[REVIEW] Science (fiction)
Jan. 5th, 2004 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonald[I’ve written most of writing this entry—the first draft, at any rate—on the train, using my laptop. It took some time for me to find a power outlet, but find one I did. I happily typed well into the night, catching up on a lot of the work that I had neglected on my holiday. (Incidentally, I’ve run into ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
creases, which was quite nice if unexpected.)
Over the holidays, I read Kurd Lasswitz’s 1898 novel Two Planets, translated into English from an abridged edition in the early 1970s. It’s interesting to note, as the editor does, the difference between the Martians of Lasswitz and, say, the Martians of H.G. Wells. Both civilizations are imperialistic, granted, with aspirations towards the domination of the Terran globe. Whereas Wellsian Martians are inhuman monsters dedicated to the annihilation of the human species, though, Lasswitzian Martians are genial and entirely helpful humans. The Numes are a highly evolved humanoid civilization, interfertile with Terrans and possessing the same basic aesthetic and moral instincts as our species. If anything, in fact, the Numes are still more advanced, having achieved a just civilization on their world while the Terrans of Europe are busy with their imperialist rivalries and chaotic development. There is a crisis of Martian imperialism that drives Two Planets ’s plot, but rather than stemming from an attempt by Numedom to claim the green Earth for their own, it comes from their good-hearted desire to micromanage Earth’s development into a unified planetary civilization on Martian lines. The book ends in an interesting convergence, as Earthlings revolt against their alien overlords and claim the right to develop "Numedom without Nume" and Martians recover from their imperialist moment to extend the hand of friendship to Earth. I rather like Two Planets, and feel that it has been badly neglected, at least by the Anglophone readership.
Perhaps surprisingly, Lasswitz’s universe was scientifically accurate. The most glaring problem might appear be the location of the Numes’ stationary Earth-orbit interface station above the North Pole not the Equator, but then since the station was actively maintained in its position by Martian technology it isn’t an issue. The remarkable similarity between Terrans and Numes might also count as an improbability, but then the reader can easily recognize this as a plot device. The most glaring flaw of Lasswitz’s universe lies in the assumption that complex life can be common throughout the universe, or at least that it can be common enough (without conscious external intervention by some high civilization) to give rise to multiple intelligent species. Rare Earth, by Peter D Warn and Donald Brownlea, was another book I read over my Christmas vacation, and it wasn’t at all encouraging.
The authors argue that life is ubiquitous, as demonstrated by the ability of Earthly organisms to tolerate a vast diversity of extreme environments (extremes of temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition). If microbial ecologies can thrive several kilometers below the surface of the Earth in solid rock, they can certainly do the same on Mars, or in the subsurface oceans of the three outer Galilean moons, or perhaps even in the Cytherian or Jovian atmospheres or on cryoatmospheric Titan or in other still more exotic environments. The problem with life, however, is that complex life is unlikely (in their estimation) to arrive in any but the most fortunate circumstances. If a world is not at the right distance from its sun, it can either freeze globally (like Earth on at least two occasions) or overheat like Venus. If a planetary system’s orbits are elliptical instead of circular, then climates will vary excessively. If a world has too little water, complex life will be shortchanged; if a world has too much water, then it can be covered by an ocean hundreds of kilometers deep. If a world is made of relatively light elements, then it will lack the geological cycles necessary for plate tectonics and magnetic fields; if it is made of the wrong elements, then it would be a silicon carbide-encrusted diamond. And so on, and so forth, until the authors’ suggestion that worlds with complex biospheres at least theoretically capable of producing intelligence are rare indeed begins to look unimpeachable indeed.
If, one day, humanity is ever introduced to non-human intelligences, or to strange non-Earthly biospheres, they may be overwhelmingly likely not to be of our own creation. (Or, perhaps, of another intelligent species interested in reshaping galactic astrography.) For the time being, we’ll have to be satisfied with the Numes.
creases, which was quite nice if unexpected.)Over the holidays, I read Kurd Lasswitz’s 1898 novel Two Planets, translated into English from an abridged edition in the early 1970s. It’s interesting to note, as the editor does, the difference between the Martians of Lasswitz and, say, the Martians of H.G. Wells. Both civilizations are imperialistic, granted, with aspirations towards the domination of the Terran globe. Whereas Wellsian Martians are inhuman monsters dedicated to the annihilation of the human species, though, Lasswitzian Martians are genial and entirely helpful humans. The Numes are a highly evolved humanoid civilization, interfertile with Terrans and possessing the same basic aesthetic and moral instincts as our species. If anything, in fact, the Numes are still more advanced, having achieved a just civilization on their world while the Terrans of Europe are busy with their imperialist rivalries and chaotic development. There is a crisis of Martian imperialism that drives Two Planets ’s plot, but rather than stemming from an attempt by Numedom to claim the green Earth for their own, it comes from their good-hearted desire to micromanage Earth’s development into a unified planetary civilization on Martian lines. The book ends in an interesting convergence, as Earthlings revolt against their alien overlords and claim the right to develop "Numedom without Nume" and Martians recover from their imperialist moment to extend the hand of friendship to Earth. I rather like Two Planets, and feel that it has been badly neglected, at least by the Anglophone readership.
Perhaps surprisingly, Lasswitz’s universe was scientifically accurate. The most glaring problem might appear be the location of the Numes’ stationary Earth-orbit interface station above the North Pole not the Equator, but then since the station was actively maintained in its position by Martian technology it isn’t an issue. The remarkable similarity between Terrans and Numes might also count as an improbability, but then the reader can easily recognize this as a plot device. The most glaring flaw of Lasswitz’s universe lies in the assumption that complex life can be common throughout the universe, or at least that it can be common enough (without conscious external intervention by some high civilization) to give rise to multiple intelligent species. Rare Earth, by Peter D Warn and Donald Brownlea, was another book I read over my Christmas vacation, and it wasn’t at all encouraging.
The authors argue that life is ubiquitous, as demonstrated by the ability of Earthly organisms to tolerate a vast diversity of extreme environments (extremes of temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition). If microbial ecologies can thrive several kilometers below the surface of the Earth in solid rock, they can certainly do the same on Mars, or in the subsurface oceans of the three outer Galilean moons, or perhaps even in the Cytherian or Jovian atmospheres or on cryoatmospheric Titan or in other still more exotic environments. The problem with life, however, is that complex life is unlikely (in their estimation) to arrive in any but the most fortunate circumstances. If a world is not at the right distance from its sun, it can either freeze globally (like Earth on at least two occasions) or overheat like Venus. If a planetary system’s orbits are elliptical instead of circular, then climates will vary excessively. If a world has too little water, complex life will be shortchanged; if a world has too much water, then it can be covered by an ocean hundreds of kilometers deep. If a world is made of relatively light elements, then it will lack the geological cycles necessary for plate tectonics and magnetic fields; if it is made of the wrong elements, then it would be a silicon carbide-encrusted diamond. And so on, and so forth, until the authors’ suggestion that worlds with complex biospheres at least theoretically capable of producing intelligence are rare indeed begins to look unimpeachable indeed.
If, one day, humanity is ever introduced to non-human intelligences, or to strange non-Earthly biospheres, they may be overwhelmingly likely not to be of our own creation. (Or, perhaps, of another intelligent species interested in reshaping galactic astrography.) For the time being, we’ll have to be satisfied with the Numes.
