Fridge logic on "Air Raid"/"Millennium"

[D.F. Manno]

In another thread we were discussing "Air Raid" (short
story)/"Millennium" (novel) by John Varley, in which those in a
dystopian future travel through time to rescue people from doomed
airplanes to colonize another planet, identified only as "Centauri 3."
The trip is said to take "five years, shiptime."

<http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/9781625791542/9781625791542___3.htm>

I just reread the story, and Fridge Logic
(<http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic>) struck. At
the end, the protagonist is thinking about the future of the rescued
passengers/crew:

> When you get there, sixty to seventy percent will die in the
> first three years. You will die in childbirth, be eaten by
> animals, bury two out of three of your babies, starve slowly
> when the rains don't come. If you live, it will be to break your
> back behind a plow, sunup to dusk. New Earth is Heaven, folks!

Now wait just a minute. They have the technology to travel through time,
and spacecraft that are, if not superluminal, at least capable of a
significant fraction of c. They can't export the technology the
colonists would need to build a new world? They can't even prevent death
in childbirth?

--
D.F. Manno | dfm...@mail.com
GOP delenda est!

[JRStern]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 22:59:54 -0400, "D.F. Manno" <dfm...@mail.com>
wrote:

I think they mean in childhood overall, not actual birth, but your
point remains.

I think it's some kind of scifi trope about karmic balance, to work
off the gift somehow.

J.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

No, it's a "pioneering" trope, which assumes for some reason that the
pioneers are sent with a bare minimum of stuff, so they have no
industrial base and have to build up from close to nothing. I'm not sure
why it became terribly popular to the point that it's almost a default
assumption. Maybe because Heinlein used it multiple times.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[JRStern]

Not *literally* karmic balance, but story aesthetics or something.
Maybe it's our Pilgrim traditions.

In Niven's "What good is a chocolate-covered manhole cover?" at least
they had the (thin) excuse that they wanted the pioneers to evolve
further.

J.

[lal_truckee]

On 3/23/14 10:00 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
> No, it's a "pioneering" trope, which assumes for some reason that
> the pioneers are sent with a bare minimum of stuff, so they have no
> industrial base and have to build up from close to nothing. I'm not sure
> why it became terribly popular to the point that it's almost a default
> assumption. Maybe because Heinlein used it multiple times.

Heinlein equipped his pioneers well; eg conclusion of Tunnel In the Sky
or the pioneering episode in Time Enough for Love. While both may
initially seem to support your point, I argue the opposite. Heinlein
provided cogent reasons why a particular level of technology was
appropriate for pioneers expecting to be isolated from their parent
civilization for a long period of time. IIRC the possibility of
repairing broken equipment plays large, as does the short life of exotic
medications vs the more mundane.
I recall no instance where he gratuitously sends out pioneers ill-equipped.
I suppose it's still possible he created the trope in spite of not
supporting it. Such is not unheard of.

In the particular case of _Air Raid_ the Raiders are in the midst of not
just a biological collapse, but also a technological collapse. They are
barely hanging on. In my reading it sounds like they are going to be
extremely lucky if they can transport their refugees to the colony site
at all; follow-up would be impossible.

[hamis...@gmail.com]

On Monday, March 24, 2014 4:00:54 PM UTC+11, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> No, it's a "pioneering" trope, which assumes for some reason that the
> pioneers are sent with a bare minimum of stuff, so they have no
> industrial base and have to build up from close to nothing. I'm not sure
> why it became terribly popular to the point that it's almost a default
> assumption. Maybe because Heinlein used it multiple times.
>

Although it's worth pointing out that Heinlein's use of it was commonly for privately funded expeditions and normally at a time when it seemed to be damned expensive to send people to the destinations.
(Farmer in the Sky was probably government run iirc)
In those situations taking enough to establish a full industrial base is probably going to make in unaffordable.
I'll point out that the new planet established in TefL (Secundus?) seems to have a pretty hefty technological base because it's practical to do so then.

[J. Clarke]

In article <lgog4b$2pf$1...@dont-email.me>, lal_t...@yahoo.com says...

