Liner Notes for A Mote On The Unbounded Plain
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I make some claims in this story, some of which I think are pretty solid, some are debatable and others rather dubious. Let’s start with my best and worst excuse; this is a work of fiction. I am asking the question, what might a post-scarcity society look like? And coming up with an interesting answer for the purposes of this story and the larger serial.
As I said, it’s fine, but it’s also unarguable and I don’t want to make an excuse, but offer something to think about so let’s move on.
Slightly better is that I give the humans of the Unbounded Plain infinite frontiers. Infinite space allows anything to happen. If it’s possible for humans to live as technologically advanced nomads – and though there are certainly drawbacks, it’s plausible – then somewhere out on the Unbounded Plain it will occur.
Given enough time it will occur an infinite number of times in infinite variations.
The actual point I make is stronger than that. Modern humans emerged 200,000 years ago; agriculture and cities 10,000. That’s a long time and a lot of ancestors living as hunter-gatherers. Without going too far about determination, it’s a lifestyle and culture that fits human beings. It can be made to work. Given the right conditions it will probably appear again.
Flint and fire and long distance running would do the trick, but that’s not as interesting as a similar lifestyle but with jump-jets and genetically engineered herds.
Now often such societies have a high coercion level, because the margin of survival is low. You can’t let people be weirdos and goof off, so there is a distinct and powerful tendency to conform. Dressing everyone as a post-apocalyptic weird west steampunk barbarian cosplayer is an aesthetic choice by me, not easily justifiable. Still, I’ll have a go.
A post-scarcity society doesn’t have a low margin of survival, indeed margin of survival is not a term with any meaning. You don’t have to rely on the tribe, clan or nation in order to avoid starving or dying of exposure. If necessary – or on a whim – you can leave and go somewhere else. Somewhere else on the infinite expanse.
(Early agricultural societies had a problem where peasants who got tired of farming for the nobility would run away into the hills and join with the hunter gatherers who lived there. Similarly, slave and peasant revolts right down to the modern day.)
So without an external threat, the society will only stay together as much as it wants to. This might lead to very homogenous groups, as anyone who does not like the style and mores can go out and find a group more to their liking. Or, as in this case, they might be permissive in some aspects to allow more people to express themselves with their personal fashions, while being less so in other aspects. Such as following the Season King.
Of course there is an external threat that we’ll come to later in the series.
The Season King, making a child the leader is a fun idea I had. When children arrive they get treated like little monarchs, their every whim catered to. And monarchy is a fundamentally childish and silly idea, placing all our hopes and honour into the body of one flawed person and expecting them to deal with all that wisely and well.
Anyway this has two fights, or three; do you count the war-flashback AND the hunt? Three action scenes at the very least. A real treat for the two-fisted space ranger fans.
Sorry about all the butchering. You don’t get to be a hunter gatherer without murdering animals and then stripping them of their flash. Using every scrap in some way. Though the Redhawk clan don’t actually need to, they’re a post-scarcity society. Is this all a pose in some way, they’re playing at being hunter gatherers?
There’s more going on, which is just as well as we’re coming back to the Unbounded Plain later in the series.
They have, of course, weird prejudices, especially about Jack, who they consider a machine and not a person. They reject Jack for being a tool, rather than, well, being a tool. And this feeds back into other prejudices – are the Deep Patrol worthy of respect as people or are they unthinking automatons of the organisation?
Did you like the structure and the bait and switch? Sorry if you didn’t. Story as a report has been on my list from the start and this seemed the place for it. And so here it is.
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