(urth) Short Sun blog review

[David Stockhoff]

  Such a propaganda campaign sounds more like Heinlein.

Again, think of the thousands of slaves that would have been required to 
build the Tower of Babel or any other great wonder of the world. Think 
of how Australia was settled by the scum of Britain. This would have 
been little different. It was a project built on brute force.

On 9/22/2010 4:21 PM, James Wynn wrote:
>
>> Me -
>> Imagine footage of the construction of Whorl...the carving of the asteroid,
>> the building of the cities, the prospect of sending thousands
>> of Urthlings to a distant planet that could be freely portrayed as a
>> fertile Eden, a lucrative opportunity, and a Land of Adventure.
>
>>> Roy-
>>> If that were the scenario, then people should have been clamoring to go.
>>> Mamelta said: "We had to volunteer. They were--you couldn't say no." (LAKE,
>>> chap. 9,  251)
>>>
>
> This only means that the desire to go or stay was irrelevant. But it 
> is simply not conceivable that there were not more people on Urth 
> _willing_  to go (people who would gladly have traded places those who 
> were selected to be Cargo or Sleepers) than there were slots to go. 
> But _wanting_ to go was not the criteria. The Whorl was probably not 
> such a bad place to live when it was first launched with plenty of 
> chems to do the work. The use of cards as money might suggest that 
> money wasn't even seen as necessary initially because the designers 
> did not expect scarcity of basic essentials. Still, a young woman with 
> prospects on Urth would probably not want to go. An established member 
> of the ruling class would not want to go. I seriously doubt that any 
> among Typhon's court were clamoring to go. They went out of duty or 
> they went because Typhon (or some sub-ruler ordered to procure people 
> with defined criteria) was ready to be rid of them. Members of the 
> ruling classes rarely volunteer for war if there is a reduced chance 
> of coming back to medals and accolades.
>