>
> On 3/23/14 10:00 PM, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> >
> > No, it's a "pioneering" trope, which assumes for some reason that
> > the pioneers are sent with a bare minimum of stuff, so they have no
> > industrial base and have to build up from close to nothing. I'm not sure
> > why it became terribly popular to the point that it's almost a default
> > assumption. Maybe because Heinlein used it multiple times.
>
> Heinlein equipped his pioneers well; eg conclusion of Tunnel In the Sky
> or the pioneering episode in Time Enough for Love. While both may
> initially seem to support your point, I argue the opposite. Heinlein
> provided cogent reasons why a particular level of technology was
> appropriate for pioneers expecting to be isolated from their parent
> civilization for a long period of time. IIRC the possibility of
> repairing broken equipment plays large, as does the short life of exotic
> medications vs the more mundane.

Also the difficulty of resupply.

> I recall no instance where he gratuitously sends out pioneers ill-equipped.
> I suppose it's still possible he created the trope in spite of not
> supporting it. Such is not unheard of.
>
> In the particular case of _Air Raid_ the Raiders are in the midst of not
> just a biological collapse, but also a technological collapse. They are
> barely hanging on. In my reading it sounds like they are going to be
> extremely lucky if they can transport their refugees to the colony site
> at all; follow-up would be impossible.

The post-Star Trek generation seems to assume that interstellar travel
is going to be as cheap and regular as intercontinental travel is today,
just as it was depicted in Star Trek. Heinlein, with an engineering
degree from the United States Naval Academy and several years of active
service, has a more pragmatic view of interstellar travel--it's going to
be infrequent, hideously expensive, and what you have to work with is
whatever you can fit into one ship. That being the case he doesn't see
much prospect for transporting steel mills and tractor factories and
recognizes that you need to be able to feed your population _before_ you
can start constructing such things.

Incidenally, while seldom front-stage, his "animals" were often not like
our animals--his "mules" were capable of breeding true and of talking,
which suggests the product of considerable bioengineering--that makes
them far higher tech than we have. Dogs, some of them anyway, the same.

[Scott Lurndal]

Yeah. Why didn't Mr. Smith have an Ipad or Nook with the entire
Library of Congress in _The tale of the adopted daughter_?

[Cryptoengineer]

sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in news:iSXXu.67482$ac6.49039
@fx24.iad:

No electricity; certainly not after the last solar panel they bring
dies.

I'd settle for an ambient-light microfiche reader with as much useful
data as I could carry, and the Foxfire books in hardback as well.

Very high density data storage wasn't available when RAH wrote SiaSL.

Later, in Varley's 'The Children of the Sky', a child's educational
toy incidently contains so much information that it creates an
industrial revolution when it falls into the hands of a
medieval-level race.

pt

[Scott Lurndal]

I seem to recall that Woody packed the basics of a windmill in
one of the conastogas he took with. A modern solar panel will last
two decades - one would assume much better longevity 1500 years from
now.

Then, of course, there were shipstones (although perhaps a different
"universe"). Once mustn't forget satellite phones, either.

>
>I'd settle for an ambient-light microfiche reader with as much useful
>data as I could carry, and the Foxfire books in hardback as well.
>
>Very high density data storage wasn't available when RAH wrote SiaSL.

Could have been predicted (see Thomas P. Ryan, _The adolescence of P-1_).

scott

[D.F. Manno]

In article <MPG.2d99eb9d...@news.newsguy.com>,

"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote:

> The post-Star Trek generation seems to assume that interstellar travel
> is going to be as cheap and regular as intercontinental travel is today,
> just as it was depicted in Star Trek. Heinlein, with an engineering
> degree from the United States Naval Academy and several years of active
> service, has a more pragmatic view of interstellar travel--it's going to
> be infrequent, hideously expensive, and what you have to work with is
> whatever you can fit into one ship. That being the case he doesn't see
> much prospect for transporting steel mills and tractor factories and
> recognizes that you need to be able to feed your population _before_ you
> can start constructing such things.

