single world sovereignty" from "The Edge of the Knife." In any event, it
>definitely occurs _prior_ to 172 AE.
>Likewise, Beam doesn't precisely date any "revolt" of the colonies on Venus
>(and Mars) in "The Future History," but he does describe the Fourth World War
>as the "First _Interplanetary_ War," which suggests warfare on Venus and Mars.
>The previous entry in "The Future History" for the "First Century AE" includes the
>following text (immediately following a reference to the Cyrano Expedition of
>"Omnilingual"):
>"Further explorations of Mars, Venus, Asteroid Belt and Moons of Jupiter.
>First Federation begins to crack under strains of colonial claims and counter-
>claims of member states."
>Here Beam seems to be foreshadowing the "revolt of colonies on Mars and
>Venus" which revolt against the _first_ Federation near the end of the First
>Century, AE (or early in the Second Century).
And,
>Understood, and I recognize how the ~Empire~ chronology contributes to this,
>but I think "The Future History" paints a pretty clear picture of the colonial revolts
>on Venus and Mars occurring much earlier as _part_of_ the Fourth World War,
>followed quickly by the formation of the "second" Federation which then goes on
>to "pacify and consolidate" those formerly rebellious colonies in short order. By
>the 174 AE/183 AE period from the ~Empire~ chronology, the (second) Federation
>has been in place and enjoying a "System-wide pax" for nearly half a century and
>is on the cusp of launching the first interstellar expedition to Alpha Centauri. . . .
In
turn, I certainly understand how “The Future History” has contributed
to your scenario for these events, and admit that seems to be what Piper
is saying. But that document has problems; most notably a major error
in the date for Four-Day Planet, which it says takes place in the
“Mid-IV Century”. It does not; internal evidence indicates that the
story occurs in the late Fifth Century, meaning that when Beam wrote
“The Future History”, he himself was wrong by about a century and a
half. And for the post-WWIV period, he glosses over the better part of
the Second Century AE in just three sentences. A summary such as this
is prone to errors and/or misrepresentations, due to compression—if not
confusion, as Beam seems to have been for the date of 4DP. (I sometimes
wonder if the errors occurred because he was in a hurry to finish the
piece and send it to Peter Weston, and/or if he was being purposely
vague or misleading, so as not to reveal too much about the THFH.) So
“The Future History” is not a completely reliable guide, and we must be
careful when applying it.
Apart from these concerns,
however, I have a much more important reason for sticking with the
timeline in Empire. It’s something I’ve known since the summer of 2000,
and have only revealed to a few people. Perhaps it’s time I finally
gave it to Piperdom at large.
The ‘key’ to the historical models for Beam’s early Future History.
Very
simple yet very subtle, this key reveals Piper’s historical models for
the First and Second Terran Federations (and incidentally explains why
they have the same name), WWIII, WWIV, the unification of Terra, the
Secession of Venus and the Freyans. In addition, the key reveals the
historical model for Professor Chalmers, why the first spaceship to Mars
is named the Cyrano (plus its significance for the human remains found
there, as well as why one of the crew members is French-Canadian), the
possible model for General Lanningham, and even explains the appearance
of Lt. Ranjit Singh in Four-Day Planet.
Knowing the historical
models has allowed me to analyze them, and thereby deduce previously
unknown details of early Federation events. Such as what Professor
Chalmers does in the years following “The Edge of the Knife”; the
courses, combatants and outcomes of WWIII, WWIV and the Secession of
Venus; the date Terra should be completely unified; and the approximate
date of “When in the Course—”. The last also reveals the reason Freya
has three continents but only one is currently inhabited, why the two
uninhabited ones will soon be settled with Freyan mercenaries, and the
model for the sub-sapient native kholphs.
As a minor aside, the
key also works for Beam’s non-THFH tale Lone Star Planet, as well as
the rise of the Free Scientists after WWII in “The Mercenaries”.
I
am currently working on an overview of these findings, and hope to post
it here (and on Wolf’s Piper-Worlds site) in the next few months. The
historical models show that while Venus (and Mars) is involved in WWIV,
the part it plays is minor compared to its Secession, which does in fact
take place sixty years later (and could therefore be termed the
‘Second—or as we will see, maybe Third—Interplanetary War’, though Beam
doesn’t explicitly call it that). It fights a Terra which has been
completely unified for many decades. When the Second Federation is
organized by South Terra, “South Africa and New Zealand, Brazil, the
Argentine, etc.” are not independent countries at the time, having long
been mere ‘states’ of the global union. I don’t know how John Carr and
(presumably) Jerry Pournelle originally came up with them, but the key
supports his/their dates for the Secession and the beginning of the
Second Federation as being essentially correct. Thus revealing that it
is “The Future History” which is in error, not the timeline in Empire.
I
think I can promise some very interesting insights into the early
history of the Federation. (Assuming, of course, that my interpretation
of the historical models is accurate. That the key itself is correct I
have no doubt.)
John
|
Jon Crocker 11-24-2018
19:53 UT
|
Oh, definately, nothing against Piper for coming up with that as an
element of the story - defending against a transpolar air invasion makes
a great story, very 'fifteen minutes into the future'.
I've
heard other writers say that the near-future stories are among the most
difficult to get right, you have to balance the 'familiar enough'
against the 'future cool'.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-24-2018
17:04 UT
|
~ Jon Crocker wrote: > One thing for certain, the Soviet economy in the "Hartley > Belt" must have seriously outperformed the real-world > version, if the USSR could mount "a transpolar air invasion > of Canada". Beam
submitted "Time and Time Again" shortly more than a year after V-E day
and less than three months after Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech.
It's sometimes a challenge, especially given our post-Cold War
perspective on the Soviet Union, to realize how substantial the
potential Soviet threat must have seemed to someone like Beam who was
writing in that period. Indeed, even someone reading "Time and
Time Again" in 1975--when that fictional "transpolar air invasion"
occurred (on some alternate timeline)--wouldn't have found it difficult
to believe in the aftermath of American defeat in Vietnam and despite
the Apollo-Soyuz (or Soyuz-Apollo) orbital rendezvous that year. But,
yeah, to those of us now with the benefit of hindsight it seems absurd.
That is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of trying to write
fiction set in Beam's worlds: the distance between the
taken-for-granted world in which we live and the very different
taken-for-granted world in which he was writing. Cheers, David -- "I
believe the first one, also a General von Schlichten, was what was then
known as a war-criminal." - Carlos von Schlichten (H. Beam Piper),
~Uller Uprising~ ~ Edited 11-24-2018 20:16
|
Jon Crocker 11-23-2018
23:57 UT
|
True.
One thing for certain, the Soviet economy in the "Hartley
Belt" must have seriously outperformed the real-world version, if the
USSR could mount "a transpolar air invasion of Canada".
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-22-2018
03:57 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> In an historic meeting with Taft, Eisenhower offered to sit out
> the nomination for the election if, in turn, Taft would support
> the American commitment to NATO. Taft declined, President
> Eisenhower had eight years in office, and Senator Taft died of
> cancer in July of 1953."
>
> How would President MacArthur have done?
Another
Belt very near to the "Hartley Belt." Very interesting. Would have
liked to have seen more of this in a GURPS publication.
> I don't know, but if you read General Bradley's (posthumous)
> book A General's Life, I don't think General Bradley would have
> recommended it.
Bazinga!
Perhaps General of the Army Bradley, ret., gets together with his
former subordinate, General Matthew Ridgway, ret., and runs against
President MacArthur in the 1956 election, but they still fail to prevent
the conflagration which led to the world we see in "The Return." ;)
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"
~
|
Jon Crocker 11-21-2018
00:58 UT
|
Those are great suggestions - I admit I'm not strong enough in the
'classics' to instantly recognize the full impact all of those changes
would make, but it gives great suggestions for historical reading.
At
one point, I'd put something together to submit to GURPS for their
'infinite worlds' series, which was plainly based off paratime. I never
did send it in, but I'll past the opening bit below.
"On
Homeline, Douglas MacArthur was many things, but he was never President
of the United States of America. The closest he came to the Oval Office
was a declaration by Republican Senator Robert Taft of Ohio that,
should the Senator win the Republican Nomination, he would chose the
general as his running mate in the 1952 election.
On Homeline, a
different general got there first – Eisenhower, but even that was a
near-run thing. Senator Taft was an isolationist who wanted nothing
more to do with Europe after two World Wars. General Eisenhower, on the
other hand, thought that Western Europe needed assistance to defend
itself against potential Soviet aggression and to guard against ending
up like Eastern Europe. In an historic meeting with Taft, Eisenhower
offered to sit out the nomination for the election if, in turn, Taft
would support the American commitment to NATO. Taft declined, President
Eisenhower had eight years in office, and Senator Taft died of cancer
in July of 1953."
How would President MacArthur have done? I
don't know, but if you read General Bradley's (posthumous) book A
General's Life, I don't think General Bradley would have recommended it.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-20-2018
02:48 UT
|
~
From the Archives: Proposed Fourth Level Paratime sectors
Below, another message to the old PIPER-L mailing list from back in September 2001 (seventeen years ago this month):
---
Subject: Paratime Proposals
From: John Anderson
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 14:26:51 -0500
PARATIME PROPOSALS
At John Carr's suggestion earlier this year, I started coming up with
some proposals for Fourth Level Paratime sectors, subsectors, and belts.
I have no doubt some List members have devised their own, perhaps many
of which are along similar lines.
Alexandrian-Roman Sector: This is obviously one of Piper's own. I speculate
that it forms when Alexander accepts the peace deal Persia offered after the
Battle of Issus, but that the real Alexander rejected. Alternately, it could
form because Alexander does not die after returning from India, allowing him
a few more decades of conquest, this time in the Mediterranean area.
