Dies the Fire

[Crezth]

-- essentially, high energy density systems don't work.

The books go into some detail, but basically, electrical devices don't work, non-biological heat engines (including guns) don't work, some types of pneumatic system don't work. As far as the surface of the earth, an area several miles down, and an distance up to LEO are concerned, there have been changes in electron localization and the ideal gas laws.

Mechanical devices (a horse-drawn reaper, for instance) work, and so do hydraulic systems. Generally biological systems work as before too.

I'm not entirely sure the science here is correct; or to be precise, the science isn't quite as specific as you believe. Even minor changes in "electron localization" (which is actually a colossal change no matter the magnitude) and the ideal gas laws would have far reaching effects that would do more than just say "technology, oops."

I realize it is science fiction, of course, so like any good fiction reader I'm willing to suspend disbelief, but I'm sure you agree that to admit any realism at all is contrary to the spirit of a fictional story.

-- I can assure you with absolute certainty that S.M. Stirling is not obsessed with Wicca. Mostly because I -am- S.M. Stirling, and I'm an complete atheist; a materialistic monist if you want to get technical. I think Wicca is just as false-to-fact as any other religion.

The plot thickens.

 

[bestshot9]

Nice update, but what happened to Roger and the family?

 

[Karalysia]

Good update. Also like this drama bomb:

I can assure you with absolute certainty that S.M. Stirling is not obsessed with Wicca. Mostly because I -am- S.M. Stirling, and I'm an complete atheist; a materialistic monist if you want to get technical. I think Wicca is just as false-to-fact as any other religion.

I demand proof, a picture of yourself holding a sign saying I love CFC should be fine. Nudity optional but preferred.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Nice update, but what happened to Roger and the family?

If you don't send orders, you don't get mentioned.

 

[civver_764]

^He did do orders.

Great update!

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Ah. That's what I get for not reading the whole post thoroughly. My apologies bestshot, I'll cover this week's events for you in the next update.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

EQ--

joatsimeon is, in fact, S.M. Stirling's handle from various forums. (I'm most familiar with his work on ah.com) It is possible, though unlikely, that someone else has sniped the handle. I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here.

-----

As for Mr. Stirling's explanation of what is going on--I'll have to agree with Crezeth. I intend to post about this in the near future, but atoms should be falling apart. Massive, critical existence failure should be happening. Leaving out most of the math, 'electricity not flowing' means that atoms no longer stick together and stars don't burn.

The only way to resolve the reality we see in the books with some semblance of physics as we understand it is going to take supreme handwaving.

-----

Unfortunately, Mr. Stirling is factually incorrect in regards to his predictions of a mass die-off in the setting he's postulated.

In places like China, India, and Africa, one would expect a minimal die-off--most people there are barely one or two generations off the farm. Even in the US, so long as any institution remains intact, rebuilding will be pretty rapid. The Sunbelt may not fare so well, but most communities in the Eastern US, fifty miles or more from a major metropolitan area will be fine--implying that a reasonably fit human needs to walk for 16 hours before they're in a town that can probably support them.

The average human can go three weeks without food and three days with no water.

 

[Adrogans]

OOC: of course this leaves the whole what happens with all those nuclear plants and such off the table too.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@ChiefDesigner: I did investigate and yes, you're correct, the sn used is the same as on other groups and discussions, but really, it could or couldn't be him as far as we know. The science I confess I am not truly knowledgable to debate intellectually, so "magic" is as good as any explanation as I'm concerned. However, I must debate your views towards mass die-off. The modern world is too interconnected to survive without the modern infrastructure. As a member of an agency which keeps track of such things locally, large cities and urban centers stand little chance in the initial onslaught of the Change. While there are farming communities and fishing possibilities throughout the entire region east of the Mississippi (Indeed, some actually survive in the books), they cannot possibly support the 150-200 million (I believe that number is correct) people from the metropolises of the East Coast. Without guns, the great equalizer, brute strength would reign supreme, and while bayonets and organization do count for something, the American military and civil defenses simply would be overwhelmed by the numbers of people demanding to be fed and taken care of. Hypothetically, even if someone did manage to organize and preserve order among the millions of people, there really is no logistical way they could all be provided for. Assuming shipments from Iowa and the heartland, even then, there's not enough horses and wagons in the world to maintain the flow of resources which would be required in such a circumstance. That of course is the sole example of the Eastern Coast of the United States, places such as Western Europe, which have a heavy reliance on imported food would be doomed almost immediately. One of your examples was China, and while they may possess the skills which would be needed to survive, we are still faced with the logistical nessecity of feeding one billion people. Not only would someone need the authority and power (once more without guns, that is difficutl to achieve) to move all of these people to the farms and places where they could survive, but they would have to find enough standing food and supplies to feed the people until the first harvest could be completed. Simply put, in this scenario mass die-off is inevitable and unstoppable, not just because of starvation either. Medicines in modern society have increasingly complicated ingrediants and manufacture. While some could be reproduced by an organized society, I find Stirling's depiction of the plagues destroying the refugee camps in the novels to be spot on with what would likely happen in any scenario which results in a large number of makeshift camps. Max Brooks addresses a very similar circumstance in World War Z with his depiction of the fligth of Americans to the cold wastes of nothern Canada