But you don't have to transport the actual mills and factories, just the
information on how to build them and the means to access it. Yes, you're
not going to be able to start building the steel mill the day you reach
your destination, but at least you'll have the information you need.

And those ships are going to make one last trip. Make it outbound and
you can cannibalize the ships for their tech.

[Tim McDaniel]

In article <dfmanno-7E78DC...@news.albasani.net>,

My fanwank from those facts: while they can get to a significant
fraction of c, it is still very expensive. They can ship a small
amount of equipment that doesn't much affect the mortality rates. Or
they can ship enough machinery that the mortality rate would be small,
but it would take so much capacity that many fewer people could be
shipped, so many fewer that the current setup results in more people.
Certainly they ship technology *information* in some durable form, but
it's a long way from a plowed field + rocks around + the knowledge of
how to build a blast furnace to having a working blast furnace.

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-03-24, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Later, in Varley's 'The Children of the Sky', a child's educational
> toy incidently contains so much information that it creates an
> industrial revolution when it falls into the hands of a
> medieval-level race.

AND enough artifical intelligence to both teach the race, which shared no
common language of course, _and_ decide that it needed to go into teaching
mode based on the randomness of input it was getting.

Dave, WARNING! KZINTI-LIKE TYPING DETECTED!
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Cryptoengineer]

David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in
news:iMydnT3sgYd3XK3O...@earthlink.com:

> On 2014-03-24, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Later, in Varley's 'The Children of the Sky', a child's educational
>> toy incidently contains so much information that it creates an
>> industrial revolution when it falls into the hands of a
>> medieval-level race.
>
> AND enough artifical intelligence to both teach the race, which shared
> no common language of course, _and_ decide that it needed to go into
> teaching mode based on the randomness of input it was getting.
>
> Dave, WARNING! KZINTI-LIKE TYPING DETECTED!

Yes, I liked that part.

Imagine if, say, Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison were sent a laptop with
all of English Wikipedia in it, along with a suitable solar charger,
and enough instructions to use them. Assuming they didn't try to take
the laptop apart to see how it worked, what could they have got out of it?
(we might want to remove the future history stuff from it first).

pt

[Robert Carnegie]

I think I remember MAD magazine ran a comics story about
visiting Edison's workshop, where the prototypes of
home entertainment equipment for most of the twentieth
century stood arranged on shelves while Edison pointed
to the wax-cylinder machine and said "This is what we
have to push now." But apparently he'd done it himself -
or his employees had. At least, I think so; I don't /think/
it was explicitly a time-travel story.

[Eric T. Duckman]

If you were dropped naked onto a virgin Earth-like world, armed with
nothing but indestructible books containing the instructions for building
the infrastructure needed to recreate late 20th century technology, how
long would it take for you to make an iPod? Sounds like a reality show to
me!

--
"...Amusing, yet not without a certain understated omniscience"

[JRStern]

On 25 Mar 2014 12:49:04 GMT, "Eric T. Duckman"

Well, it's gonna be a while, and that's of course assuming you survive
at all.

Depends on the reliability of your food supply so you have the leisure
to look for minerals, start finding iron and copper ores, learn to
smelt them without polluting yourself to death, build a basic machine
culture then refine it to the micrometer level and build some basic
electronics and computers, then to the nanometer level to build 21st
century level products. Meanwhile avoiding wars, volcanos, asteroids,
aliens, luddites, plagues, etc.

J.

[David DeLaney]

So, basically, Minecraft LARPing.

Dave

[J. Clarke]

In article <53317b40$0$10300$c3e8da3$9b4f...@news.astraweb.com>,
eric_t_...@yahoo.com says...

