Paxys thanks for the short story, I truly enjoyed that and it was also rather funny.
Regarding the case for lowtech interstellar travellers: I can accept the idea that there is some symple physics trick to make a jump drive that we haven't discovered, fair enough. Just as in the story, there would also had to be a similar undiscovered trick for antigravity, since otherwise they have no way of getting to orbit.
Can you however build a ship that can resist vacuum and provide life support with 16th century tech? I guess perhaps your species might be able to live in vacuum, needs only a bit of heat and doesn't need to breathe gasses?
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Anyway, I’d like to recommend another book. High Crusade by Poul Anderson[0]. In the first chapter pacifist aliens land in 13th century England and get immediately massacred by the locals. Now the king has a starship.
Regarding the case for lowtech interstellar travellers: I can accept the idea that there is some symple physics trick to make a jump drive that we haven't discovered, fair enough. Just as in the story, there would also had to be a similar undiscovered trick for antigravity, since otherwise they have no way of getting to orbit.
Can you however build a ship that can resist vacuum and provide life support with 16th century tech? I guess perhaps your species might be able to live in vacuum, needs only a bit of heat and doesn't need to breathe gasses?
- - -
Anyway, I’d like to recommend another book. High Crusade by Poul Anderson[0]. In the first chapter pacifist aliens land in 13th century England and get immediately massacred by the locals. Now the king has a starship.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Crusade