1. Indo-Alexandrian Subsector: Alexander's soldiers do not go on strike,
allowing the Macedonians to conquer India before returning home. However,
in India Alexander would learn about China, so there could also be an
2. Alexandrian-Oriental Subsector: One of Alexander's motivations seems to
have been finding the eastern end of the world. 'Alexander had his mind
fixed on the far eastern limit of the Oikoumene.' (Alexander of Macedon,
pg. 45) 'In this unknown area of the east Alexander believed that the
true gods might still exist.' (ibid, pg. 47) Following his fascination
could result in Alexander conquering China after India, and finding the
eastern shores of the Oikoumene. With such an extensive empire, he could
locate his capital in India, which is approximately equidistant from
Greece and northeast China. Alexandria-on-the-Ganges would become a great
metropolis, with Alex himself probably finding his way into the Hindu
pantheon (as well as Chinese and others). But he might not return to the
Mediterranean area and conquer Rome in this timeline, so it could rather
be a subset of the 'Macedonian Empire Sector' (Para, pg. 271)
However, even assuming Alexander does expire at about the 'historical'
time, his successors could still create Alexandrian-Roman, in several
subsectors such as:
3. Antigonid-Roman Subsector: Antigonus controlled Anatolia after
Alexander's death, and was the first of his generals attempting to
reunite the empire. In this Subsector, he is successful.
4. Seleuco-Roman Subsector: After Antigonus went down fighting, Persian-
based Seleucus made his grab at the brass ring, but was assassinated
when he crossed to Europe. In this timeline, he survives to become a
second Alexander.
5. Roman-Ptolemaic Subsector: Probably the last chance for an Alexandrian-
Roman Sector to form, as Egypt was the last of the Hellenistic states.
(Thus, the resulting sector will likely be more Roman than Alexandrian.)
The most interesting belts might be those of Cleopatra.
a) Caesar-Cleopatran Belt: Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemies,
who schemed to recreate the empire of Alexander. In this Belt, she
persuades Caesar and his Roman legions to do just that. Bringing in
their son, who could have inherited the resulting 'Alexandrian-Roman
Empire', an alternate name is 'Cleopatra-Caesarion' Belt.
b) Cleopatra-Antonine Belt: She had a second chance with Marc Antony.
If Antony hadn't been a drunkard, or engaged his land-forces in a
sea battle with Octavian, he could have conquered the Roman Empire
for Cleopatra. Mark Antony succeeds in this belt.
c) Cleopatra-Augustan Belt: But even given Antony's failure, Cleopatra
could have had a final chance by working her charms on Octavian. He
apparently wasn't susceptible to them in our timeline, but the one
where he does succumb creates this Belt. Octavian ruled so well that
he was given the title 'Augustus', so this belt could be a
particularly prosperous one.
Moving farther back in history, taking the opposite view of the Graeco-
Persian conflict gives us the
Helleno-Persian Sector: Ancient Greece is conquered by Persia, and ruled
by satraps. A sort of reversal of Hellenistic civilization, this could
also be called 'Persianistic' (or Perso-Hellenic, for that matter). With
the infusion of Greek culture--and hoplites--Persia avoids the decline it
went through in our timeline. Below this sector could lie the
1. Perso-Mediterranean Subsector: The Carthaginians were rivals of the
Greeks in the western Mediterranean. Greek ships and Helleno-Persian
'Immortal Hoplites' could defeat Carthage by sea and land long before
Rome rose to do so, and even add Etruscan and the fledgling Roman
civilization to their own.
2. Persian-Transatlantic Subsector: Though controversial, there is evidence
the Carthaginians made it to the New World. Given the Helleno-Persian
conquest of Carthage, a combination of Greek and Punic sea-power under
Persian rule could lead to an earlier opening of the Americas to
sustained contact with the Old World, including settlement and commerce.
The Persians often tried to play the Greek city-states off against each
other, so in some of these subsectors, there could be belts where Persia
uses this tactic in its conquest of Greece, including
a) Darian-Spartan Belt: Sparta uses Persian support in Darius' time
against Athens.
b) Xerxes-Athenian Belt: Athens uses Persian support in Xerxes' time
against Sparta.
Returning closer to home, under the Europo-American Sector there could
also be groupings like
1. Britano-Columbian Subsector: Our own timeline is in Hispano-Columbian
Subsector, the opening of the New World by Columbus for Spain. But as
Piper states in 'Crossroads of Destiny', Columbus could have sailed for
Henry VII of England, (WoHBP, pg. 189). Alternately, this could also
be called 'Anglo-Columbian'.
2. Viking-Vinland Subsector: Before Hispano-Columbian forms in 1492,
Piper also mentions "suppose Leif Ericson had been able to plant a
permanent colony in America in the Eleventh Century" (ibid).
Alternate name: 'Vinland Subsector'.
Back up on the Sector level, next to Europo-American there could be the
Asio-American Sector: Instead of Europeans colonizing the New World,
there's no reason why the Asians couldn't have. And actually, they did,
in the American Indian migrations across the Bering land bridge, though
this ended when the Bering Strait was formed. Timelines where the
contact is reestablished by sea would include those in the
1. Sino-Oceanic Subsector: During the Ming Dynasty, an admiral named
Cheng Ho made some great voyages of discovery in the Pacific and
Indian Oceans, but China soon turned its back on exploration. In this
subsector, China kept going, which could have led to a collision with
European civilization, also expanding at this time (late 1400s). East
meets West in the New World and Africa; the resulting conflict pits
the greater wealth and population of the East against the greater
technology and innovative spirit of the West. Asian-dominated belts
of this subsector could include
a) Nippon-Pacific Belt: Sino-Oceanic could conquer Japan in most belts,
but in this one, Japan is able to hold them off. Assuming China does
return to semi-isolation, the torch of exploration and conquest would
pass to the Japanese. A natural maritime power, they might expand to
take in the entire Pacific basin.
b) Japan-Panmaritime: In this belt, Japan not only incorporates the
Pacific, but beats the British to World Ocean dominance, creating
an Asian empire on which 'the sun never sets'.
Meanwhile, back in Hispano-Columbian Subsector, there could be an
American-Hemispheric Belt: The US takes 'Manifest Destiny' literally--
becoming as territorially imperialist as any European power--and
eventually overspreads the entire American continent. Canada is taken
from Britain either in the Revolution or the War of 1812. The Mexican
War leads to the eventual annexation of that country, and Central America
falls fairly easily (apart from the British Honduras, which might entail
a third war with Britain). Instead of withdrawing after their various
interventions in the Caribbean, America annexes the area piecemeal, and
the US could use European preoccupation with WWI--assuming it still occurs
--as an opportunity to conquer South America. (If the US stops at Colombia,
the resulting belt would be 'American-Continental'.) But with America
becoming increasingly powerful, the European empires could combine
against it, possibly resulting in a rather different 'World War'.
However, all these proposals (and I believe all of Piper's known Fourth
Level timelines as well) presuppose that the Martians landed in the Eastern
Hemisphere. ('They left the mountains--were they the Caucasus? The Alps? The
Pamirs?--and spread outward, conquering as they went.' WoHBP, pg. 170) Or,
as the Paratimers call the Old World, the 'Major Land Mass' (Para, pg. 53).
Somewhere in Paratime there could be sectors based on a New World ('Minor
Land Mass'-ibid) landing of the stricken Martian colony ship. The older
civilizations here would develop in the major river systems of the Western
Hemisphere, and in a reverse of the American Indians, spread to the Old
World across the Bering land bridge in the other direction.
Of course, coming up with interesting-sounding names is the easy part
(assuming List members actually find these interesting). But as John Carr
states, 'The trick is to 'figure out' a brief history from then until now!
How would this alternate world develop...?' (email, dated March 22, 2001)
I leave it for another time--or another List member--to pick up that more
difficult and challenging task of creative extrapolation!
--John Anderson
PS: For those who haven't seen it, a good book containing various
historical turning points--or 'crossroads of destiny'--is 'What If?'
Edited by Robert Crowley, it is subtitled 'The World's Foremost Military
Historians Imagine What Might Have Been'. (Hardcover, G.P. Putnam's Sons,
1999; trade paperback, Berkley Books, 2000.)
-----
John's original message is available here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080310095008...l&T=0&F=&S=&P=16938
As
was often the case, John's message sparked a wide-ranging follow-on
discussion. Plenty of additional sectors and subsectors were proposed
by others Among other things, it also sparked some Piper fans to put
together the information captured here:
http://www.zarthani.net/paratime_chronography.htm
Cheers,
David
--
"I
was trying to show the results of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
after the First World War, and the partition of the Middle East into a
loose collection of Arab states, and the passing of British and other
European spheres of influence following the Second." - Edward Chalmers
(H. Beam Piper), "The Edge of the Knife"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-14-2018
05:27 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> Forgive the lateness (and length) of this reply.
No worries. You've shared plenty of insight here that's been worth waiting for!
> Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning, but your first
> comment seems to suggest that the THFH is not an
> alternate history. Surely it is, whether or not Beam’s
> Venus is the romantic version? We didn’t have a WWIII
> in 1974, or a manned expedition to Mars in 1996.
Yes,
of course. I understand that, at this point in time, much of the
Terro-human activity Beam depicted has made his "future history" into an
"alternate history." I merely meant that if we go with a "romantic"
version of Venus--a difference that is more profound than simply that
caused by different Terro-human activity, then Beam's Terro-human Future
History was "alternate history" almost from the moment most of us began
reading it!
> Besides, from “Omnilingual” we know that he used the
> romantic version of Mars in his Future History (a dying
> planet with empty cities and a worldwide ‘canal’ network),
> making it more than likely, in my opinion, that his
> Venus was conceptually from the same era (tropical,
> marshy planet).
I'm
generally amenable to the idea of a "romantic Venus" but there is a bit
of a difference here with respect to Beam's depiction of Mars. The
"romantic Mars" of the Terro-human Future History occurs well in the
past. What the early Federation explorers find are the extinct remnants
of that "romantic Mars" (and thus a "contemporary"--for them--Mars that
is closer to the "real life" understanding of Mars at the time Beam was
writing).
To me, that suggests we have to allow for a similar
sort of modification of Beam's "romantic Venus," one that falls
somewhere in between the "romantic" version of "swamps-and
pseudo-dinosaurs" and the more "scientific" version that was emerging by
the time Beam was writing most of his Terro-human Future History yarns.
