About Displacement
Post 1065:
I have a hearty book recommendation so let’s get right to it. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a science fiction classic for good reason. It’s short and tidy with really nice economical prose. He has to explain a lot of nerd stuff and he does it about as quick as one could imagine.
The Forever War is extremely entertaining but it’s also scarily unnerving. It’s about a soldier who is conscripted to go fight an alien species that humanity has made unfortunate contact with at the end of the 20th century. It’s a mad scramble to figure out how to fight on planets with previously unimaginable atmospheres and gravitational anomalies. Anything can kill the soldiers in these hostile environments. Human life is sadly disposable. The lives of the aliens are barely considered if considered at all.
I’d rather not spoil too much. I would like to talk about the most interesting part of the novel though. Relativity and time dilation. Stick with me for a second. To get to these outposts of the war, the soldiers travel through collapsed stars which I guess have turned into worm holes. (I think) The physics is beyond me, but the idea is pretty simple. The soldiers live five years and back on Earth sometimes hundreds of years have gone by.
For instance, after one short campaign, the returning soldiers come home to a world that has passed them by. After another, society and sexuality have completely different rules. After a few more years in the war, the humans they’ve been fighting for are not really even the same species.
I found the idea of returning home to no home at all very intense and disturbing. This novel doesn’t just point out the absurdity of war. Not for me. For me it’s a reminder not to become so obsessed or overtaken with a single pursuit at the expense of the rest of life. We can maroon ourselves way out beyond the horizon for great lengths of time, making it hard to come back. And when we do, the world doesn’t fit the same way. It’s important to keep some connection to your origins, for orientation if nothing else.
At least that’s the way I see it. I’ve gotten lost out there. It’s not always easy coming back. Something to chew on. Cheers and see you after.