>
> On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:30:38 -0400, D.F. Manno wrote:
>
> > In article <MPG.2d99eb9d...@news.newsguy.com>,
> > "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote:
> >
> >> The post-Star Trek generation seems to assume that interstellar travel
> >> is going to be as cheap and regular as intercontinental travel is
> >> today,
> >> just as it was depicted in Star Trek. Heinlein, with an engineering
> >> degree from the United States Naval Academy and several years of active
> >> service, has a more pragmatic view of interstellar travel--it's going
> >> to be infrequent, hideously expensive, and what you have to work with
> >> is whatever you can fit into one ship. That being the case he doesn't
> >> see much prospect for transporting steel mills and tractor factories
> >> and recognizes that you need to be able to feed your population
> >> _before_ you can start constructing such things.
> >
> > But you don't have to transport the actual mills and factories, just the
> > information on how to build them and the means to access it. Yes, you're
> > not going to be able to start building the steel mill the day you reach
> > your destination, but at least you'll have the information you need.

When did Heinlein or anybody else suggest that such information would
not be available? You could give the Roman Empire complete plans for
the Minuteman missile complete with warhead, as well as complete plans
for all the infrastructure to build it and the infrastructure to build
the infrastructure. That doesn't mean that Carthage would be eating
nukes anytime soon.

> > And those ships are going to make one last trip. Make it outbound
and
> > you can cannibalize the ships for their tech.

Those ships are making a one way trip one time. How much "tech" do you
think they are going to have? A navigation system, propulsion system,
and life support, with most consumables severely depleted. How may
tractors are you going to make with that?

> If you were dropped naked onto a virgin Earth-like world, armed with
> nothing but indestructible books containing the instructions for building
> the infrastructure needed to recreate late 20th century technology, how
> long would it take for you to make an iPod? Sounds like a reality show to
> me!

Alone, you would die of old age before you even started on the
infrasctructure to make integrated circuits. That assumes that you did
not simply resume the pre-technological ecological niche of humans--
felid food.

[Dimensional Traveler]

In a situation like that I don't want plans for late 20th Century tech.
I want plans for the stuff I can build with my bare hands, then what I
can build with those tools, then with those tools, etc.

--
The 'Enterprise' crew in the 2009 Star Trek are adrenaline addicted,
hyper-active teenagers with ADD whose Ritalin got replaced with
methamphetamine, displaying a level of discipline that a Somali pirate
wouldn't tolerate.

[J. Clarke]

In article <53323627$0$52759$742e...@news.sonic.net>, dtr...@sonic.net
says...

That's going to start off with knapped flint and "plans" are going to do
you little good. What will do you a lot more good is a good pair of
safety glasses because without them and without a live instructor
showing you what you are doing wrong you are likely to blind yourself
early in your learning curve--flint flakes are _sharp_ and until you
learn how to make them go where you want them to go, they go in any
direction including into your eye.

[William December Starr]

In article <MPG.2d9be3eca...@news.newsguy.com>,

"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> said:

>>> And those ships are going to make one last trip. Make it outbound
>>> and you can cannibalize the ships for their tech.
>
> Those ships are making a one way trip one time. How much "tech"
> do you think they are going to have?

As much as the builders put into them, no?

-- wds

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Eric T. Duckman" <eric_t_...@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:53317b40$0$10300$c3e8da3$9b4f...@news.astraweb.com:

There's a pretty substantial difference between the infrastructure
to build a tractor and the infrastructure to build an iPod. About a
hundred years' difference, and it's the century with the fastest
technological advance rate in history.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[hamis...@gmail.com]

Considering the number of people who after 15 years (or whatever it is) of Survivor go on it without knowing how to make a shelter or start a fire I don't see the reality show working all that well...

[Dimensional Traveler]

On 3/26/2014 4:43 PM, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 11:49:04 PM UTC+11, Eric T. Duckman wrote:

<snip for space>

>>
>> If you were dropped naked onto a virgin Earth-like world, armed with
>> nothing but indestructible books containing the instructions for building
>> the infrastructure needed to recreate late 20th century technology, how
>> long would it take for you to make an iPod? Sounds like a reality show to
>> me!
>>
> Considering the number of people who after 15 years (or whatever it is) of Survivor go on it without knowing how to make a shelter or start a fire I don't see the reality show working all that well...
>

What makes you think the casting directors are going to let someone who
knows how to make a shelter and start a fire appear on the show?

