Rivendell on Trantor
Call a
settlement of limited size but of great duration a “Time colony”, or a
“Rivendell”; and call a civilization of great size but of limited duration a “Space
civilization”, or a “Trantor”. The names “Rivendell” and “Trantor” refer to,
respectively, the Elvish town in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy; and
to the planet-spanning galactic capital city in Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation”
trilogy .
I propose
this census:
Rivendell:
a million people, for a million generations.
Trantor: a
billion people, for a thousand generations.
The first
is a fair-sized colony, lasting for tens of megayears, a longish species
lifetime. So this is a Local Range; the Home of a Kind. The second is a world
civilization, lasting for tens of kiloyears, about the length of history. This
is a World Culture with a History.
Rivendell
colonizes time, and Trantor colonizes space.
To keep
Rivendell fresh, let’s make it a college town, home of Rivendell University, in
its new location. They had to leave the old place and build a new campus here,
due to mega-volcano eruption. They’ve still settling in, it’s been only 1.7
million years. But despite Rivendell’s traditionalism, it manages to keep up
with the times; for they accept students from all across space, especially
Trantor. How’s that for a happening place?
And as for Trantor…
there is no boredom on Trantor, and no shortage of rebels. Trantor is always up
to something big; a war, a revolution, a reformation, a renaissance; political
decay, cultural flowering, religious crises and scientific breakthroughs; and
whatever Trantor does, it does it.
Trantor
never sleeps. So of course people will want to go to Rivendell just for a bit of rest. But sorry, no
uninvited visitors.
So which
would you prefer? Rivendell or Trantor? Rivendell is at least a somewhat
happening place; and Trantor has respectable longevity chops; and it’s a fair
trade-off. The elvish city is to the techno-world as deep time is to history.
I see an SF
novel in this, with a single world inhabited by both a Trantor and a Rivendell.
(Almost everywhere, from Trantor’s point of view; temporarily, from Rivendell’s.)
To Trantor, a thousand years is a long
time; to Rivendell, a thousand people is a big crowd.
Rivendell
has changed locations several times, to keep up with the geography. There are
abandoned fossil Rivendells, which other peoples dug up for treasure and
technology; notably the precursors to the Trantor world-civilization. The word “Trantor”,
to the Trantorians, means the name of their planet; and also mankind; and also ‘culture’,
‘peace’, ‘order’, and many other soothing ideals; with predictable tragicomic
consequences.
A spacelike
civilization meets a timelike civilization; temporarily, locally; yet everyone
in Trantor is affected by Rivendell, all over the planet; and Rivendell never
forgot Trantor, even after mountains wore down.
For one
thing, they stole a lot of tech from each other. There may even be a tendency
for Trantor to re-create another Rivendell, on a distant world; and a
reciprocal tendency for Rivendell to recreate another Trantor, in the distant
future.
Rivendell’s
rebels will leave, and will either vanish into obscurity, or find a Trantor to
influence. Rivendell’s influence on galactic culture is slow but cumulative; a
trickle of exiled geniuses; Trantor’s influence is all at once.
Perhaps a
rebel Rivendellian will leave, mix with Trantor society, collect a cadre of
likeminded malcontents, and then leave for a distant world, to found New
Rivendell. (Where they will offer modern
boredom!)
Trantor’s
rebels will go out, in waves after waves, each to form their own utopian
Rivendells. Some of those Rivendells will remain static until they go extinct,
others will mutate into new Trantors.
Rivendell
is to Trantor as spore is to redwood.