@Adrognans: I've often wondered about the nuclear power plants myself. The Tasmanians mentioned in the books that the government had them dumping the waste and materials into the ocean or otherwise destroying them. Despite this, it never seems to be mentioned if nuclear material maintained all of its inherent properties.

 

[Crezth]

As for Mr. Stirling's explanation of what is going on--I'll have to agree with Crezeth. I intend to post about this in the near future, but atoms should be falling apart. Massive, critical existence failure should be happening. Leaving out most of the math, 'electricity not flowing' means that atoms no longer stick together and stars don't burn.

The only way to resolve the reality we see in the books with some semblance of physics as we understand it is going to take supreme handwaving.

As EQ said, the best thing to say is "ah, magic." Attempting to explain this with science or physics (not possible and I will utterly destroy any attempt to do so with the power of my master's degree in nuclear physics) is a fool's errand.

I do admit to taking some sort of bizarre pleasure in viewing such explanations, however, in exactly the same way I do when I see someone talk about how Star Trek is realistic. It isn't, and your fake technobabble is adorable.


As for all the historical mumbo jumbo, that's beyond the scope of my understanding. I only have a limited background on modern socioeconomic positions and political dynamics, so I'll go with the NES on this one. Hey, once I entertained the fiction of a world-conquering France - talk about impossible!

 

[ChiefDesigner]

As EQ said, the best thing to say is "ah, magic." Attempting to explain this with science or physics (not possible and I will utterly destroy any attempt to do so with the power of my master's degree in nuclear physics) is a fool's errand.

Then perhaps you would like to explain muon decay, Admiral Crezth.

-----

I may even go plot some things in Matlab. +5 circumstance bonus to handwaving!

 

[Crezth]

Then perhaps you would like to explain muon decay, Admiral Crezth.

-----

I may even go plot some things in Matlab. +5 circumstance bonus to handwaving!

What do muons have to do with the price of eggs in China? I'm sure nobody here cares about the weak interaction model, let alone the entire muon decay process.

I was being facetious. This is a silly subject and, as I meant to imply with my Star Trek reference, it is silly to discuss it. It is complete fiction. A falsity. And untrue in its every fiber.

 

[joatsimeon]

Originally Posted by ChiefDesigner
"Right--this is one of the things that really bugged me about the series--Stirling's worldbuilding was exceptionally lazy. Taking away engines and electricity won't take us back to Masculine Feudal Civilization; they'll just set us back to about 1850 or so."

-- well, subtract steam railways and telegraphs. And steamships. And most (though not all) stationary steam engines. All the cutting-edge Victorian technologies, in other words. And of course explosives.

But you can have a water-powered spinning mill, sure. People in the books do, in some areas, as soon as they get back on their feet. However, nothing is going to recreate the world-wide economic system or intercontinental exchange and division of labor that existed in, say, 1830 (or 1730). "You can't go home again." The constraints and incentives are different.

Nobody resurrects medieval civilization either. As observers in the books mention, attempts to recreate the past are doomed to "fail", in that the results are nothing like what any particular period of history -really- was.

What are established are -new- societies, incorporating -ideas- and -myths- about the past, interacting with circumstance and the (Changed) constraints of natural law.

""Horse-drawn reapers and cotton pickers still work;"

-- this is a bit of a nit, but horse-drawn cotton pickers didn't exist. There were attempts to make them and they all failed. Successful spindle-type cotton pickers were first employed in the 1930's after a generation of effort and they were powered by gasoline engines. They weren't fully perfected until the 1950's, and a large share of the world's cotton is still hand-picked.

