Hello! Correct. In one of the many online examples it was confirmed that Piper worked as a guard of some sort for the Altoona yards. For the Pennsy it was a big one, it rivaled their rivals the NY Central, who had one big one, towards the Snow Belt, and they shared it with another one. And a medium one near here. Well two. "YEEK!" said Little Fuzzy. From "Little Fuzzy" someplace. ---- Gregg C Levine xxxxxx@gmail.com "This signature was once found posting rude messages in English in the Moscow subway." On Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 6:54 PM David Johnson <xxxxxx@zarthani.net> wrote: > > Hi Terry. > > I was a little confused when I first read Junkyard Planet because the Federation left so many powerful nuclear weapons on Koschchei. What sane or competent military leader would leave Hellburners for anyone to find and use? > > > Here, again, I think, is Beam doing his marvellously complex world-building. Yes, this seems insane to us, in a society that has only ever seen two atomic weapons used in wartime. > > But that's not the Terran Federation society at the end of the System States War. First, these are the descendants of people who lived through the Atomic Wars -- two devastating world wars -- and then, themselves, destroyed at least three Alliance worlds. Having an entire world destroyed by these weapons is already something they've done several times. . . . > > Instead of looking at the atomic ordnance left behind on Koshchei as something unimaginable -- as we would do -- for these folks it's just a bundle of commonplace bombardment weapons. > > They're also not concerned about some sort of "terrorists" getting their hands on these weapons because the technology itself isn't all that difficult to acquire by other means. Terro-humans have been building these sorts of weapons for generations now. > > Beam is subtly trying to give his readers some sense of how mundane atomic weapons have become by this point in Terro-human (future) history. > > Feel free to call me an heretical heathen infidel, but I've never read Foundation and I don't have any intention of reading it either. > > > No worries. Foundation is, in many says, simply the story of a relatively weak -- but clever -- world on the imperial periphery which has to make its way among some more aggressive neighbours as the empire itself withdraws. In Foundation and Empire, among other things, that world, having overcome its more aggressive neighbours, now finds itself facing the remnants of the empire which still manages to hold its own in the imperial core. > > I suspect one of the reasons Beam didn't publish any yarns in this period of his Future History was because Asimov had already covered that ground. > > Anyone have any idea why Piper liked Black and Green? > > > Good question. I have no clue (but would guess there's some sort of link to the Confederacy -- or maybe the Pennsy railroad -- there). > > Cheers, > > David > -- > "Rally Round the Banner, the Banner Black and Green. - H. Beam Piper, Junkyard Planet > > > > > ----- > The H. Beam Piper Mailing List > Archives at https://archives.simplelists.com/H_Beam_Piper/ > Report problems to xxxxxx@simplelists.com > To unsubscribe from this list please go to https://lists.simplelists.com/subs/