That way, at least, we can preserve the assumption that Beam wasn't
writing "alternate history" from the get-go.
> As for your second comment, the timing of his stories
> actually supports this. His Future History began with
> Uller Uprising, published in 1952; “The Edge of the Knife”,
> which mentions “the colonies on Mars and Venus”, was
> published in 1957; while “When in the Course”, which
> contains Roger Barron of Venus, was presumably
> written in 1959, since it was “finished on January 5,
> 1960”. (Carr, Piper Biography, p. 157) All these dates
> are when Venus was still plausibly thought to be
> earthlike, before our understanding underwent radical
> change.
I
take your point--and your empirics--but read the balance of the
then-contemporary evidence a bit differently. I think, by the time Beam
was writing ~Space Viking~ and ~Junkyard Planet~--just before the first
"real life" robotic probes reached Venus--the "romantic Venus" was
already becoming untenable. Scientific understanding of the time didn't
yet know about the terribly inhospitable surface temperatures and
atmospheric pressure on Venus but they were reasonably convinced those
early ~Venera~ and ~Mariner~ probes weren't going to find
Arrhenius-esque swamps and pseudo-dinosaurs. . . .
> You may be right that Beam’s vagueness about his
> Future History Venus was deliberate, and he may
> have even been glad of it when our understanding of
> Venus changed so dramatically. The question then
> becomes, could he have adopted the new facts about
> Venus into his post-1962 Future History stories?
[snip]
> So all things considered, I think I'll stick with the
> romantic view.
Well,
that's the idealized question but I think the more practical one is,
what assumptions will we make about Beam's Terro-human Future History
Venus? I choose to assume a sort of "middle ground." I think there's
space, with enough imagination--a planet is a big place, for a Venus
that would both look familiar to a science-fiction reader who grew up
with the "romantic Venus" and yet still seem plausible to a budding
planetary scientist working at the time Beam was writing his last
Terro-human Future History yarns.
> If you mean “won’t stand for it politically”, I agree
> with that. Because the only place they can oppose
> Terra is in the Federation Parliament.
Yes,
I mean politically, or at least political-economically. I think the
Federation is a more complex society than we often realize. From what
we read in Beam's work, institutions like that Federation Parliament
don't seem to play a large role. For example, some of the Chartered
Companies--likely modelled on historical examples like the Dutch and
British East India Companies--might rival governments. A planet like
Odin might not have much more formal power in the Federation Parliament
than does Terra--perhaps even significantly less, if parliamentary
representation is based in some way upon population--but what does its
influence look like in the Banking Cartel? Heck, consider what might
happen if a planet like Yggdrasil--or the investors in a company like
the Chartered Yggdrasil Company, to be more accurate--decided, say, to
stop shipping guano to Terra for the Reclamation Projects?
We can
only guess but I think it's pretty clear, given what Beam shows us,
that we can't take our understanding of contemporary national
governments and map them easily on the (mature) Terran Federation.
> They couldn’t do anything about it militarily,
> because the Federation has the only Space Navy,
> the ultimate veto power.
Even
this might be problematic. It certainly was by the time of the System
States War: where else did the Alliance Navy (and Army) come from except
from former Federation Navy (and Army) units which sided with the
Alliance? Would Federation forces raised from a planet like Marduk or
Aton _actually_ support a military action against their home world
ordered by commanders on Terra?
Again, we don't know, but I don't
think a good model is to think about regular U.S. military forces
dealing with an imagined troublesome state governor. . . .
> But I think the main reason the Federation leaves
> Venus alone is that it has a fairly ‘relaxed’
> democratic government which allows its member
> planets considerable autonomy,
That
may be the case later in the Federation era but I doubt it's the case
when the early (second) Federation is waging those "wars of pacification
and consolidation." And, presumably, the early (second) Federation
wouldn't put up with too much "poor governance" for a fairly long period
after the last Federation "pacification forces" leave Venus (which
makes it hard to believe Barron's experience of Venusian politics would
have already become commonplace).
Unless . . . there is some
countervailing force _early_ in the (second) Federation which pushes the
Federation to take a "hands-off" approach to local governance. A
Federation comprised mostly of multiple "Member Republics" on Terra
itself might do that.
> Traditionally corrupt politics on Venus are
> probably not enough for the Federation to get
> worked up about, much as the corrupt politics in,
> say, Tammany Hall New York or Daley’s Chicago
> were not enough for Washington to get worked
> up about.
Perhaps,
but I think the "real life" U.S. government is a poor model for the
(second) Terran Federation, not just because of the odd tidbit like it
having a "parliament" but also because of what we know about its origins
among a group of formerly independent nation-states who decided to band
together to form a planetary government. (The best U.S.-related model
for that sort of thing might be the weak, original federal government
under the Articles of Confederation, before the new, Constitution-based
government was created to "form a more perfect union.")
> My theory is that Venus is the first to unite all the
> former national colonies into a single planetary state.
> Possibly due to a natural growth of what could be
> called ‘planetarism’ (the feeling of a planet being a
> single political entity, as it is a single physical entity
> separated from other worlds by vast distances), and
> partly to offset unified Terra’s dominance of the
> Federation. After the Secession is defeated (my view),
> Terra goes on to ‘pacify and consolidate’ (defeat and
> unify) the other offworld colonies into planetary states.
In
his essay "The Future History," Beam describes World War IV as the
"First Interplanetary War," so I think the rebellious colonies on Venus
and Mars are caught up in it somehow. This is the war which results in
the "complete devastation of [the] Northern Hemisphere of Terra." That
means the end of the U.S.-led (first) Terran Federation. Then the
"Second Terran Federation [is] organized by South Africa, Australia and
New Zealand, Brazil, the Argentine, etc." If there are any remnants of
Northern Hemisphere nation-states left at this point--say, a rump
American government based in post-Thirty Days' War settlements in
Antarctica--they are taking terms from the new (second) Federation, not
setting any agendas for the reformed Federation.
It is this
(second) Federation which undertakes those "wars of colonial
pacification and consolidation" and subsequently "imposes a System-wide
pax." That doesn't sound like somebody on Venus--or Mars--uniting
former colonies on their planet. That sounds like those colonies being
"pacified and consolidated" by an off-planet, (second) Federation force.
We
know Venus ends up as a "Federation Member Republic" (and I agree it's
reasonable to assume a similar outcome for Mars) but that seems to be an
outcome which is _imposed_ from off-planet, not one that unfolds
organically.
> Thus, I believe that even though the Venusians lose,
> their Secession is the catalyst for the concept of
> planetary Member Republics.
Certainly a possibility. Not how I see it but I can't deny the possibility that this could be what happened.
> After the war, the phrase ‘Terran Federation’ (which
> originally referred to the semi-unification of Terra after
> WWIII and complete unification after WWIV), now refers
> more generally to a ‘Federation of Terrans’, or ‘Terran’
> Federation, on whatever planet they reside.
Well,
Beam speaks specifically about "first" and "second" Federations, both
in his yarns and in "The Future History" essay, so they are distinctly
different entities. They oddly carry the same name--I tried to suggest
an explanation for this in "The Satchel"--but are distinct entities
nonetheless. Beam specifically identifies the "second" Federation as
that entity organized by the Southern Hemisphere nations in the
aftermath of the Fourth World War, which makes it distinct from the
U.N.-replacing, U.S.-led "first" Federation described in "The Edge of
the Knife" that fights the Thirty Days' War.
Bottom line is
"Terran Federation" is not one thing, but rather two distinctly
different things, which happen to have the same name. This distinction
is so significant that it is still remembered many centuries later
during the Viking era, long after the Terran Federation ceased to exist.
> The Federation has to keep an eye on the Chartered
> Companies, to make sure they aren’t breaking
> Federation law or violating the Constitution, and the
> Company home offices on Terra have to keep tabs on
> their employees on the various planets, which are
> usually six months travel time away. They can’t just
> pick up a videophone and call, so they have to have
> ‘undercover’ agents on site to do the job. It seems to
> be much the same in the real world. In America, we
> have local police, state police, the FBI, the SEC and
> various other organizations, political committees
> and private investigators keeping overt and covert
> tabs on various people and corporate entities. Yet
> we are still a free and democratic society.
Here,
I think, are actually some good examples of why the American federal
government--and American society generally--are poor models for the
mature Terran Federation that we see in Beam's yarns. Yes, some federal
agency might be investigating a company like Google, but they don't
have "spies" masquerading as employees on the Google campus. Likewise,
there are no Google employees working "undercover" at Apple. There
might be a few _Chinese_ or _Russian_ "secret agents" working in Silicon
Valley--and the executives of Фacebook might take this for granted in a
way that's similar to what we see from Grego, but there are no such
"foreign powers" in the Federation.
Now, there might have been
various sorts of "secret agents" working both for national governments
and employed by companies like the Dutch and British East India
Companies, but those are governments--and companies--that functioned
rather differently than does the contemporary American government and
society. If we want to grasp what Beam was up to, we need to "think
outside the box" of the United States of the 1950s and early 1960s in
which he was writing. . . .
> But this is still the First Federation; the Second
> Federation is not formed until AE 183, almost a
> decade after the Secession of Venus, which occurs
> in AE 174 (timeline in Empire).
Alas, these dates from the ~Empire~ chronology don't fit with Beam's essay "The Future History." Here's the text:
Second Century
-------------
World
War IV (First Interplanetary War), 106-109 [AE]; minor wars for ten
years thereafter. Complete devastation of [the] Northern Hemisphere of
Terra. Second Terran Federation [is] organized by South Africa,
Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, the Argentine, etc. Wars of colonial
pacification and consolidation; the new Terran Federation imposes a
System-wide pax.
Keene-Gonzales-Dillingham Theory of Non-Einsteinian Relatively, AE 172.
Now,
Beam doesn't specifically date the formation of the "second"
Federation, but this suggests it's shortly after those "minor wars"
which follow the end of the Fourth World War, i.e. circa, say, 125 AE
(2068 CE), very near the 2070 CE date for a "single world sovereignty"
from "The Edge of the Knife." In any event, it definitely occurs
_prior_ to 172 AE.
