The Little Dark Ages to Come
There is a Little Dark Ages posited in my book, COUNT TO A TRILLION, which sparked some discussion in the comments concerning the degree of loss of technical know how and the feasibility of recovering from a collapse, partial or total, of civilization.
I said
“As in the real Dark Ages in history, my yarn assumes that a collapse of economic and political unity does not involve necessarily any loss of technical know-how.”
A reader with the name of Deiseach asks:
I would mildly demur here; was there not some loss of “technical know-how”, at least in certain outlying areas, between the end of Roman occupation/final collapse of the Empire and the re-vitalised culture of the Middle Ages?
My answer: That is why I said “not necessarily.”
The Middle Ages introduced Christendom such inventions as the clockwork, spectacles, the astrolabe, the hourglass, paper, the Zero, the sun dial, the compass, navigation instruments such as cross-staves nocturnals and quadrants, the stirrup, mail and plate armor, the oar, the rudder, the artesian well, the horsecollar, the high-backed saddle, the bit and bridal, advances in poliocratics too numerous to mention, including the design of fortress walls and special engines needed to batter them — and, depending on what date you define as the end of the Middle Ages, gun powder. The Eleventh Century also saw the introduction of the university system which is still in use today, which is why your diploma is in Latin, so mass literacy can also be ascribed to the Middle Ages.
There were also social advances in the Dark Ages, such as the manumission of slaves to serfs. While it is no fun being a serf, it is better than being a slave, since serfs had legally protected rights, not the least of which was an inability for the landlord to put him off his land.
The abolition of divorce was a tremendous boon to women — odd as this sounds to modern ears, who have been deceived into thinking that a woman’s ability to leave her husband is a liberty rather than a liability. The Romans also practiced infanticide and abortion, a horrific practice from which the more civilized and refined humans of the Dark Ages recoiled, and which was not reintroduced into the West until Darwinian concepts, such as eugenics and scientific racism and other barbaric atavisms dressed in the fancy dress of new name became popular.
The Medieval Guild system served much of the same purpose as the modern trade union (despite that economists, particularly free traders like yours truly, dislike both). The Romans and their barbarian tribesmen surrounding them had a slave class to do their manual work, both skilled labor and brute labor, which economists and progressives alike also dislike.
Over against that, there is indeed a loss of craftsmanship, particularly in the early Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, of statues, of aqueducts,of Roman Roads, and the coin money system fell out of use, and with it the use of professional standing armies, and was replaced by the feudal system of an exchange of mutual oaths for military service.
So, yes and no. My point is that the economic and political system (by and large) collapsed, but the technical knowledge (by and large) did not. One can object that certain political systems were intact, as the Emperor was still Roman Emperor in Constantinople, and the Church structure retained its complex and civilized character (indeed, was the repository and source of civilization); and one can point out the poor, nasty and brutish state of Dark Age cities circa 600 AD compared to the glories of Rome circa 60 AD, with her public baths and circuses, and one can point out the extinction of the artisan class, and the corresponding losses of techniques not found again until the Renaissance. I grant you your point.
BUT since it is commonplace among Protestants, Edward Gibbon not the least, and very commonplace among Science Fiction writers, to equate technological advances with political and economic and even social advances, to sum up these disparate elements under the name “Progress” and to assume that a deep depression or a world war, even an atomic war, will involve the return to the Stone Age, or, at least, the Bronze Age.
Cities can be destroyed with weapons, and can fall to sword and fire, or, in the modern day, with bombs or atomic bombs. Civilization, which is an idea, is harder to destroy, since bombs can only destroy the physical systems of transmission of the idea, books and records and teachers.
Hence in my novel, I propose a period of war and plague and famine severs the modern day from the early future in which my hero is born (called perhaps facetiously by the men of that day “the Little Dark Ages”). But it is not a total collapse of civilization, but, instead, is the end of the hegemony of Europe and America.
Other science fiction writers (as David Wingrove did in his KUNG KUO series) assume that China will take our place, if and when we join Spain and England and Rome and Greece in the list of nations whose histories outweigh their futures, not to mention Nineveh and Tyre, so I decided the India and Brazil would be the leaders in the Twenty Second Century, and, after their fall, the Copts in Egypt, the Boers in South Africa, and the Cantonese in China would rise to predominance in the Twenty Third Century.
In the Twenty Fourth Century, the center of civilization swings to equatorial nations where space elevators, beanstalks, can be erected, since this becomes the economic chokepoint of the world economy, to Ecuador and Spanish Guinea and Sumatra, which are the strongholds of the returned star-farers from the NTL Hermetic, the ship pictured on the cover of the book.
In the sequel, the HERMETIC MILLENNIA, the story proposes that the Twenty Fifth Century is a period of atomic wars, and the breakdown of the World Concordat, and the rise of a group called the Cryonarchy, who are descendants of Menelaus Montrose. Then the Uniate Orthodox Catholic Church rises to power, as it has a monopoly on the world energy supply and the longterm hibernation facilities. Next comes the reign of posthumans called the Giants, artificial creatures of tremendous frame and stature able to hold up massive skulls containing elephantine brains. They are overthrown by the eugenically guided Simon Families, who have learned the secret of longevity, but, one which only applies to women: ruled by superintelligent centenarians, they are called the Witches.
There follows one civilization after another during which various artificial subspecies of mankind rise to predominance. After then, in the Forty-Fifth Century, humans with various animal characteristics woven into their DNA, called Chimerae, overthrow their creators and rise to power. Then in the Sixth Millennium, the Natural Order of man domesticates all forms of life on earth, under the maternal guidance of a subspecies called the Nymphs. After them rise the Iatric Clades in the Seventh Millennium, which, in homage to Jack Vance, I have called the Hormagaunts … and after them arise a vanvogtian race called the Locusts who rule from the Eighth to the Ninth Millennium … then is the advent of the Melusine …
But this is talking about a book not to be released until next year, and its sequel, so let us not get ahead of ourselves.
I will forbear to mention that in the fourth book, THE CONCUBINE VECTOR, moves from discussing mere subspecies of the first human race over a period of millennia, to discussing the second and third human races, popularly called the Swans and the Morlocks, not to mention their various artifacts, called Virtues, Thrones, and Powers. And that manuscript is not yet completed.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
