Re: Library data: National Reemergence

> From: Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed]
> Subject: (3384) Library data: National Reemergence
>
> NATIONAL REEMERGENCE: [..deleted..]

>     But as the Twilight fell and  The Long Night  grew steadily darker,
> ethnic and cultural sub-groups on scores of planets dug up old cultural
> differences  and  used them as a rallying point to increase the group's
> sense of identity.

  This highlights one of the IMHO most interesting topics that hasn't been
mentioned except in passing: What happened on Earth during the Long Night?

  There are some shreads of data: The moon was never abandoned. Late during
the night there existed an interstellar state incorporating Terra, so some
interstellar communications must have been restored by then. Other than that
we know next to nothing about a several hundred year long period.

  The reason this is slightly more interesting than "what happened on this-
planet-or-that-planet" is that the accounts of Terra around 1000 Imperial
gives me the impression that nothing happened. A whole planet was just low-
berthed in 2400 Terran and thawed up around 400 Imperial with all place-names
intact, all old nations still remembered. S&A seems to indicate that the
great geographical changes like the flooding of the Quatara depression
even happened before the 1st Insterstellar War. And since the Long Night fell
in -1700 Imperial, and the next mention is around 100 Imperial, we are talking
about a period of time of 1800 years during which nothing important happened!

  I'll be the first to admit that technology-wise nothing important really
happened. Earth just passed the same techlevels twice, once on the way down and
once of the way up. But history is so much more than technological achievements.
Where are all the wars that can happen in 1800 years? Where are all the new
nations? All languages mutate over time but anglic still remains? Where are all
the great Heroes and Villains of history that appear during 1800 years? Where
are all the writers and all the new cliches?

  Can anybody remember any official or semi-official source that mentions
anything that happened on Earth during those 1800 years?

>       Hans Rancke

- -bertil-
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