Cotton was a very difficult crop to mechanize. Incidentally, nobody managed to make a successful horse-drawn corn picker either, and sorghum and millet are about as difficult.

Horse-drawn reapers (or reaper-binders) for small grains like wheat and barley and oats are certainly possible, and even horse-drawn combines, though those were always of limited utility.

But in 1998, how many horse-drawn reapers were available? How many were where the grain needed to be cut? How many could be made in a few months, without functioning machine tools? And meanwhile, there's no food, so your Amish farmer in Pennsylvania has a couple of hundred people showing up looking for something to eat.

Again, horse-drawn reapers -are- made, eventually; fastest in places like Iowa or Tasmania, where there's no outright collapse. But for the first year or two, it's bread-knives in the fields.

"industrial civilization probably won't even collapse."

-- the one we have most certainly would.

"You can't get there from here," as the saying goes; there's no -time- to make a transition, as far as most people are concerned.

The present system and the present populations are dependent on certain technologies, and they're dependent on them functioning -all the time- without interruption. It's an interrelated system almost as complex as a living organism.

It's like stopping someone's heart for a while. Everything is still there on a gross anatomical level ten mintues later but the man's dead as a dodo.

Certainly, industries based on wind and water power will grow up later, but they'll be much more limited, both by the inherent constraints of diffuse and non-transferrable power sources and by economics.

Remember that when New England's industries were powered by water-wheels most New Englanders were still farmers. Even after the Erie Canal opened, only the bread grain could be imported.

Transport constraints will limit the effective size of markets, which will in turn limit the possible degree of division of labor, as Adam Smith pointed out. In the first generation after the Change, all the surviving societies will be, by definition, locally self-sufficient. That will change in turn, but slowly.

 

[joatsimeon]

First I doubt you are who you say you are, but don't take it personally, I'm a highly suspicious individual."

-- nothing personal, but check out www.smstirling.com, or my Yahoo Groups listserve. That's me, all right; my email is joatsimeon@aol.com and I'll confirm if you email me.

"they almost always come out on top. In most cases throughout the books, other religions are either not addressed, headed by loonies, or the bad guy (e.g. CUT)."

-- many of the primary characters are Wiccans, and you see their religion mostly through their eyes and in their (highly local) area. Remember the "unreliable narrator" rule.

Others are Catholics; Father Ignatius, for example, or Princess Mathilda.

In terms of numbers, the Catholic Church comes out way, way ahead of the neopagans, worldwide. Then there are the Asatruar in Maine, the Buddhists in Wyoming (really), and so forth.

I don't think Wicca is true. I do think polytheism is -cool-, in the sense of being picturesque and having neat ceremonies. It's more aesthetically satisfying, which is all I can ask of a religion. It's also very well suited to an agricultural society. Note which types of Christianity do best -- ritual-heavy Marianist Catholics, the Orthodox, and so forth.

"it's that I would have vastly preferred Alien Space Bats to have been the actual cause or better, a natural occurance which happens every 6,000 years or something. Could have even been tied in with the whole Mayan calender thing if you wanted."

-- It's caused by the ultimate Mind At the End of Time, which is the (downloaded) summation of all intelligent beings from the Beginning, and which transitions to the next of the endless cycles of the multiverse. Incidentally, there are a number of minor clues (the author Donan Coyle, frex) that the 1998 is not precisely our 1998. Very close, but not ours.

I don't see how this is any less interesting than Alien Space Bats... or even how it's really distinguishable from Alien Space Bats.

Incomprehensibly advanced and powerful entities, all same-same.

It -can't- be a natural phenomenon. It's too precisely targeted; that's why most of the characters decide it's God, the Gods, or Alien Space Bats, or whatever. A random change in fundamental physical laws would be overwhelmingly likely to alter conditions so that life (or possibly matter) was impossible. Just extending the Change too far would turn out the sun.

"but the new tetraology is not quite up to par in my opinion. It doesn't help that I had to actually compare notes with three friends just to figure out what was going on in much of the later parts of the novels."

-- the characters are having a tough time too. That's the problem with bringing in post-Singualrity type transhuman entities. They're -incomprehensible-.

Also it's set 25 years later. The basic "survival and rebirth" phase is over.