Likewise, Beam doesn't precisely date any
"revolt" of the colonies on Venus (and Mars) in "The Future History,"
but he does describe the Fourth World War as the "First _Interplanetary_
War," which suggests warfare on Venus and Mars. The previous entry in
"The Future History" for the "First Century AE" includes the following
text (immediately following a reference to the Cyrano Expedition of
"Omnilingual"):
"Further explorations of Mars, Venus,
Asteroid Belt and Moons of Jupiter. First Federation begins to crack
under strains of colonial claims and counter-claims of member states."
Here
Beam seems to be foreshadowing the "revolt of colonies on Mars and
Venus" which revolt against the _first_ Federation near the end of the
First Century, AE (or early in the Second Century).
> So Terra has been completely unified for about sixty
> years, and I think Venusian unification is, at least in
> part, an emulation of Terran unification. Probably in
> order to assert ‘equal’ stature for Venus as compared
> to Terra, whether outside the Federation (if the
> Secession succeeds) or inside (if it fails).
>
> Not trying to reignite an old argument, just showing
> an alternate option.
Understood,
and I recognize how the ~Empire~ chronology contributes to this, but I
think "The Future History" paints a pretty clear picture of the colonial
revolts on Venus and Mars occurring much earlier as _part_of_ the
Fourth World War, followed quickly by the formation of the "second"
Federation which then goes on to "pacify and consolidate" those formerly
rebellious colonies in short order. By the 174 AE/183 AE period from
the ~Empire~ chronology, the (second) Federation has been in place and
enjoying a "System-wide pax" for nearly half a century and is on the
cusp of launching the first interstellar expedition to Alpha Centauri. .
. .
> I agree with your thought that at least some of the
> ‘extra forty’ Alliance planets were Member Republics,
> with the caveat that others were colonized from the
> ‘parent’ planet of the system.
I
agree there will be both types of arrangements. The difference, I
think, gets back to the matter of whether or not the population of a
planet can support itself with domestic agriculture. Those that
can--because their biosphere is hospitable to humans and their
livestock--will likely enjoy some independence. (What we can guess
about what Beam understood about planetary formation suggests that such
planets will nevertheless be rare in any given system.) Those planets
that can't support their populations with domestic agriculture will
likely always be captive to the planet in the system which _can_ feed
its own people.
> In the Space Viking period, I get the feeling that
> there is some sort of tacit understanding about
> system sovereignty.
Again,
I think it comes down to domestic agriculture. What we see no examples
of in ~Space Viking~ are systems with more than one planet that can
feed its population on its own. This tendency will be more pronounced
in the Old Federation during the Space Viking era because any planetary
population which was unable to feed itself likely did not survive the
Interstellar Wars. On the other hand, two planets in the same system
which "decivilized" but remained able to feed their respective
populations likely retain some level of "independence" once they're
"re-contacted," whether by an expanding "civilized planet" or by the
Space Vikings.
> By the time of the First Galactic Empire, this ‘unofficial’
> tendency toward system sovereignty (and its brief
> official existence among the Alliance) apparently
> becomes standard policy.
Perhaps,
but again we see no examples of systems with more than one planet which
can feed its own inhabitants. (Again, that's likely because Beam
believed such systems would be rare.)
Cheers,
David
--
"We
talk glibly about ten to the hundredth power, but emotionally we still
count, 'One, Two, Three, Many.'" - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), ~Space
Viking~
~
|
Jon Crocker 11-14-2018
04:51 UT
|
Wow, that's a lot to cover - I was just going to say thanks for posting the pictures!
|
Calidore 11-13-2018
23:24 UT
|
Gentlemen,
You raised some very interesting points. Forgive the lateness (and length) of this reply.
David “Piperfan” Johnson wrote,
>Well, that seems to be what Beam's earlier, Paratime-version of Venus
>was like but in truth he told us very little about the ecosphere of Venus
>in the Terro-human Future History. Nevertheless, I agree it's reasonable
>to assume that his Future History Venus may also be this sort of "planetary
>romance" version of Venus, if perhaps not quite a "Carson of Venus"
>sort of place--but that assumption places the Future History _unequivocally_
>in an "alternate history."
And,
>As I've said, I think we have to be careful to assume that Beam's Terro-human
>Future History Venus is the same as his Paratime Venus. The two portrayals
>occur a decade or more apart in time in Beam's career, with the Paratime Venus
>coming first. (Lay understanding of) planetary science progressed a lot in that
>decade-plus and it seems unlikely that Beam would have ignored that in his writing.
>I suspect this is why Beam was careful not to tell us much of anything about the
>ecosphere of the Future History Venus.
Perhaps
I misunderstand your meaning, but your first comment seems to suggest
that the THFH is not an alternate history. Surely it is, whether or not
Beam’s Venus is the romantic version? We didn’t have a WWIII in 1974,
or a manned expedition to Mars in 1996. Besides, from “Omnilingual” we
know that he used the romantic version of Mars in his Future History (a
dying planet with empty cities and a worldwide ‘canal’ network), making
it more than likely, in my opinion, that his Venus was conceptually from
the same era (tropical, marshy planet).
As for your second
comment, the timing of his stories actually supports this. His Future
History began with Uller Uprising, published in 1952; “The Edge of the
Knife”, which mentions “the colonies on Mars and Venus”, was published
in 1957; while “When in the Course”, which contains Roger Barron of
Venus, was presumably written in 1959, since it was “finished on January
5, 1960”. (Carr, Piper Biography, p. 157) All these dates are when
Venus was still plausibly thought to be earthlike, before our
understanding underwent radical change.
“Up to 1959 its ground
temperature was estimated (e.g., by V.A. Firsoff) to be an Earthlike 63
degrees Fahrenheit. In 1961, on the basis of radar measurements it was
found to be 600 degrees Fahrenheit. F.D. Drake wrote, “We would have
expected a temperature only slightly greater than that of earth, whereas
the actual temperature is several hundred degrees above the boiling
point of water.” ” (Immanuel Velikovsky, Stargazers and Gravediggers, p.
333) This was confirmed in December 1962, when Mariner 2 “bypassed
Venus at only 35,000 km, and sent back information that was fatal” to
the concept of Venus as a habitable, Earthlike planet. (Atlas of the
Solar System, p. 103)
So until at least 1961, science fiction and
science writers, including Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Willy
Ley—and H. Beam Piper—portrayed Venus as an oceanic and/or marshy, warm
tropical world. This conception apparently began in the early Twentieth
Century. “In 1918, chemist and Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius,
deciding that Venus’ cloud cover was necessarily water, decreed in The
Destiny of the Stars that “A very great part of the surface of Venus is
no doubt covered with swamps” and compared Venus’ humidity to the
tropical rain forests of the Congo. Because of what he assumed was
constantly uniform climatic conditions all over the planet, the life of
Venus lived under very stable conditions and didn’t have to adapt to
changing environments like life on Earth. As a result of this lack of
selection pressure, it would be covered in prehistoric swamps. Venus
thus became, until the early 1960s, a place for science fiction writers
to place all manner of unusual life forms, from quasi-dinosaurs to
intelligent carnivorous plants. Comparisons often referred to Earth in
the Carboniferous period…The Venus of Robert Heinlein’s Future History
series and Henry Kuttner’s Fury resembled Arrhenius’ vision of Venus.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_fiction)
You
may be right that Beam’s vagueness about his Future History Venus was
deliberate, and he may have even been glad of it when our understanding
of Venus changed so dramatically. The question then becomes, could he
have adopted the new facts about Venus into his post-1962 Future History
stories? Probably, but it would have made the colonization a whole lot
harder. Venus has high wind velocities at the upper and middle reaches
of its atmosphere, making the use of landing rockets (as on Mars in
“Omnilingual”) fairly hazardous.
But the real problem is the
high surface temperature (currently known to be almost 900 degrees F)
and crushing pressure (90 atmospheres) at ground level. You can pretty
much forget about strolling around in a space suit! It would require
the use of well-armored vehicles (like those on Niflheim in UU) and
collapsium-plated dome-cities or burrow-cities. And even assuming
working on the surface is possible, building a dome city in 900 degree
temperatures and 90 atmospheres doesn’t seem very practical; and Piper
does not mention burrow-cities in regard to Venus, though he does for
Mercury (in 4DP).
So all things considered, I think I’ll stick
with the romantic view. Hell, I’d secede from the Federation just to
keep me off the real Venus, no matter how much I resent being ruled by
Terra! :)
>This suggests to me that there is something key about the autonomy of
>"Federation Member Republics" in the way the (second) Terran Federation
>is organized. The Terran Federation doesn't mess with Venus because other
>"Federation Member Republics" like Odin or Baldur or Marduk or Aton won't
>stand for it.
If
you mean “won’t stand for it politically”, I agree with that. Because
the only place they can oppose Terra is in the Federation Parliament.
They couldn’t do anything about it militarily, because the Federation
has the only Space Navy, the ultimate veto power. But I think the main
reason the Federation leaves Venus alone is that it has a fairly
‘relaxed’ democratic government which allows its member planets
considerable autonomy, rather like the early colonies of the British
Empire, which the Federation is modeled on. It only intervenes when
absolutely necessary. Traditionally corrupt politics on Venus are
probably not enough for the Federation to get worked up about, much as
the corrupt politics in, say, Tammany Hall New York or Daley’s Chicago
were not enough for Washington to get worked up about.
Jon Crocker wrote,
>Could there be several Federation Member Republics in the Terra system?
>Terra would probably be able to argue that its system was a special case
>and get away with it. But, there's 'equal' and then there's equal - consider,
>Rhode Island and Texas have the same number of US Senators, but one
>would have a much easier time of throwing its weight around if it wanted to.
And David wrote,
>The interesting thing about Venus--and presumably also Mars--being a
>"Federation Member Republic" is what that might suggest about the early
>(second) Terran Federation. Do we really assume that the (second) Terran
>Federation was comprised of a Federation Member Republic of Venus, a
>Federation Member Republic of Mars (and perhaps also Federation Member
>Republics of Jovian Moons) _and_ a Federation Member Republic or Terra,
>with Venus and Mars ostensibly equal in stature to Terra? That seems more
>than a bit hard to believe.
