Way back in the 1980's and earlier,
scientists researching the tiniest bits of matter in existence were
freaking out over the fact that our sun didn't seem to be producing
enough of ghost-like particles called neutrinos as it fused hydrogen
into helium. The details are messy and uber-complicated, so trust me
it was a huge deal for the guys and gals who study physics. Two
important items you have to understand is that neutrinos could
literally pass through trillions of miles of lead and very rarely
interact with the atoms that make up such an implausible structure.
The second, is that we now know that there are more than just one
type of neutrinos, so the problem has long since been solved.
For science fiction writers back then
the missing neutrinos were something they couldn't let slip through
their collective fingers. A minor sub-genre of stories came about
explaining why our sun seemed to be abnormal. The best of these works
is a novel called The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C.
Clarke.
In
the novel somewhere around our current year, particle and
stellar scientists realize that because of the Sun's missing
neutrinos it will go nova in a couple of thousand years. To put it
simple terms most Americans can understand, in the novel the
scientists discover the sun will explode destroying the Earth. At
first this news is mostly ignored, people have bills to pay and it's
extremely hard to get anyone to think ahead six months in the future,
much less two millennia. Still though, with the Earth under an
unavoidable death sentence the only question was what would be
Humanity's eventual response.
Before we go any further you have to
understand how Arthur C. Clarke liked to write his novels. While most
sci-fi writers would have just turned to outlandish technology like
faster-than-light propulsion or massive multi-generational starships
for humans to escape the doomed solar system, Clarke liked to base
his works on real science. For him that meant nothing that violated
the known laws of physics nor concepts that were implausible because
of their massive engineering. Despite countless speculative theories
there is very little in the way of real science that suggests our
species will ever exceed the speed of light. And while sub-light
manned starships are theoretically possible, the extra mass such
constructions would require to support humans traveling the distance
between stars makes them highly implausible. It boils down to having
enough fuel to accelerate to a decent percentage of light speed and
then enough to slow down and stop at the destination.
In The Songs of Distant Earth,
Clarke get around these problems by having humans send out unmanned
robotic starships loaded with frozen embryos who are thawed out and
developed in artificial wombs after they reach their target worlds.
After being “born” these kids are then raised by robots who go on
to create their own civilization. Yeah, for those who don't read a
lot of science fiction the idea of robots raising human children
might seem unethical or maybe even immoral. But honestly, in reality
I've seen some people who were so terrible they never should have
been allowed to have children in the first place. With the rate both
artificial intelligence and robotics are developing in real life,
those technologies could very well mature to such a point that they
would do a much better job with kids than their human parents.
So the centuries go by with hundreds,
if not thousands, of seed ships being sent out with people back on
Earth more or less content to know the human race with carry on even
after the planet becomes a deep fried rock. One of those seed ships
settles on an ocean world with only scattered islands the human
inhabitants come to call Thalassa, and that is where most of the
story takes place.
The people of Thalassa go on to develop
a Jimmy Buffett dream of an easy going society that doesn't really
rush to do much of anything. So when the island where they built the
radio telescope to keep in contact with Earth and the other colony
worlds is destroyed by a volcano, there's no hurry to rebuild. After
a few decades of silence, the other human worlds begin to believe the
colony on Thalassa was wiped out as well.
Now back on Earth as the seed ships are
leaving, rigid population control has not only massively reduced the
number of people living on the planet but they are enjoying an
unbelievable lavish lifestyle because there is more of everything to
go around. This abundance of resources at least partly translates
into massive scientific research, and this is where Clarke comes
close to violating his own ban on impossible technologies.
If any one theory of the twentieth
century threw reality for a loop it was Quantum Mechanics. QM deals
with subatomic particles, such a those missing neutrinos, but that
isn't even scratching the surface. Subatomic particles do a lot of
wild and crazy stuff that seem to violate macroscopic
physics and basic commonsense. Once again, it's messy and
uber-complicated so instead of me confusing everyone with my bad
explanations about QM, it might be best if you all just look up some
educational videos on You Tube.
One of those crazy QM theories that
Clarke used in the book involves the idea that the vacuum of space is
not peaceful and empty but is a seething cauldron of particles
popping in an out of existence. In fact the famous physicist, Richard
Feynman, once said that one cubic meter of space at the quantum level
has enough energy to boil all the waters of all the oceans on Earth.
Once the scientists and engineers on the doomed Earth figured out a
practical way to use this information, they could now get around the
fuel issue with manned interstellar travel and get to building actual
starships-- though still slower than light. The trouble with this
discovery though was that it took place a little over a hundred
before the sun would go boom.
But the people of Earth did have time
to build a few true manned starships. Funny thing, while discovering
a way to build ships that could approach the speed of light, the
engineers soon realized that another issue would keep them from
coming close to that speed. See, interstellar macroscopic
space is “filled” with with debris that ranges in size from lone
atoms of hydrogen to various rogue planets that were flung out from
the star system where they were formed. While these starships could
detect the big stuff and slide out of the way, the atoms and other
smaller rocks and stuff could literally destroy these fancy vessels.
Confused? Look up Newton and his equation on how force equal mass
times acceleration.
But the engineers decide to build an
ice shield at the nose of the starships, which partially solves the
problem. But they still have to limit the speed of these ships to
around ten-percent of the speed of light. And as you might be able to
figure out, these ice shields wear down after so many years of
traveling through deep space.
Enter the starship Magellan and
its hundred-thousand or so hibernating humans, who after two-hundred
years of travel need to stop and rebuild its now thin ice shield. It
just so happens that he ocean world Thalassa is the midpoint on their
journey to their eventual destination. Needless to say both the
humans from the now dead and roasted Earth and the native Thalassans
are quite surprised to see each other.
The
actual meat of Clarke's novel comes with how the two groups interact
with each other. An important note Clarke hints at several time for
the reader is that human history is filled with how stronger cultures
overwhelm and destroy weaker ones. So both groups initially tiptoe
around each other in an effort to play nice.
Before
long several reawakened but weary members of the Magellan's
crew become entangled with native Thalassans, for whom emotional and
sexual relationships are free of the possessiveness which are normal
to us. More importantly, as the crew of the Magellan
builds the ice plant on the surface of Thalassa to replace their
ship's worn down shield, they discover that a scorpion-like species
living underwater that is well on its way to being a sentient
species. This scorpion-like species is actually native to the planet
opening up uncomfortable questions about how the human Thalassans
will learn to live with them. These scorpions have massive underwater
villages and farms and like to obtain metal to build things from
human constructions that stick out into the ocean. One more thing,
the scorpions are only semi-aquatic and can spend a great deal of
time on the surface.
What
attracted me to this book was the deep time aspect of human
development. While only set in the 3800's AD, The Songs of
a Distant Earth reminded me that
our personal existence, culture, and civilization are temporary
creations which will be replaced at some point. That maybe a better
objective for Humanity might be working to build something that
improves what we have now for the benefit of our descendants.
I give
nothing away by writing The Songs of Distant Earth
ends on the duel notes of both hope and tragedy. While I obviously
loved all the hard science in the book, the strength of the novel is,
of course, how the characters deal with each other. After centuries
of separation, the Earthers and human Thalassans have much to
overcome in the way cultural differentiation. While Arthur C. Clarke
didn't get as deep as I would have liked in human tension, it is
still a remarkable work.