If you want a look at how things worked out in other parts of the world, there are stories set in Change Year 50 in England ("A Murder in Eddsford" in SIDEWAYS IN TIME, "Something for Yew" in my collection ICE, IRON AND GOLD) and in Russia ("Ancient Ways" in the Martin/Dozois anthology WARRIORS, just out).

 

[joatsimeon]

I'm not entirely sure the science here is correct; or to be precise, the science isn't quite as specific as you believe. Even minor changes in "electron localization" (which is actually a colossal change no matter the magnitude) and the ideal gas laws would have far reaching effects that would do more than just say "technology, oops."

-- well, of course the science isn't correct. If I really knew how to do that, I'd be God, not an SF writer... .

Science fiction is full of stuff like that: FTL drives, time travel, antigravity, strong AI. If we actually knew the science we wouldn't be writing for peanuts, we'd be patenting it and becoming richer than Kings.

The only requirement is that you make the results consistent within the context of the story and not keep altering things arbitrarily ("when anything is possible, nothing is interesting).

The -real- difference between SF and Fantasy is not the degree of actual possibility of the stuff presented -- FTL is just as impossible as elves or dragons -- but the 'flavor' with which the supporting assumptions are presented.

 

[joatsimeon]

EQ--The only way to resolve the reality we see in the books with some semblance of physics as we understand it is going to take supreme handwaving.

-- obviously, the premise of the books is that our knowledge of physics -is- severely incomplete, at the very least.

It's not just that the entities behind the Change have knowledge that we don't; they have mental -capabilities- that we don't. We're not capable of understanding them or what they do, any more than a chimp can understand quantum mechanics or your cat can understand how you can make a dark room turn light. Even when they -try- to explain things to some of the characters, they have to use such gross simplification and such necessary but misleading metaphors that it's very difficult for them to get anything across.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Stirling is factually incorrect in regards to his predictions of a mass die-off in the setting he's postulated."

-- nope, I really checked this stuff very carefully.

"In places like China, India, and Africa, one would expect a minimal die-off--most people there are barely one or two generations off the farm."

-- true but not relevant to the thesis. The populations of China and India are -grossly- in excess of the carrying capacity of their agriculture without modern inputs; about four times higher. They both also have massive urban populations; hundreds of millions.

And agriculture in India and China is surprisingly dependent on modern inputs; fertilizers, hybrid seeds, irrigation systems (and pumps) dependant on large-scale power systems and controls. Not to the same degree and not in quite the same way as we are, but then, they also have far more people in the countryside than we do, and the major cities are smack-dab in the center of the most productive farming areas, which they would take down as they died.

Even Africa (as of 1998) has a substantial degree of urbanization; many countries have large cities, areas of specialized agriculture dependent on food imports brought in by mechanical transport, or both. Until 1900 Africa had about 100 million people; by 1998 it had over 800 million. Without the technology acquired after 1900 it couldn't support more than 100 million or so and the other 700 million would not go quietly, leading to massive 'secondary kill'.

"Even in the US, so long as any institution remains intact, rebuilding will be pretty rapid. The Sunbelt may not fare so well, but most communities in the Eastern US, fifty miles or more from a major metropolitan area will be fine--implying that a reasonably fit human needs to walk for 16 hours before they're in a town that can probably support them. The average human can go three weeks without food and three days with no water."

-- no, you haven't thought that through. The places they can walk to -can't- support them; they would be barely capable of supporting themselves without outsiders demanding a share.

It's precisely the ability of people to walk that will make it impossible for the small towns and rural parts of the metropolitan zones to survive.

There isn't enough cultivated land in the eastern US to support even a -small part- of the present population of scores of millions. Most of the farming in that zone is specialized (fresh fruit, dairy) and it's much, much smaller in scale than it was -- tens of millions of acres have reverted to second-growth forest since the 1870's, a process still continuing. All those areas import the bulk of their staple foodstuffs.

And that's without taking into account the massive drop in productivity that would accompany the Change.

The Change confronts the hyperdeveloped parts of the world with a problem which has no solution. No amount of organization will do anything but make things worse because -there simply isn't enough to go around-. Most of the Third World undergoes die-off but more slowly. Some of the most isolated parts (sections of the African interior, the most remote parts of Asia) don't.

The areas with the highest survival rates (apart from the surprisingly small Third World areas that are still actually practicing low-tech subsistence farming) are the most isolated food-producing areas of the First World. They have massive drops in productivity too, but their food surplus is so enormous relative to their sparse population that they can get through without collapse.

