Here at the end of 2019, I am currently involved in my annual rituals of 1) looking back at
the past year of Sci Fi blogging and story writing and 2) getting ready to celebrate the writing of important science fiction writers who were born 100 years ago. On January 1st 2020, I will post
some commentary on
Frank Herbert's
(October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) 1963 story "Dune World". On January 2nd 2020, I will post some commentary on Isaac Asimov's (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) 1952 story "The Currents of Space".
Galactic Empires
Before there were interstellar empires such as those depicted in Asimov's Foundation Saga (starting in 1942) and "Dune World" there was the evil Boskonian Empire as imagined by Edward Smith. As depicted in Ed Smith's 1937 story, "Galactic Patrol", the Boskonians were part of a vast intergalactic empire that was under the control of ancient aliens: the Eddorians.
Good vs. Evil
The Boskonian Empire was built around the kinds of governing principles that we might associate with a crime syndicate or 20th century fascism.
When "Galactic Patrol" was first published, Asimov was just starting to write science fiction stories that he hoped to publish in Astounding magazine. Asimov read "Galactic Patrol" and along with the rest of Sci Fi fandom, he was enthralled by the idea of interstellar space travel and life on distant exoplanets. A few years later, after Asimov had read Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he decided to model his own imaginary Galactic Empire on the Roman Empire.
Telepathy and Empire. About the same time that I first read the Foundation Trilogy, I also real the entire Lensman Series by E. E. "Doc" Smith and his earlier Skylark Series. Unlike Smith, who glorified mindless conflict between the evil telepathic Eddorians and the saintly Arisians (who could predict the future just by using their gigantic brains), Asimov depicted a balancing act between the First Foundation, which was devoted to physical science, and the Second Foundationers, who wielded their telepathic powers of emotional control. The Second Foundationers also wielded the imaginary science of Psychohistory, which Asimov depicted as the basis of their ability to predict the future.
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| Trantor: a planet covered by a single gigantic city. |
When I discovered Asimov's Foundation trilogy in the 1970s, I was charmed by the quaint habits of the folks who lived in Asimov's imagined empire of the future. For example, they all smoke tobacco in the future! It was easy to see (but hard to accept enthusiastically) how Asimov had transplanted human behavior that was appropriate for ancient Romans to the future Imperials who ruled the galaxy from the planet Trantor. Asimov grew up in New York City and he imagined a capitol world for his empire that was a single gigantic city of 45 billion residents.
The Mule
One of Asimov's great literary inventions is the megalomaniacal Mule, who has "mentalic" powers. Asimov used the term "mentalics" to refer to the ability of both the Mule and the Second Foundationers to alter the emotional make-up of human minds. The Mule was nearly able to take control of the entire galaxy by using his telepathic powers of mind control. In addition to making his subjects incredibly loyal, he could induce in his enemies debilitating depression and self-doubt.
For me, what was most intriguing about the Mule was his ability to alter the minds of scientists and unleash their inventiveness. Asimov depicted his Galactic Empire, tens of thousands of years in the future, as being a place where the residents could barely keep their existing technologies running. There was essentially no social structure for scientific study and technological advancement.
In Asimov's imagined Galactic Empire, even the idea of making an encyclopedia to document existing technology is unthinkable to all the trillions of inhabitants of the galaxy, except for "the great" Hari Seldon.
"How could the future be dominated by an 'empire'?" -David Berri
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| Economics 10101010101 |
In an article ("Highly Illogical: What Sci-Fi Writers Get Wrong About the Future") from 2015 that was published in Time magazine, David Berri argued that an empire "would not generally promote the technological change necessary to settle and connect millions of planets".
In the fictional future imagined by
Jack Vance, he depicted two eras of "future history" among the stars. When humans were first spreading outward from Earth, there was no central government. Later, in the twilight of the galactic era, Alastor Cluster was ruled by a single man, the
Connatic, a kind of enlightened despot. Interestingly, as seen in Asimov's Galactic Empire, Vance's future does not feature significant technological progress.
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| extracting valuable kyrt from Floriana |
Is the near-absence of scientific research and technological progress that Sci Fi fans often find in future Galactic Empires due to the fact that empires are simply not conducive to progress? Berri asserted that historically on Earth, empires have tended to feature "extractive institutions" much like what Asimov depicted for exploitation of
kyrt on the planet Floriana (in
The Currents of Space) and what Herbert depicted as the method by which
House Harkonnen extracted spice from the planet Arrakis. However, Asimov depicted a kinder and gentler Trantorian Empire that worked against the
Squires of Sark during the creation of his Galactic Empire.
I don't think that envisioning a Galactic Empire is an automatic fail for Sci Fi story tellers; I made my argument for this
back in 2010. There is good reason for science fiction story tellers to want technological stagnation in their galactic civilization.
Recognizing that it would take thousands of years to colonize millions of planets scattered through the galaxy and recognizing that over the course of thousands of years advancing technology could vastly alter human society (if not the genetic foundation of human species itself), why not make use of a rigid Imperial government to
impose technological stagnation?
In the case of Asimov's Galactic Empire, he eventually depicted the positronic robot
R. Daneel Olivaw as being in control of the Empire. It is easy to imagine that Daneel actively suppressed human technological progress during most of the Space Age. The Mule could reverse that imposed "suppression" and after the First Foundation took control of the galaxy, a new era of scientific study and technological advance suddenly began. Jack Vance imagined the
Institute as an organization that systematically suppressed technological advancement.
For the
Exode Saga, I imagine that there can be
great dangers arising from rapid technological advances. Tool using primates might be their own worst enemy.
How can you adjust the rate of technological change?
In the
December 1952 issue of
Astounding Science Fiction, (along with Asimov's
The Currents of Space) is a Raymond Fisher Jones story "Noise Level" which deals with the question of how to speed up the rate of scientific discovery.
I suppose "Noise Level" was a natural story idea for Jones who had training in "
radio engineering" and also had experience working on equipment in the USA telephone system. In this story, to speed up the pace of scientific advancements all you need to do is provide scientists with a high level of "noise" (such as imaginative stories about levitation) and then apply an appropriate "filter". In "Noise Level", the filter used is to tell a team of physicists that antigravity has already been invented and they only need to turn it into a practical technology. Within a few weeks, the research team has a working antigravity device!
For the Exode Saga, I imagine that humans are hybrid beings, partly biological but also with minds that are partly composed of
zeptite endosymbionts. While the
pek were busy creating a replacement for humans (the
Prelands), humans on Earth could be prevented from developing new technologies. The creativity and inventiveness of humans could be blocked by the zeptite components of their brains.
Lucky for we humans, there was a way to prevent our species from being replaced by the Prelands. This involved a "
femtobot hack" and help from the ancient
Phari.
Related Reading:
control of the pace of technological discoveries in the Asimov Reality
Also:
The Yerophet Experiment
AND:
more R. F. Jones
Next:
2019 Nuggets
The Boskonian Empire was built around the kinds of governing principles that we might associate with a crime syndicate or 20th century fascism.