>That leaves me wondering if, perhaps, that there might be a "Federation
>Member Republic of Australia" (which perhaps includes New Zealand), a
>"Federation Member Republic of Brazil," a "Federation Member Republic
>of South Africa," a "Federation Member Republic of the Argentine," etc.
>Those are political divisions in which separate "Member Republic" status
>for colony worlds like Venus and Mars (and perhaps the Jovian moons)
>would make a bit more sense.
These
are topics I discussed in my essays in The Rise of the Terran
Federation. Some of the member states in the early First Federation
(which as David notes is comprised of nation-states) may be called
Federation Member Republics (FMR of America, FMR of France, etc.), but I
suspect that at least some nations (for example Britain and Japan)
still have monarchial forms of government. So ‘Federation Member State’
might be a better term. But after WWIV, Terra becomes a “Completely
unified world, abolition of all national states under a single world
sovereignty”; all of Terra becomes one nation. The former nations of
Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Australia would then no longer be
Member States, since Terra itself is one big state. Instead, they
become political subdivisions (or ‘states’, with a small s) of what
would, only now, truly become a ‘Federation of Terra’. The off-planet
colonies, however, are not nation-states, and therefore Venus, Mars, the
moons of Jupiter, Titan, etc. probably remain a patchwork quilt of
former national colonies, now Federation colonies.
My theory is
that Venus is the first to unite all the former national colonies into a
single planetary state. Possibly due to a natural growth of what could
be called ‘planetarism’ (the feeling of a planet being a single
political entity, as it is a single physical entity separated from other
worlds by vast distances), and partly to offset unified Terra’s
dominance of the Federation. After the Secession is defeated (my view),
Terra goes on to ‘pacify and consolidate’ (defeat and unify) the other
offworld colonies into planetary states. So I do feel that there is a
Federation Member Republic of Mars; though what the smaller bodies are
called is debatable. There could be Member Republics of Ganymede and
Callisto, for example; though since these are only Moon-sized objects
they could be consolidated into a Member Republic of Jupiter, with its
capital perhaps on Ganymede.
Thus, I believe that even though the
Venusians lose, their Secession is the catalyst for the concept of
planetary Member Republics. After the war, the phrase ‘Terran
Federation’ (which originally referred to the semi-unification of Terra
after WWIII and complete unification after WWIV), now refers more
generally to a ‘Federation of Terrans’, or ‘Terran’ Federation, on
whatever planet they reside. Since Terra would then be only one among
several unified planets, it probably does become a Federation Member
Republic, theoretically equal with the Member Republics of Venus, Mars,
etc. Though as the capital and most populous planet, it undoubtedly
retains a special status.
Jon wrote,
>And to step back a few, I hadn't thought that Anton Gerrit would be a
>company official - he could be. Or, he could have been a division chief
>and ran that section as his own private feifdom. On the third hand, he
>could have been in charge of a private contractor, and if the Company
>didn't have much in the way of oversight, could have gotten away with
>the Enslavements before word got out.
I
agree that several options are possible. Gerrit as a ‘behind the
scenes’ villain jibes fairly well with the situation on Fenris, where
Mort Hallstock is the Mayor of Port Sandor (essentially President of
Fenris), while Gerrit/Ravick is merely the boss of the Hunter’s
Cooperative. Though as the boss of the biggest business concern on
Fenris, Gerrit also parallels a Company head, as per David’s suggestion.
So it could go either way.
The ‘division chief’ angle is a nice
one. In that case, Gerrit could parallel Science Division Chief
Leonard Kellogg, who would have been the one responsible for proving the
Fuzzies nonsapient, thereby paving the way for their extermination.
And Kellogg as the ‘front-man’ in this effort might have given Victor
Grego plausible deniability for the crime. Likewise, the Company head
on Loki might have tried to deny all responsibility for the enslavement
of the natives, putting the blame squarely on ‘division chief’ Gerrit;
but since the Company’s charter was revoked, that attempt to shift the
blame, if it occurred, failed.
David wrote,
>Perhaps. On the other hand, Beam did describe the Lokians as "faun-like"
>rather than "antelope-like" (which might have amounted to the same thing
>in terms of conveying an image).
Right, horned animal-like beings.
>In context Beam's comparison to the Amazon is due to its size/length,
>not specifically its tropical clime.
True. I simply believe that the two references together were his subtle way of hinting at Loki’s climate.
>I'm with you except for the tropical climate. If the ecosphere can support
>flora which are edible then there will be a substantial agriculture enterprise—
>if for no other reason than to keep the Terran colonists from having to waste
>mining profits importing food. An agricultural enterprise means a sustainable
>(Terran) business class interested in stability and long-term viability. Loki
>doesn't seem to have that.
And,
>I think the key factor for an attractive settlement planet is an ability to support
>an agricultural enterprise. Without that, the Terran settlers spend a lot of
>whatever they making money from on their planet importing food instead.
>That's bad whether you're an individual or a resource extraction corporation.
>Any tropical planet is going to be one that supports an agricultural enterprise,
>unless there's some reason Terrans and their livestock can't eat the local plant life.
And,
>If it has a biosphere where plants grow and those plants are edible for Terrans
>and their livestock then there will be a domestic agricultural enterprise. That
>will tend to make the Terran population self-sustaining which will encourage
>a sort of stability over time. I think what we know about Loki suggests that
>there _isn't_ a domestic agricultural enterprise that enables the Terran
>colonists to avoid importing food.
And,
>Over time, even a society of "misfit and criminals" will evolve a stable society
>if they're working as farmers to feed themselves. (Think of Australia.) If society
>-as-a-whole on Loki remains unstable and "uncivilized" over a period of centuries
>there needs to be an on-going source of stress. Tough to imagine what that
>centuries-long stress might be on Loki if the local Terrans can support themselves
>with agriculture.
These
are excellent points. I still believe Loki’s climate to be a warm one,
but you have convinced me that it must have some element(s) not
conducive to human life. Loki is the god of mischief, so the planet may
have been named for the biological, geological and/or climatic ‘tricks’
it was playing on the first Terran settlers. And multiple anomalies or
abnormalities might make for an interesting story of the discovery and
settlement of Loki, if anyone were inclined to take that on.
>This is a keen observation. It points out yet another way in which Terran
>Federation civilization is so odd. The Federation has no external adversaries
>and yet it has this huge security and war-fighting enterprise--one that doesn't
>even seem to be involved in "exploration" (say like Trek's Starfleet), at least
>not until the era of "Naudsonce."
>Why are there all those secret agents? Why is there a Terran Federation
>Army large enough to muster out a bunch of veterans to serve in the Chartered
>Uller Company army? (Try counting the number of _colonels_ on Uller _before_
>Paula Quinton gets her field commission.) Why is there a handy Terran
>Federation Navy base on Gimli that can spare a destroyer to take Gerrit
>back to Terra? What are that Federation Army and Navy _doing_?
>More importantly, why do Federation taxpayers _support_ them?
>We've discussed some of this before. Perhaps the Federation armed forces,
>particularly the Navy, aren't as large as we might have assumed. Perhaps
>those "couple of destroyers" at Gimli are all the naval warships anywhere
>along the "milk run," except perhaps at Terra and Odin.
>Bottom line though, it means the Federation government is spending a lot
>of "treasure" warding off security threats which exist _within_ the Federation.
>At the same time, something like training all those veterans on Uller is a huge
>subsidy to the Uller Company. (It's sort of the collegiate football system to
>the National Football League.)
And Jon wrote,
>Either way, I'm sure the Enslavements were one of the reasons for all of the
>secret agents mentioned in Little Fuzzy - I re-read the book a while ago,
>and found their prominent mention a little puzzling. Of course, a couple
>characters were agents, so it made sense to set the stage for them.
Perhaps
it’s me, but I don’t think it strange that there are spies of various
sorts in the Federation. Victor Grego takes it for granted that there
are people watching him, and its seems rightly so. The Federation has
to keep an eye on the Chartered Companies, to make sure they aren’t
breaking Federation law or violating the Constitution, and the Company
home offices on Terra have to keep tabs on their employees on the
various planets, which are usually six months travel time away. They
can’t just pick up a videophone and call, so they have to have
‘undercover’ agents on site to do the job. It seems to be much the same
in the real world. In America, we have local police, state police, the
FBI, the SEC and various other organizations, political committees and
private investigators keeping overt and covert tabs on various people
and corporate entities. Yet we are still a free and democratic society.
My impression of the various agents is more along the lines of the
'checks and balances' category of regulating an interstellar society,
rather than something odd or untoward.
As for the Space
Navy, I believe it follows from one of Beam’s underlying
assumptions--that unity is good, and disunity breeds chaos. Conn
Maxwell says that “The Federation didn’t fight that war for profits…They
fought it because if the System States had won, half of them would be
at war among themselves now. Make no mistake about it, politically, I’m
all for the Federation.” (Fed, p. 197) So the Federation has a Space
Navy in order to maintain unity, and thus prevent interplanetary wars
from occurring. If they don’t keep some ships handy, the various
planets will begin drifting toward independence, with the consequent
beginnings of unchecked social and interplanetary conflict. This
actually happens in CC, for after the Federation begins its final
decline, the Space Navy is nowhere to be seen, and Poictesme is beset
with criminal elements and even the threat of interplanetary
annihilation from Koshchei.
I think David is right that this
peacekeeping role probably does not require too many ships, at least in
the early interstellar years when all the extrasolar planets are newly
colonized and have low populations. Since the Federation is modeled on
the British Empire, the Space Navy would parallel the Royal Navy during
the middle decades of the Nineteenth Century, when it essentially had no
great rival navy to worry about. So it is probably not until the
System States War that the Federation actually builds up a huge Space
Navy (paralleling the great expansion of the Union Navy during the Civil
War), and that is to reconquer the System States and restore unity.
