I am currently reading "Revenger", the latest book by Alastair Reynolds. Reynolds is very fond of the concept of Deep Time -- many of his books (sometimes parts of books) take place tens of thousands or millions years from now, with enough time in between for many civilizations to arise and fall and arise again, until in many cases nobody knows where humans came from, where Earth was, or sometimes even whether particular aliens are in fact alien or unfathomably distant relatives.
"Revenger" is a little different. As far as I can tell, it takes place here in the Solar System, somewhere between 15 and 50 million years from now, but a very changed Solar System. Planets no longer exist -- some civilization (people in the book use the word Occupation) fairly early on dismantled them all, and built 50 million habitats, all of them some 10-20 km across. The time is Year 1799 of the Thirteenth Occupation -- that is, people recognize 12 separate periods in the past which left written records, with long seemingly blank periods in between. Some 20,000 habitats (they are referred to as "world", since these are the only worlds they know) are inhabited; the rest are either dead -- holed, air leaked out, -- or the opposite: sealed up, locked and booby-trapped. Every year a few more "worlds" get colonized, but many others are raided for the (hopefully) technological marvels inside. This raiding is a major industry, and the plot centers on it.
Which brings me to my point. Up until the Enlightenment, all human societies assumed either that things were unchanging -- always were as they are, -- or that some kind of Fall from the previous Golden Age has occurred. The idea of progress, that humans are learning about the world and making it better, -- is a very new one.
But how would humans think/act if there were incontrovertible evidence that Fall has in fact occurred -- and more than once? The "Revenger" society is at roughly current level of technology -- they travel between worlds with ion rockets and light sails, make portable electronics, perform the kind of surgery we can do now, etc. But they are also awash in artifacts which are basically magic -- they know these artifacts work, sometimes they know how old they are, but they have not a prayer of duplicating them. Often the very physics involved is unknown. The main character has her arm amputated, and an artificial replacement grafted on; the prosthetic dates to the Eleventh Occupation, and the woman who installs it only knows that the arm will bind with the nerves within few weeks. She does not even know what powers it. The only skill required of her is to ensure sterile operation, for the infection is a real possibility.
At that, the society is not static. They had steadily progressed for the last 2000 years -- 1799 is simply the time since the earliest continuous records, the Occupation is actually older than that, -- and new psychotropic drugs is one thing mentioned as being developed. The "ancient magic" seems to have opposite psychological effect on different people -- majority are simply content to use it without worrying "why", while the more scientifically-minded are spurred into work precisely because that magic exists -- ultimately it is just engineering, and what was engineered once, could be again.
"Revenger" is a little different. As far as I can tell, it takes place here in the Solar System, somewhere between 15 and 50 million years from now, but a very changed Solar System. Planets no longer exist -- some civilization (people in the book use the word Occupation) fairly early on dismantled them all, and built 50 million habitats, all of them some 10-20 km across. The time is Year 1799 of the Thirteenth Occupation -- that is, people recognize 12 separate periods in the past which left written records, with long seemingly blank periods in between. Some 20,000 habitats (they are referred to as "world", since these are the only worlds they know) are inhabited; the rest are either dead -- holed, air leaked out, -- or the opposite: sealed up, locked and booby-trapped. Every year a few more "worlds" get colonized, but many others are raided for the (hopefully) technological marvels inside. This raiding is a major industry, and the plot centers on it.
Which brings me to my point. Up until the Enlightenment, all human societies assumed either that things were unchanging -- always were as they are, -- or that some kind of Fall from the previous Golden Age has occurred. The idea of progress, that humans are learning about the world and making it better, -- is a very new one.
But how would humans think/act if there were incontrovertible evidence that Fall has in fact occurred -- and more than once? The "Revenger" society is at roughly current level of technology -- they travel between worlds with ion rockets and light sails, make portable electronics, perform the kind of surgery we can do now, etc. But they are also awash in artifacts which are basically magic -- they know these artifacts work, sometimes they know how old they are, but they have not a prayer of duplicating them. Often the very physics involved is unknown. The main character has her arm amputated, and an artificial replacement grafted on; the prosthetic dates to the Eleventh Occupation, and the woman who installs it only knows that the arm will bind with the nerves within few weeks. She does not even know what powers it. The only skill required of her is to ensure sterile operation, for the infection is a real possibility.
At that, the society is not static. They had steadily progressed for the last 2000 years -- 1799 is simply the time since the earliest continuous records, the Occupation is actually older than that, -- and new psychotropic drugs is one thing mentioned as being developed. The "ancient magic" seems to have opposite psychological effect on different people -- majority are simply content to use it without worrying "why", while the more scientifically-minded are spurred into work precisely because that magic exists -- ultimately it is just engineering, and what was engineered once, could be again.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2eoiCtj
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