Posted on 04/19/2014 9:48:57 AM PDT by LonePalm
I am trying to find the name of a Science Fiction story I read thirty to forty years ago.
The plot line revolves around a former Mercenary stranded on a newly settled planet. The leaders of the planet have decided that they have about a hundred years to get their population up to a level that will allow them to fend off others. The solution is to pair post pubescent women with slightly older men and breed as rapidly as possible while building the infrastructure necessary for a society.
I seem to remember that the main item of value on the planet was a crab whose carapace was a natural semi-conductor. I want to use the idea in my book and don't wish to tread on anyone else's work without permission.
I already have Larry Niven's very kind permission to use his Kzinti in my story as long as I keep them 'off stage'.
I saw the movie but I can't remember the name. It's over in the porn aisle........
Also, usually, your story can’t change cannon of the milieu...
err I mean canon
Interesting. That’s not quite the story I remember but that Trek episode might have been based off what I had read.
I’d rather they did John Ringo’s “Troy” series. Free-market solutions save Earth, brave military, etc. .. Plus, in one scene, the hero sasses Obama IN THE WHITE HOUSE. . .
This is NOT set on Earth but on a newly settled and basically empty planet. Travel between the stars apparently takes many years as they don't expect to be contacted again for several decades at the earliest.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
As I remember the former mercenary is separated from his unit and can not return as his having sex, married or not, with a person under 18 would earn him the death sentence. The fact that there is no way for him to return makes it easier.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
I’m not certain as to whether this is a real or imagined “memory”...:)
“The ordeal these people went through to reach the ground was pretty incredible. They had to evade security patrols and roving gangs of thugs and as they descended to the lower levels, well, things got more and more dangerous for them.
Hmmm...sounds like a typical day in Baltimore.”
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Definitely resembles a day trip I took with my kids to Druid Hill Park and the Zoo. Lived and learned.
i don’t recall any specific story but H Beam Piper wrote numerous stories about settlement and the difficulties it might encounter. Could be in his body of work.
I still think that they were the basis for the Ewoks. Given the time period in which the scripts were written, I don't see how Lucas could have been ignorant of Piper's work.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Sounds familiar, but I can’t remember. Sounds like Gordon R. Dickson or David Drake...
Thanks but unfortunately I can not find a synopsis of the story to know if it is the right one.The good news is that I probably have that issue of Analog in a box somewhere in the garage.
I strongly suspect this is the one you're looking for.
What I recollect of the plot is: military incursion fails, survivors are absorbed by the colony. The colony is young and relatively small. Huge families are encouraged, women marry when very young. Protagonist is a survivor of the initial military expedition. He's given a farm, and paired with a girl of, I think, 13. He has some misgivings but eventually kind of goes with the flow. Military off-worlders try again. The colonists, warned by the surviving invaders, successfully resist.
The story was controversial at the time, generating a stream of letters in the months following publication.
The novel was by Robert Silverberg. I forget the title. People in the arcologies reproduced freely. People in the agricultural lands that fed the arcologies had not-nice ways of limiting population (IRRC, YMMV).
Robert Silverberg, "The World Inside"
Thanks. That seems to fit the bill better than any other answers so far.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Sounds like Beyond the Stars by Ray Cummings.
The new planet was named Kalima, IIRC.
I did put it in my wish list on Amazon.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
No. The book I’m thinking of is 1960’s era.
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