Monday, 15 September 2014

Venus And Prosperity

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation, 16 July 2014.

Many fictional Venuses, including Burroughs', Kline's, Heinlein's and Lewis', are humanly habitable;

in Poul Anderson's "Delenda Est," Venus, presumably habitable, has been colonized;

in Anderson's "The Big Rain," a desert Venus has been colonized but has yet to be terraformed;

in his "Sister Planet," an oceanic Venus has yet to be terraformed and colonized;

in his Technic History, Venus has been colonized despite incomplete terraforming;

in SM Stirling's "A Slip in Time," we retroactively learn that the colonized Venus of "Delenda Est" had been paradisally terraformed - lawns, gardens, vines, flowers, trees, a canal, bioengineered colorful singing birds and a cat-dog-chimp hybrid companion-nurse.

Surely a civilization with the power and wealth to effect this transformation would be able to solve all socioeconomic problems? Despite this, conflicts and wars continue for many millennia - although not indefinitely.

In "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks," we learn that the Time Patrol suppresses the Trazon matter transmuter, able to transform any material object into any other...

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