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sniffnoyThis whole entry is basically Terra Ignota spoilers, so it's all going behind a cut!
So I finally read Perhaps the Stars, and... it bugs me. The whole "trunk war" between Gordian and Utopia concept didn't sit well with me, and basically, I think what was missing was the Humanist point of view. (I say this of course as someone who, if I lived in that world, would, of any of the hives, most likely join Humanist... of course more realistically I'd be a graylaw. :P )
(Tangent: A thing that's bugged me for some time is... the existence of the white laws, and the whitelaws, makes no sense! It seems like it's just there to complete blacklaw, graylaw, whitelaw. But why would the white laws exist as a neutral thing? They're clearly an expression of a distinctly non-neutral thing; "Whitelaw" ought to be a separate hive, not some neutral thing under the Alliance.)
The problem with the "trunk war" is how narrow it is. Immortality... or immortality and space exploration? This question has a fundamental problem: What about every other field of human endeavor?
Like, when Felix Faust goes on about Utopia's "stupid space obsession", they don't really have any answer. Which is odd, actually, because I don't think it would be too hard to write one (we've got to know what's out there!). But imagine if instead of Gordian vs Utopia, it was Gordian vs Humanist; then writing the answer to Faust would be even easier. "What, we're just going to stop all our other projects and work solely on immortality? Cut off all other human achievement and learning until this one thing is done?"
This is a good place to note, as Balioc has noted before, that Utopia is kind of incoherent. I won't repeat what they've already written, but I want to add to it -- going by the first few books, Utopia would seem to be the science hive; but going by the last one, it would seem to be pretty specifically the outer space hive. It's all quite applied, and seemingly quite applied to two things. Why don't we see more Humanist scientists, really? (And mathematicians, especially.) Cato Weeksbooth should not be an outlier in that regard!
That said, the space question is something that bothers me in real life. Obviously it won't be relevant for a long time, probably long after I'm dead, but... the fact is, here in the real world, we've done a pretty good job of creating a single world civilization, a single global knowledge base. "The literature" exists. What humanity knows, and what it doesn't know, is mostly a coherent question, unlike in past times when you could only say, what was known in this place, what was known in that place, etc. No, this project is by no means complete -- language barriers remain a big problem especially -- but, it's been accomplished to a pretty remarkable degree.
Interstellar travel will end that, and that bothers me. I can't say that means that it shouldn't be done, but... it bothers me. When communication takes years, there will no longer be such a thing as "the literature"; what's known on Earth, and what's known on Proxima Centauri or wherever, will be two separate questions.
However, the "trunk war" didn't seem to focus most on this split of civilizations, this split of knowledge, but rather the question of danger, and I think that that contrast would have been better illustrated by the Humanists rather than Utopia. Granted, the Humanists aren't doing anything nearly as dangerous as human space exploration, but, well, they can argue the point in more generality, seems to me.
(The other thing that bugs me about Perhaps the Stars is just how much it focuses on J.E.D.D. Mason, God, and the lasting effects of Bridger's power (which has people acting according to what happens next in the Iliad), rather than on the more future-history style stuff. Also, I can't help but suspect that a lot of the problems with both Mitsubishi and Utopia might be solved by a land value tax (with temporary reprieves for newly discovered land, yes), although, OTOH, I can't imagine they would ever go for that, and what external power could enforce one on them?)
EDIT: Also is it just me or was it just absolutely never explained how Perry/Kraye was alive after having apparently died??
So I finally read Perhaps the Stars, and... it bugs me. The whole "trunk war" between Gordian and Utopia concept didn't sit well with me, and basically, I think what was missing was the Humanist point of view. (I say this of course as someone who, if I lived in that world, would, of any of the hives, most likely join Humanist... of course more realistically I'd be a graylaw. :P )
(Tangent: A thing that's bugged me for some time is... the existence of the white laws, and the whitelaws, makes no sense! It seems like it's just there to complete blacklaw, graylaw, whitelaw. But why would the white laws exist as a neutral thing? They're clearly an expression of a distinctly non-neutral thing; "Whitelaw" ought to be a separate hive, not some neutral thing under the Alliance.)
The problem with the "trunk war" is how narrow it is. Immortality... or immortality and space exploration? This question has a fundamental problem: What about every other field of human endeavor?
Like, when Felix Faust goes on about Utopia's "stupid space obsession", they don't really have any answer. Which is odd, actually, because I don't think it would be too hard to write one (we've got to know what's out there!). But imagine if instead of Gordian vs Utopia, it was Gordian vs Humanist; then writing the answer to Faust would be even easier. "What, we're just going to stop all our other projects and work solely on immortality? Cut off all other human achievement and learning until this one thing is done?"
This is a good place to note, as Balioc has noted before, that Utopia is kind of incoherent. I won't repeat what they've already written, but I want to add to it -- going by the first few books, Utopia would seem to be the science hive; but going by the last one, it would seem to be pretty specifically the outer space hive. It's all quite applied, and seemingly quite applied to two things. Why don't we see more Humanist scientists, really? (And mathematicians, especially.) Cato Weeksbooth should not be an outlier in that regard!
That said, the space question is something that bothers me in real life. Obviously it won't be relevant for a long time, probably long after I'm dead, but... the fact is, here in the real world, we've done a pretty good job of creating a single world civilization, a single global knowledge base. "The literature" exists. What humanity knows, and what it doesn't know, is mostly a coherent question, unlike in past times when you could only say, what was known in this place, what was known in that place, etc. No, this project is by no means complete -- language barriers remain a big problem especially -- but, it's been accomplished to a pretty remarkable degree.
Interstellar travel will end that, and that bothers me. I can't say that means that it shouldn't be done, but... it bothers me. When communication takes years, there will no longer be such a thing as "the literature"; what's known on Earth, and what's known on Proxima Centauri or wherever, will be two separate questions.
However, the "trunk war" didn't seem to focus most on this split of civilizations, this split of knowledge, but rather the question of danger, and I think that that contrast would have been better illustrated by the Humanists rather than Utopia. Granted, the Humanists aren't doing anything nearly as dangerous as human space exploration, but, well, they can argue the point in more generality, seems to me.
(The other thing that bugs me about Perhaps the Stars is just how much it focuses on J.E.D.D. Mason, God, and the lasting effects of Bridger's power (which has people acting according to what happens next in the Iliad), rather than on the more future-history style stuff. Also, I can't help but suspect that a lot of the problems with both Mitsubishi and Utopia might be solved by a land value tax (with temporary reprieves for newly discovered land, yes), although, OTOH, I can't imagine they would ever go for that, and what external power could enforce one on them?)
EDIT: Also is it just me or was it just absolutely never explained how Perry/Kraye was alive after having apparently died??