One
might reasonably conclude that the Federation was foolish to launch a
huge interstellar war, and essentially bankrupt itself, just to prevent a
bunch of little interstellar wars from happening later. But if the
System States’ secession had been allowed to succeed, other planets
still in the Federation might have been tempted to declare independence
as well. So it may be that the Federation really had no choice; it felt
politically compelled to invade the Alliance.
>One thing to keep in mind is that there was no "Terra" when the (second)
>Terran Federation was being formed. Instead, there were the nations of
>"South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, the Argentine, etc.," the
>remnants of the old U.S.-led (first) Terran Federation (itself a confederation
>of nation-states), the remnants of whatever the "adversary combatant" was
>in the Fourth World War (perhaps another confederation of nation-states),
>the rebellious colonies on Venus and Mars, maybe other settlements in the
>Asteroid Belt and on the Moons of Jupiter and perhaps even some of those
>early "burrow-cities" on Luna, Mercury and Titan.
>The establishment of the (second) Terran Federation, abolishing "all national
>states" and creating a "single world sovereignty," is followed by wars of
>"colonial pacification and consolidation" until the new (second) Terran
>Federation
"imposes a System-wide pax." This suggests the new (second) Terran
>Federation--presumably comprised of "Federation Member Republics"
based
>upon those former nations of the Southern Hemisphere--goes on to conquer
>the rest of the Solar System. Presumably, it is in the aftermath of that
>"pacification and consolidation" that new members, like the "Federation Member
>Republic of Venus," are admitted to the (second) Terran Federation.
Here
I disagree, as you and I have very different theories on the timeline
of events for the early Future History. In my view, when the Second
Federation is formed, Terra has been completely unified for many
decades. Terran unification occurs somewhere in the years “2050 and
2070 AD” (AE 107-127), placing it soon after WWIV (AE 106-109) destroys
the Northern Hemisphere. In the aftermath of WWIV, Terra is “Completely
unified”; the former sub-planetary members are abolished, probably to
eliminate the rivalries of nation-states with nuclear weapons which
caused WWIII and WWIV. As Carlos von Schlichten puts it, “we made one
nation out of all our people, and vowed never to commit such [Atomic
War] crimes again”. (UU, p. 64)
But this is still the First
Federation; the Second Federation is not formed until AE 183, almost a
decade after the Secession of Venus, which occurs in AE 174 (timeline in
Empire). So Terra has been completely unified for about sixty years,
and I think Venusian unification is, at least in part, an emulation of
Terran unification. Probably in order to assert ‘equal’ stature for
Venus as compared to Terra, whether outside the Federation (if the
Secession succeeds) or inside (if it fails).
Not trying to reignite an old argument, just showing an alternate option.
>Here's an interesting thought. According to Klem Zareff, there were "ninety
>systems, a hundred and thirty inhabited planets" in the System States Alliance.
>Would that have been just ninety former "Federation Member Republics" or
>might some of those other forty inhabited planets have also been Federation
>Member Republics?
>We know from the example of the Venus that being a Federation Member
>Republic doesn't mean your "republic" extends throughout the local solar
>system. This doesn't help us with possible "sub-planetary" Federation
>Member Republics on Terra but it doesn't seem unlikely that there might
>have been instances where there were more than one Federation Member
>Republic in the same system.
Referring
to my essays again, I think that, after whole planets are unified in
the early Federation, the next step larger is to unify a solar system.
So during most of the Federation period, the Member Republics only
control their own planet. But over the centuries, population growth,
scientific expeditions, and malcontent emigration (etc.) should lead to
other bodies of the extrasolar systems becoming inhabited, in a parallel
fashion to how the Solar System was colonized.
By the time of
the Alliance, many planets, especially older ones like Odin and Baldur,
may have colonized other bodies in their systems. Thereby making them
‘proto-system states’, though this is probably not recognized under
Federation law. Piper’s use of the capitalized term ‘System States’
suggests to me that the rebellious planets are the first to ‘officially’
assert sovereignty over their whole system. Thus, any Federation
outposts in these systems, including naval bases, would become a form of
‘foreign occupation’, and legitimate targets of attack. And since the
System States War is modeled on the US Civil War, at least one of these
Federation naval bases in Alliance territory would parallel Fort Sumter.
I
agree with your thought that at least some of the ‘extra forty’
Alliance planets were Member Republics, with the caveat that others were
colonized from the ‘parent’ planet of the system. But I assume these
are all unified by system when the Alliance secedes. Since the
Confederate Constitution included special clauses guaranteeing certain
State’s Rights, the Alliance Constitution may have clauses guaranteeing
certain Planet’s Rights. That might make it more palatable for the
inhabitants of multiple-planet systems to unite into one System State,
since they would not completely give up the sovereignty of their own
world.
In the Space Viking period, I get the feeling that there
is some sort of tacit understanding about system sovereignty. Marduk
appears to consider its outer planet Abaddon as Mardukan territory,
although it is not occupied by them. Beowulf has colonies on other
planets in its system, which would certainly be a legitimate basis for
claiming the whole system. And Lucas Trask sends ships to investigate
the other bodies in Tanith’s system for the presence of enemy vessels,
asserting at least a ‘moral’ authority over them. If they had been
there, the Space Vikings of Tanith would likely view them as ‘foreign
warships in “our” system’.
By the time of the First Galactic
Empire, this ‘unofficial’ tendency toward system sovereignty (and its
brief official existence among the Alliance) apparently becomes standard
policy. Prince Trevannion says to the Adityans that “We’d better make
the limits of your sovereignty the orbit of the outer planet of this
system.” (Empire, p. 88) So instead of Member Planets, with the
Federation controlling the spaceways (but not all hyperdrive craft), we
now have what could be called ‘Member Systems’, with “All hyperspace
ships, and all nuclear weapons” controlled by the Empire. (ibid., p. 89)
John
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-12-2018
00:05 UT
|
~
New Piper Illustrations at Zarthani.net
I've just posted
some new illustrations for Beam's Paratime yarn "Last Enemy," done by
artist Bradley McDevitt for the ~Thousand Suns~ role-playing-game
supplement ~Transmissions from Piper~, near the bottom of the Paratime
Gallery page here:
http://www.zarthani.net/paratime_gallery.htm
Jeff
Preston's illustration of a Thoran Household Guardsman from "Ministry
of Disturbance" for the same supplement--which was was previously posted
here on the Mailing List Forum--is also now available near the bottom
of the Future History Gallery page here:
http://www.zarthani.net/future_history_gallery.htm
Preston did a couple of other neat illustration for "Ministry of Disturbance" but I've not yet been able to find them online.
(There
are also some neat illustrations of the Svants from "Naudsonce" by
Alfredo Lopez, Jr. in that supplement but I've not yet been able to
track them down online either.)
Cheers,
David
--
"Why,
here on Odin there hadn't been an election in the past six centuries
that hadn't been utterly fraudulent. Nobody voted except the nonworkers,
whose votes were bought and sold wholesale, by gangster bosses to
pressure groups, and no decent person would be caught within a hundred
yards of a polling place on an election day." - Emperor Paul XXII (H.
Beam Piper), "Ministry of Disturbance"
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-04-2018
16:05 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Perhaps the head of the Loki Company wasn't as capable
> as Victor Grego? Perhaps the reason Victor was a fairly
> active 'young' man was due to the bad example of the
> Loki Company, when head office back on Terra didn't
> realize that the Loki head of the company hadn't been
> outside his sick rooms for months, and Garrit had
> blackmail tapes on a few of the department heads to
> keep them from investigating his operation? Of
> course, no one knew what Garrit was really up to, out
> on Omicron continent, half the world away, until the
> story broke.
It
would certainly make for a more interesting story if the local CLC
chief was in some sort of literal or metaphorical "figurehead" role and
Gerrit was running the enslavement "under the table."
> The man certainly had a good plan to take over the
> Hunters' Cooperative once he got to Fenris. One could
> argue that Garrit was too good at 'front line operations'
> to have been one of the lofty HQ people of the Loki
> Company,
Beam
often has his characters complaining about the "incompetence" of the
people back on Terra, especially during the later Federation era, but
the truth is, as he actually portrayed them, the folks who were running
the Federation--likely not the top elected officials and the chief
public administrators but rather the folks who got those officials
elected and appointed--were running a remarkable racket that makes
Gerrit's Hunter's Cooperative grift on Fenris look like a parlour game.
These are folks who have the Federation Army training their private
security forces and the Federation Navy putting down restive
locals--Federation citizens all--who threaten their interstellar
investments. One might quarrel with their _morality_ but it's tough to
quarrel with their _competence_.
Cheers,
David
--
"That's
what happened to the Terran Federation, by the way. The good men all
left to colonize, and the stuffed shirts and yes-men and herd-followers
and safety-firsters stayed on Terra and tried to govern the galaxy." -
Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), ~Space Viking~.
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-03-2018
17:25 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Could there be several Federation Member Republics in
> the Terra system? Terra would probably be able to argue
> that its system was a special case and get away with it.
Here's
an interesting thought. According to Klem Zareff, there were "ninety
systems, a hundred and thirty inhabited planets" in the System States
Alliance. Would that have been just ninety former "Federation Member
Republics" or might some of those other forty inhabited planets have
also been Federation Member Republics?
We know from the example
of the Venus that being a Federation Member Republic doesn't mean your
"republic" extends throughout the local solar system. This doesn't help
us with possible "sub-planetary" Federation Member Republics on Terra
but it doesn't seem unlikely that there might have been instances where
there were more than one Federation Member Republic in the same system.
Cheers,
David
--
"We
talk glibly about ten to the hundredth power, but emotionally we still
count, 'One, Two, Three, Many.'" - Otto Harkaman (H. Beam Piper), ~Space
Viking~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-03-2018
17:10 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Could there be several Federation Member Republics
> in the Terra system? Terra would probably be able to
> argue that its system was a special case and get away
> with it.
