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Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:37:34 -0400
From: Jack Tingle <wjtingle@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.composition
Subject: Re: Why Planetary Bias in SF? Was: Terraforming Mars by crashing
comets into it
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CharlesRCaplan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> Planetary Bias or Planetary Chauvinism in SF is pretty much the norm.
> Any sort of orbital colony is almost always a small, antiseptic, and
> almost painfully artificial space station. There are some exceptions
> though, some stories/movies/etc... show them as dirty, cluttered,
> utilitarian space stations, or sprawling, bustling, manufacturing
> space stations, but few show them to be the kinds of garden-esque,
> panoramic, almost planet-like megastructures that people like Larry
> Niven, John Bernal, and Gerard O'Neill have been talking about since
> the 70s.[snip]
> So, what does rec.arts.sf.composition think of planetary bias in SF?
I think you're still doing it. Space dwellers wouldn't generally build
O'Neill colonies (or Plates or Ringworlds) except as Disneyland.
"See what the surface of a Real Planet(TM) feels like! Eat exotic foods
grown on Real Trees(TM). See *huge animals* like _goats_ and _donkeys_
roaming *thousands of square meters* of their natural habitat!"
These are just bad-quality substitute planets. They're almost as
inefficient as regular planets.
They probably wouldn't build dirty, cluttered, utilitarian, space
stations either. They might build something like a lot of interconnected
malls, atrium apartment blocks, shopping plazas, and small parks, none
with an annoying, expensive, artificial sky you have to keep clean and
can't rent out as the floor above.
"Why always light blue for a zocalo's ceiling color, Mommy?" Trixie
asked, looking straight up at the ceiling 20 m away.
"Some kind of tradition, Trixie. I always wondered myself. Now eat your
tofugurt, and we can go down to the recycling-market plaza."
If you want an example, think one of Banks's GSV's.
I think we had this discussion about space dwellers a while ago, WRT
generation ships. I can see no reason why people raised in space,
comfortable there, and coping handily with the challenges, would want to
land on a dirty (literally), inconvenient-to-leave, weather-infested,
planet. A few might, as a lark, or as an act of rebellion, or just
because. The majority of people don't leave the county they're born in,
much less the astronomical body (artificial or natural).
I suspect, in general, they'd build attractive, clean, comfortable (if a
little small) housing, similar to what we currently build in our large
cities. And they'd tend to stay there, except for the minority who
wander. Almost no one _wants_ to live in a muddy slum, or in Disneyland.
Of course, the planet dwellers would agree completely, just in reverse.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
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