Hence Tasmania, the south island of New Zealand, the Upper Midwest and Plains states and the interior of the PNW, and so forth.

 

[joatsimeon]

OOC: of course this leaves the whole what happens with all those nuclear plants and such off the table too.

-- it's mentioned in the books that nuclear piles just sit and glow at temperatures below their melting point. Nobody knows why.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@All: This'd be the 36 hour warning for the update. If ya'll would prefer moving to a once a week schedule, we could go for that instead, as I notice some of you have had difficulties getting orders in.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

-- nothing personal, but check out www.smstirling.com, or my Yahoo Groups listserve. That's me, all right; my email is joatsimeon@aol.com and I'll confirm if you email me.

No worries, confirmation will be achieved via the Yahoo Group's posting.

-- many of the primary characters are Wiccans, and you see their religion mostly through their eyes and in their (highly local) area. Remember the "unreliable narrator" rule.

Others are Catholics; Father Ignatius, for example, or Princess Mathilda.

In terms of numbers, the Catholic Church comes out way, way ahead of the neopagans, worldwide. Then there are the Asatruar in Maine, the Buddhists in Wyoming (really), and so forth.

I don't think Wicca is true. I do think polytheism is -cool-, in the sense of being picturesque and having neat ceremonies. It's more aesthetically satisfying, which is all I can ask of a religion. It's also very well suited to an agricultural society. Note which types of Christianity do best -- ritual-heavy Marianist Catholics, the Orthodox, and so forth.

100% with you that polytheism is awesome. Christian mythology and tales are boring when you compare to the Norse, Greeks, and former Pagans. My main problem is that when reading the novels I frequently find myself skipping over the rituals to the more fun hack and slash scenes. In the recent books I find myself skipping over everything actually taking place in "Montival" and going to the escapades of Rudi and Co, which I find vastly more interesting. I suppose unreliable narrator is true enough, but that's why Mike Havel was so much fun, he had so much credibility and relatability for me.

-- It's caused by the ultimate Mind At the End of Time, which is the (downloaded) summation of all intelligent beings from the Beginning, and which transitions to the next of the endless cycles of the multiverse. Incidentally, there are a number of minor clues (the author Donan Coyle, frex) that the 1998 is not precisely our 1998. Very close, but not ours.

I don't see how this is any less interesting than Alien Space Bats... or even how it's really distinguishable from Alien Space Bats.

Incomprehensibly advanced and powerful entities, all same-same.

It -can't- be a natural phenomenon. It's too precisely targeted; that's why most of the characters decide it's God, the Gods, or Alien Space Bats, or whatever. A random change in fundamental physical laws would be overwhelmingly likely to alter conditions so that life (or possibly matter) was impossible. Just extending the Change too far would turn out the sun.

I think you may have confused my simple mind even more. So, it's a bit like the belief system reflected in Terry Pratchett's Small Gods then, e.g. the collective beliefs and thoughts of a combined collective soul of sorts, which then garners its own powers and personifications from the said collectiveness? I was gathering that sort of impression from Rudi's various supernatural encounters. Wait, it's NOT our 1998? So very confused now.

-- the characters are having a tough time too. That's the problem with bringing in post-Singualrity type transhuman entities. They're -incomprehensible-.

Also it's set 25 years later. The basic "survival and rebirth" phase is over.

If you want a look at how things worked out in other parts of the world, there are stories set in Change Year 50 in England ("A Murder in Eddsford" in SIDEWAYS IN TIME, "Something for Yew" in my collection ICE, IRON AND GOLD) and in Russia ("Ancient Ways" in the Martin/Dozois anthology WARRIORS, just out).

Can't argue with the fact that it's incomprehensible to mere man. That's why my own personal focus on enjoying these books is generally in the societies which have emerged. My favorite parts have been the glimpses of the different societies outside of "Montival," particularly making me sad with the fall of the original Thurston. I was rooting for the USA . Read the first two short stories, did not know about Ancient Ways, will have to look that up.

 

[Crezth]

The only requirement is that you make the results consistent within the context of the story and not keep altering things arbitrarily ("when anything is possible, nothing is interesting).

I suppose. On that point I must agree with you. At any rate, the science here does not so much interest me (since it is, by its nature, not science). I'm most fascinated in what happens to civilization. That's why I'm here.