Subject: [Sidles past a tree]
Author:
Posted on: 2019-10-02 10:04:00 UTC

The idea of a Golden Age Scifi, slide-rules & vacuum-tubes powered PPC is definitely appealing, particularly having recently read Mary Robinette Kowal's 'punchpunk' Calculating Stars. But I'm not sure how well it fits with my theme here.

The premise I'm working from is that the PPC equivalent is modelled on the dominant form of pop culture. Was scifi a dominant cultural force at that time, or was it kind of niche and weird? Not having been around I can't say for sure, but my instinct is that reading Heinlein or Asimov was a pretty nerdy thing to do, whereas nowaways, watching Star Wars or Lord of the Rings is pretty much expected.

If that era did occur, then my guess is that it folded in 1966 with the launch of Star Trek. Their old-fashioned technology wouldn't be able to keep up with the sleek, shiny Enterprise, and the fanfic explosion would have taken them completely off-guard.

(This dating, incidentally, would coincide almost exactly with the Flowers of Origin opening their first interplanetary plothole. One might almost detect the hand of fate...)

One interesting trivium is that there may be vestiges of the old PPCs in our own. Lofty Skies Chapter 5 features the secretaries of DAVD, who for unspecified reasons prefer to run their files off Babbage Engines. That sounds like they might be a group who came over from the TCDA - except that one of them is named Frock, and is implied to be a Vulcan. So perhaps they're a collection of refugees from various old PPCs - one from the Steampunk era, one from Noir, Frock from the tail end of the Scifi period, and maybe even a couple from further back.

Of course, then the Mysterious Somebody drove them all insane and/or killed them. Could this even have been his plan? To cut off that continuity and reshape the PPC as the Sole Guardians of Canon for Ever More, under his sole guidance?

I mean... probably not. But it's a fun thought.

hS

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