In the Crosswalk Part II
Some clarification:
I'm reading Wil McCarthy's Lost in Transmission, which is the second of a brilliant science fiction trilogy (prequeled with Collapsium) about a time period where everyone is immorbid and the very walls can provide a person with anything they need. It is paradise. And then these generally immortal people have kids.
Kids rebel against their parents (enough do, rather). And when mom and dad will always be there? More particularly, if the rulers-for-life have a son, he'll always be a prince. This is the premise for the series, told from the perspective of a good friend of the prince.
In Lost in Transmission, the kids (read: 20-to-30-year-olds) take an interstellar voyage to colonize a star for the first time. Now, the number of sci fi novels that deal with first colonization is huge, and I've read quite a few of them, and a lot aboot humanity well past this initial expansion. But McCarthy takes an interesting approach to it: that it will fail, a reflection of what will happen later.
The colony fails because the colonists, specifically the prince, try to recreate the world they came from. The not-quite-evident problem is that there is not enough manpower to generate the economy needed to support this. Things almost immediately begin a slow spiral downward (there are other reasons, too, but this is the one that fascinates me).
So if they had taken a step back, several rungs down the economical ladder, and worked from there, the colony may have worked. If they had ditched their weekends, become less dependent on the technology they came with, rediscovered how to use their hands and minds (and bodies, for pregnancies), they probably would have survived. The series ends with the idea that these old skills were relearned, and proves that humanity is adaptable to the circumstance.
That may not clarify my previous post entirely, but it may help. Thanks.
I'm reading Wil McCarthy's Lost in Transmission, which is the second of a brilliant science fiction trilogy (prequeled with Collapsium) about a time period where everyone is immorbid and the very walls can provide a person with anything they need. It is paradise. And then these generally immortal people have kids.
Kids rebel against their parents (enough do, rather). And when mom and dad will always be there? More particularly, if the rulers-for-life have a son, he'll always be a prince. This is the premise for the series, told from the perspective of a good friend of the prince.
In Lost in Transmission, the kids (read: 20-to-30-year-olds) take an interstellar voyage to colonize a star for the first time. Now, the number of sci fi novels that deal with first colonization is huge, and I've read quite a few of them, and a lot aboot humanity well past this initial expansion. But McCarthy takes an interesting approach to it: that it will fail, a reflection of what will happen later.
The colony fails because the colonists, specifically the prince, try to recreate the world they came from. The not-quite-evident problem is that there is not enough manpower to generate the economy needed to support this. Things almost immediately begin a slow spiral downward (there are other reasons, too, but this is the one that fascinates me).
So if they had taken a step back, several rungs down the economical ladder, and worked from there, the colony may have worked. If they had ditched their weekends, become less dependent on the technology they came with, rediscovered how to use their hands and minds (and bodies, for pregnancies), they probably would have survived. The series ends with the idea that these old skills were relearned, and proves that humanity is adaptable to the circumstance.
That may not clarify my previous post entirely, but it may help. Thanks.
posted by Tiger Shnelvar at 11:19 PM
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