One
thing to keep in mind is that there was no "Terra" when the (second)
Terran Federation was being formed. Instead, there were the nations of
"South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, the Argentine, etc.,"
the remnants of the old U.S.-led (first) Terran Federation (itself a
confederation of nation-states), the remnants of whatever the "adversary
combatant" was in the Fourth World War (perhaps another confederation
of nation-states), the rebellious colonies on Venus and Mars, maybe
other settlements in the Asteroid Belt and on the Moons of Jupiter and
perhaps even some of those early "burrow-cities" on Luna, Mercury and
Titan.
The establishment of the (second) Terran Federation,
abolishing "all national states" and creating a "single world
sovereignty," is followed by wars of "colonial pacification and
consolidation" until the new (second) Terran Federation "imposes a
System-wide pax." This suggests the new (second) Terran
Federation--presumably comprised of "Federation Member Republics" based
upon those former nations of the Southern Hemisphere--goes on to conquer
the rest of the Solar System. Presumably, it is in the aftermath of
that "pacification and consolidation" that new members, like the
"Federation Member Republic of Venus," are admitted to the (second)
Terran Federation.
> But, there's 'equal' and then there's equal - consider,
> Rhode Island and Texas have the same number of US
> Senators, but one would have a much easier time of
> throwing its weight around if it wanted to.
Or Ontario and Prince Edward Island, for that matter. ;)
Cheers,
David
--
"That's
probably why the Southern Hemisphere managed to stay out of the Third
and Fourth World Wars." - Carlos von Schlichten (H. Beam Piper), ~Uller
Uprising~
~
|
Jon Crocker 11-03-2018
16:33 UT
|
>Gerrit was described as the mastermind of the Loki enslavement and the only way to be the "mastermind" of an
>operation that is too big to hide from the chief factor is to _be_ the chief factor, it seems to me (unless
>the chief factor was a figure-head of some sort).
That's
a good point, but it wouldn't have taken that much room to add "and
former head of the CLC" to the description of "mastermind".
Perhaps
the head of the Loki Company wasn't as capable as Victor Grego?
Perhaps the reason Victor was a fairly active 'young' man was due to the
bad example of the Loki Company, when head office back on Terra didn't
realize that the Loki head of the company hadn't been outside his sick
rooms for months, and Garrit had blackmail tapes on a few of the
department heads to keep them from investigating his operation? Of
course, no one knew what Garrit was really up to, out on Omicron
continent, half the world away, until the story broke.
Or perhaps Garrit was a contractor, his company worked for the CLC in an area pretty far from the HQ building on Freya.
The
man certainly had a good plan to take over the Hunters' Cooperative
once he got to Fenris. One could argue that Garrit was too good at
'front line operations' to have been one of the lofty HQ people of the
Loki Company, and that he was so good at it meant that his original
position was a lot lower on the organizational chart.
None of which speaks well of the Loki company, and would again support the presence of all those agents reporting on everything.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-03-2018
04:26 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> Either way, I'm sure the Enslavements were one of the
> reasons for all of the secret agents mentioned in Little
> Fuzzy - I re-read the book a while ago, and found their
> prominent mention a little puzzling. Of course, a
> couple characters were agents, so it made sense to
> set the stage for them.
This
is a keen observation. It points out yet another way in which Terran
Federation civilization is so odd. The Federation has no external
adversaries and yet it has this huge security and war-fighting
enterprise--one that doesn't even seem to be involved in "exploration"
(say like Trek's Starfleet), at least not until the era of "Naudsonce."
Why
are there all those secret agents? Why is there a Terran Federation
Army large enough to muster out a bunch of veterans to serve in the
Chartered Uller Company army? (Try counting the number of _colonels_ on
Uller _before_ Paula Quinton gets her field commission.) Why is there a
handy Terran Federation Navy base on Gimli that can spare a destroyer
to take Gerrit back to Terra? What are that Federation Army and Navy
_doing_? More importantly, why do Federation taxpayers _support_ them?
We've
discussed some of this before. Perhaps the Federation armed forces,
particularly the Navy, aren't as large as we might have assumed.
Perhaps those "couple of destroyers" at Gimli are all the naval warships
anywhere along the "milk run," except perhaps at Terra and Odin.
Bottom
line though, it means the Federation government is spending a lot of
"treasure" warding off security threats which exist _within_ the
Federation. At the same time, something like training all those
veterans on Uller is a huge subsidy to the Uller Company. (It's sort of
the collegiate football system to the National Football League.)
The
Federation may be the ultimate corporate state. We get bits and pieces
here and there about the government itself being a major shareholder in
some of the larger interstellar corporations. Then there's that shady
"Banking Cartel," whatever in the world that's supposed to be. There
may be cross-holdings among the various interstellar companies which
would make Japanese ~keiritsu~ and Korean ~chaebol~ jealous with envy.
And
then, of course, all of those competing interests are spying on each
other, officially when they've "captured" a given government agency and
"commercially" as a matter of course.
Beam shows us characters
like Victor Grego who seem to be "captains of industry" but in truth
Grego is just a corporate factor out in the hinterland somewhere,
someone else's employee. The true "captains of industry" in Federation
society are the folks back on Terra--and elsewhere, perhaps--who put up
the investment for an undertaking like the Chartered Zarathustra Company
and who reap the profits from it when it's successful. And they seem
to be a sneaky, distrustful bunch who treat the institutions of
government--even the Army and the Navy--as the instruments of their own
private interests.
Cheers,
David
--
"The Federation
Government owns a bigger interest in the Company than the public
realizes, too. . . ." - Carlos von Schlichten (H. Beam Piper), ~Uller
Uprising~.
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-03-2018
03:51 UT
|
~
Jon Crocker wrote:
> I hadn't thought that Anton Gerrit would be a company official
> - he could be. Or, he could have been a division chief and ran
> that section as his own private feifdom. On the third hand, he
> could have been in charge of a private contractor, and if the
> Company didn't have much in the way of oversight, could have
> gotten away with the Enslavements before word got out.
You
and John make several good points and it's certainly possible that
Gerrit _wasn't_ the CLC boss. On the other hand, I keep trying to
envision what a twenty or thirty thousand person--native or
otherwise--operation on pre-Fuzzy Zarathustra would look like that
Victor Grego didn't know about--but I simply can't imagine such a thing.
Gerrit
was described as the mastermind of the Loki enslavement and the only
way to be the "mastermind" of an operation that is too big to hide from
the chief factor is to _be_ the chief factor, it seems to me (unless the
chief factor was a figure-head of some sort).
YMMV, of course.
David
--
"You
know what Lingua Terra is? An indiscriminate mixture of English,
Spanish, Portuguese and Afrikaans, mostly English. 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~
~
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-03-2018
03:20 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> My impression is that Loki is not “pretty temperate for
> Terrans”. Piper's mention of Bush Dwanga is suggestive
> of sub-Saharan Africa,
Perhaps.
On the other hand, Beam did describe the Lokians as "faun-like" rather
than "antelope-like" (which might have amounted to the same thing in
terms of conveying an image).
> while his comparison of the Fa'ansare River with the
> Amazon is likewise indicative of a tropical climate.
In context Beam's comparison to the Amazon is due to its size/length, not specifically its tropical clime.
> So I've always felt that Loki is a bit warmer than Terra.
> Possibly rain forests at the equator, with large tracts
> of savannah to the north and south. While certainly
> habitable, such a planet might be too warm to attract
> a large number of Terran colonists.
Well,
savannah would be great for livestock grazing so that wouldn't seem to
be enough to preclude a substantial Terran agricultural enterprise (even
if the livestock had to be imported)--unless, again, there was
something in the biosphere that made it difficult for imported livestock
to survive.
> So the gentle, faun-like Lokians may be Beam's version
> of the stereotypical ‘indolent’ native of tropical climates,
> who were often enslaved by Europeans, and became
> their labor-force in the colonial era.
I'm
with you except for the tropical climate. If the ecosphere can support
flora which are edible then there will be a substantial agriculture
enterprise--if for no other reason than to keep the Terran colonists
from having to waste mining profits importing food. An agricultural
enterprise means a sustainable (Terran) business class interested in
stability and long-term viability. Loki doesn't seem to have that.
> I assume there is a similar dynamic at work in the
> Federation, with most emigrating colonists settling on
> the more Terra-type planets.
In
general, sure, especially early in the Federation era when Loki was
settled. Later on, you get worlds like Kwannon which get settled. . . .
> The temperate types are probably those which more
> often turn out to be major worlds; like Odin, Baldur and
> Marduk.
I
think the key factor for an attractive settlement planet is an ability
to support an agricultural enterprise. Without that, the Terran
settlers spend a lot of whatever they making money from on their planet
importing food instead. That's bad whether you're an individual or a
resource extraction corporation. Any tropical planet is going to be one
that supports an agricultural enterprise, unless there's some reason
Terrans and their livestock can't eat the local plant life.
> Planets like Venus and Loki are likely backwaters in
> comparison.
I
agree they're backwaters and that this must have a lot to do with a
relatively inhospitable ecosphere, where "inhospitable" means "difficult
to grow things to eat." That's a bit more extreme than something like
the Amazon rainforest and the Tanzanian Serengeti,
> Jack Holloway's comment about the Lokians becoming
> Native Agency bums reminds me of Verkan Vall's
> description of the Venusian “natives” (who I assume are
> actually humans) in “Last Enemy”. Pretending to be a
> Venusian planter, Vall says to Assassin-President
> Klarnood, “If you'd see the bums who hang around our
> drying sheds, on Venus, cadging rejected leaves and
> smoking themselves into a stupor, you'd be frugal in
> using [zerfa] too.” (Paratime, pp. 94, 117)
As
I've said, I think we have to be careful to assume that Beam's
Terro-human Future History Venus is the same as his Paratime Venus. The
two portrayals occur a decade or more apart in time in Beam's career,
with the Paratime Venus coming first. (Lay understanding of) planetary
science progressed a lot in that decade-plus and it seems unlikely that
Beam would have ignored that in his writing. I suspect this is why Beam
was careful not to tell us much of anything about the ecosphere of the
Future History Venus.
> Thus, Loki may be a planet with a hotter-than-Terra
> climate (though perhaps not as hot and/or humid as
> Venus), and not much in the way of natural resources.