[JRStern]

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:08:03 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 3/26/2014 4:43 PM, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, March 25, 2014 11:49:04 PM UTC+11, Eric T. Duckman wrote:
>
><snip for space>
>>>
>>> If you were dropped naked onto a virgin Earth-like world, armed with
>>> nothing but indestructible books containing the instructions for building
>>> the infrastructure needed to recreate late 20th century technology, how
>>> long would it take for you to make an iPod? Sounds like a reality show to
>>> me!
>>>
>> Considering the number of people who after 15 years (or whatever it is) of Survivor go on it without knowing how to make a shelter or start a fire I don't see the reality show working all that well...
>>
>What makes you think the casting directors are going to let someone who
>knows how to make a shelter and start a fire appear on the show?

werd

[Cryptoengineer]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in
news:45a7j9dvloa8k36rm...@4ax.com:

I'm under the impression that in most 'reality' shows, the only 'reality'
is that the scripting is about as tight as a kabuki play.

pt

[JRStern]

"Reality", what a concept!

J.

[lal_truckee]

On 3/26/14 9:08 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 3/26/2014 4:43 PM, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:

>> Considering the number of people who after 15 years (or whatever it
>> is) of Survivor go on it without knowing how to make a shelter or
>> start a fire I don't see the reality show working all that well...
>>
> What makes you think the casting directors are going to let someone who
> knows how to make a shelter and start a fire appear on the show?
>

Shelter? You just wander over to the lounge airstream, or maybe the crew
buffet trailer.

You think the crew's out sleeping on the beach?

[Greg Goss]

If you allow starting from "early modern" rather than "virgin", then
the tech articles at the back of the dozens of Grantville Gazettes are
relevant. I'm not sure how applicable those discussions are if you
have to backtrack to "naked onto virgin world".
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Greg Goss]

"Eric T. Duckman" <eric_t_...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>If you were dropped naked onto a virgin Earth-like world, armed with
>nothing but indestructible books containing the instructions for building
>the infrastructure needed to recreate late 20th century technology, how
>long would it take for you to make an iPod? Sounds like a reality show to
>me!

The books at least would be more useful than a manhole cover.

[Greg Goss]

Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>David DeLaney <davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in

I remember reading a short story where someone with a time machine
tries to give Newton a pocket calculator to push science a few
generations faster. Instead the calculator freaks out Newton who then
sidetracks into mysticism instead of science.

The red glowing numbers were a bad start, and then when the
demonstration calculation came up 666, the game was lost.

[David Goldfarb]

In article <bplmi7...@mid.individual.net>,

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>I remember reading a short story where someone with a time machine
>tries to give Newton a pocket calculator to push science a few
>generations faster. Instead the calculator freaks out Newton who then
>sidetracks into mysticism instead of science.
>
>The red glowing numbers were a bad start, and then when the
>demonstration calculation came up 666, the game was lost.

I remembered reading this story in an early number of _Omni_.
Googling "sf short story newton calculator omni" turns up
"Newton's Gift" by Paul J. Nahin.

--
David Goldfarb |"That's what the dragon *wants* you to think!
goldf...@gmail.com | He doesn't want you to know he exists!"
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | "Actually, I just want her to think you're nuts."
|"Oh, shut up." -- _Bone_ #3

[Don Kuenz]

David Goldfarb <gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> In article <bplmi7...@mid.individual.net>,
> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>I remember reading a short story where someone with a time machine
>>tries to give Newton a pocket calculator to push science a few
>>generations faster. Instead the calculator freaks out Newton who then
>>sidetracks into mysticism instead of science.
>>
>>The red glowing numbers were a bad start, and then when the
>>demonstration calculation came up 666, the game was lost.
>
> I remembered reading this story in an early number of _Omni_.
> Googling "sf short story newton calculator omni" turns up
> "Newton's Gift" by Paul J. Nahin.

Starts on page 50 of https://archive.org/details/omni-magazine-1979-01

---

Don Kuenz