If
it has a biosphere where plants grow and those plants are edible for
Terrans and their livestock then there will be a domestic agricultural
enterprise. That will tend to make the Terran population
self-sustaining which will encourage a sort of stability over time. I
think what we know about Loki suggests that there _isn't_ a domestic
agricultural enterprise that enables the Terran colonists to avoid
importing food.
> So I think you're right that, aside from gold, Loki has
> “little else of value to the interstellar economy of the
> Federation.”
A
domestic agricultural enterprise might not be enough for Loki to
prosper in the interstellar economy but it would be enough to support
and encourage a stable Terran population. Loki doesn't seem to have
that so it seems unlikely there's a domestic agricultural enterprise.
That only makes sense if the Terrans and their livestock can't eat the
local plant life.
> This, plus a presumed intemperate climate, would not
> make it an attractive destination for Terro-Human
> colonists,
Well, it seems to have been the gold mines which drew Terrans to Loki in the first place.
> and that could explain why Loki never does “evolve into
> a more stable, civilized place”. The humans who end
> up living there are more likely to be outcasts, misfits,
> criminals and “irreconcilable minority-groups who want
> to get away from everybody else” (Federation, p. 58)
> than average citizens.
Over
time, even a society of "misfit and criminals" will evolve a stable
society if they're working as farmers to feed themselves. (Think of
Australia.) If society-as-a-whole on Loki remains unstable and
"uncivilized" over a period of centuries there needs to be an on-going
source of stress. Tough to imagine what that centuries-long stress
might be on Loki if the local Terrans can support themselves with
agriculture.
Cheers,
David
--
"As for the other
five, one had been an all-out hell-planet, and the rest had been the
sort that get colonized by irreconcilable minority-groups who want to
get away from everybody else. The Colonial Office wouldn't even
consider any of them." - Mark Howell (H. Beam Piper), "Naudsonce"
~
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Jon Crocker 11-03-2018
02:25 UT
|
Some good points.
Could there be several Federation Member
Republics in the Terra system? Terra would probably be able to argue
that its system was a special case and get away with it. But, there's
'equal' and then there's equal - consider, Rhode Island and Texas have
the same number of US Senators, but one would have a much easier time of
throwing its weight around if it wanted to.
And to step back a
few, I hadn't thought that Anton Gerrit would be a company official -
he could be. Or, he could have been a division chief and ran that
section as his own private feifdom. On the third hand, he could have
been in charge of a private contractor, and if the Company didn't have
much in the way of oversight, could have gotten away with the
Enslavements before word got out.
Either way, I'm sure the
Enslavements were one of the reasons for all of the secret agents
mentioned in Little Fuzzy - I re-read the book a while ago, and found
their prominent mention a little puzzling. Of course, a couple
characters were agents, so it made sense to set the stage for them.
|
David "PiperFan" Johnson 11-02-2018
04:40 UT
|
~
John "Calidore" Anderson wrote:
> If so, then Loki would be somewhat similar to Venus,
> which Beam, in keeping with the 1950s view, made a
> hot, swampy planet.
Well,
that seems to be what Beam's earlier, Paratime-version of Venus was
like but in truth he told us very little about the ecosphere of Venus in
the Terro-human Future History. Nevertheless, I agree it's reasonable
to assume that his Future History Venus may also be this sort of
"planetary romance" version of Venus, if perhaps not quite a "Carson of
Venus" sort of place--but that assumption places the Future History
_unequivocally_ in an "alternate history."
> Aside from the Secession, which has a major political
> impact on the early Federation, Venus never seems to
> develop into anything much, and it has a continuing
> problem with criminal behavior. Third Century
> politicians like Roger Barron are "indicted for corrupt
> practices" as soon as they leave office, because "There
> were no other kind in Venusian politics." (Federation,
> p. 209) And as you note, even six centuries later Port
> Oberth on Venus is a lawless place. That's essentially
> right next door to Terra, the capital and most powerful
> planet of the whole Federation, which one would think
> could clean up Venus if it wanted to.
This
suggests to me that there is something key about the autonomy of
"Federation Member Republics" in the way the (second) Terran Federation
is organized. The Terran Federation doesn't mess with Venus because
other "Federation Member Republics" like Odin or Baldur or Marduk or
Aton won't stand for it.
The interesting thing about Venus--and
presumably also Mars--being a "Federation Member Republic" is what that
might suggest about the early (second) Terran Federation. Do we really
assume that the (second) Terran Federation was comprised of a Federation
Member Republic of Venus, a Federation Member Republic of Mars (and
perhaps also Federation Member Republics of Jovian Moons) _and_ a
Federation Member Republic or Terra, with Venus and Mars ostensibly
equal in stature to Terra? That seems more than a bit hard to believe.
That
leaves me wondering if, perhaps, that there might be a "Federation
Member Republic of Australia" (which perhaps includes New Zealand), a
"Federation Member Republic of Brazil," a "Federation Member Republic of
South Africa," a "Federation Member Republic of the Argentine," etc.
Those are political divisions in which separate "Member Republic" status
for colony worlds like Venus and Mars (and perhaps the Jovian moons)
would make a bit more sense.
Unfortunately, we have no details
from Beam about any of this. He never even confirms that Mars is a
"Federation Member Republic" but it is an intriguing idea that, for me,
at least, is a bit more believable than Venus and Terra being considered
nominal "equals" in the early days of the (second) Terran Federation.
Cheers,
David
--
"The
Astrographic Commission won't accept Helleno-Roman names for anything
outside the Sol System. They prefer names from Norse mythology, as long
as they last." -- Karl Zahanov (H. Beam Piper), "When in the Course--"
~
|
Calidore 11-01-2018
22:52 UT
|
My impression is that Loki is not “pretty temperate for Terrans”.
Piper’s mention of Bush Dwanga is suggestive of sub-Saharan Africa,
while his comparison of the Fa’ansare River with the Amazon is likewise
indicative of a tropical climate. So I’ve always felt that Loki is a
bit warmer than Terra. Possibly rain forests at the equator, with large
tracts of savannah to the north and south. While certainly habitable,
such a planet might be too warm to attract a large number of Terran
colonists.
If so, then Loki would be somewhat similar to Venus,
which Beam, in keeping with the 1950s view, made a hot, swampy planet.
Aside from the Secession, which has a major political impact on the
early Federation, Venus never seems to develop into anything much, and
it has a continuing problem with criminal behavior. Third Century
politicians like Roger Barron are “indicted…for corrupt practices” as
soon as they leave office, because “There were no other kind in Venusian
politics.” (Federation, p. 209) And as you note, even six centuries
later Port Oberth on Venus is a lawless place. That’s essentially right
next door to Terra, the capital and most powerful planet of the whole
Federation, which one would think could clean up Venus if it wanted to.
So
the gentle, faun-like Lokians may be Beam’s version of the
stereotypical ‘indolent’ native of tropical climates, who were often
enslaved by Europeans, and became their labor-force in the colonial era.
This was because they always had difficulty persuading their own
citizens to emigrate to the tropical colonies. Most Europeans leaving
the Continent preferred to move to more temperate climates, such as
southern Canada and especially the United States in North America; and
northern Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil in South America. I
assume there is a similar dynamic at work in the Federation, with most
emigrating colonists settling on the more Terra-type planets. The
temperate types are probably those which more often turn out to be major
worlds; like Odin, Baldur and Marduk. Planets like Venus and Loki are
likely backwaters in comparison.
Jack Holloway's comment about
the Lokians becoming Native Agency bums reminds me of Verkan Vall’s
description of the Venusian “natives” (who I assume are actually humans)
in “Last Enemy”. Pretending to be a Venusian planter, Vall says to
Assassin-President Klarnood, “If you’d see the bums who hang around our
drying sheds, on Venus, cadging rejected leaves and smoking themselves
into a stupor, you’d be frugal in using [zerfa] too.” (Paratime, pp. 94,
117)
Thus, Loki may be a planet with a hotter-than-Terra climate
(though perhaps not as hot and/or humid as Venus), and not much in the
way of natural resources. So I think you’re right that, aside from
gold, Loki has “little else of value to the interstellar economy of the
Federation.” This, plus a presumed intemperate climate, would not make
it an attractive destination for Terro-Human colonists, and that could
explain why Loki never does “evolve into a more stable, civilized
place”. The humans who end up living there are more likely to be
outcasts, misfits, criminals and “irreconcilable minority-groups who
want to get away from everybody else” (Federation, p. 58) than average
citizens.
Your P.S. is a very interesting observation. It makes
sense that Anton Gerrit would at least be a Company man, possibly going
to extremes to generate profit for the shareholders of a marginal
planet (as I assume Loki is). I tend to doubt that he was the actual
head of the Loki Company; one would have expected Bish Ware to mention
it if he were. But even if he weren’t, his treatment of the natives
must have been sanctioned (or at least tolerated) by the Company
leadership, which could also explain why their charter was revoked. If
they didn’t know what Gerrit was doing, they should have; and if they
did know, they are as guilty as he is of violating the Federation
Constitution.
On the other hand, if Gerrit WAS the Company head
on Loki, that would actually place him in good (or rather, bad)
‘company’. Because Victor Grego, the head of the Chartered Zarathustra
Company, proposes similarly egregious criminal intent toward a native
population. In his case, the complete genocide of the Fuzzies, and this
is AFTER learning that they are “probably” sapient! (Little Fuzzy, pp.
46, 47) If he had successfully carried out this scheme, Grego might
have avoided prosecution—hard to prove Fuzzy sapience when they’re all
dead—but in truth he would have been an even bigger criminal than
Gerrit, who despite being a mass-murderer at least did not intend to
exterminate the Lokians.
The difference seems to be that Anton
needed Lokian labor to work the mines, while Victor didn’t need the
Fuzzies for anything, since Zarathustra was becoming a handsomely
profitable planet by the time they were discovered. (ibid, pp. 8-9)
Plus, the Fuzzies were a direct threat to the CZC’s charter, while one
would guess that the natives were already known when the Loki Company’s
charter was granted.
John
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