Hello! Sorry Terrence! I meant that form of your name, one of my many cats was complaining. ---- Gregg C Levine xxxxxx@gmail.com "This signature was once found posting rude messages in English in the Moscow subway." On Thu, Jun 25, 2026 at 8:56 PM Gregg Levine <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello! > I am inclined to agree with Terrance here. I remember enough American > history to get into an argument with a force four wind behind it. Also > enough world history in that it shaped my view of politics both inside > and out. > > The islands in the Pacific which had moderately friendly natives on > them that we hopped all over, did form that cargo cult simply because > they believed that there was a mystic force to the troops and their > delivered equipment. When the troops left, and, ah, left a lot behind, > it became icons. Yes, on one of the islands where we had a good > airfield made, there stands a replica of an L-4 type aircraft. > Identical in the way it looks except for obvious things. Reportedly as > according to an anthropologist the tribe would pray to it, invoking > the spirit of someone with an appropriate name. > > But on this particular planet, Poictesme, in the Tri-System, (I > remember that from Fuzzy Bones.), it became not a cargo cult, but a > salvage culture, and I still wonder how long that would have lasted. > ---- > Gregg C Levine xxxxxx@gmail.com > "This signature was once found posting rude messages in English in the > Moscow subway." > > On Thu, Jun 25, 2026 at 8:36 PM Terrence Fugate <xxxxxx@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > > Re: "Now here's heresy. Conn was successful enough to attract the attention > > of the criminal gangs. The promise of sufficient loot led to strange > > bedfellows in crime. Execute Conn and enough of his followers during a > > massive burglary attempt (at least 100 robbers) and revival of Poictesme > > stalls." > > Stalls, hell it dies and Poictesme's level of civilization dies. > > Remember how Conn remembered the fountains and escalator worked when he was a kid? And they were dead. > > Poictesme was slowly slipping backwards....probably toward barbarism. > > > > Remember the line in Space Viking where ....damn trying to come up with a polite way to say this because I don't have the book here... > > Former Federation planets slipped into barbarism as they lost their technology. > > People in broken societies tend to give up, if enough give up.... > > > > Where would the robbers have had a reason to know Conn was of any value until after they organized "Merlin Limited" [I'm not on my computer so I don't have a copy of Junkyard Planet handy for the proper name.] > > > > By the time Conn was important enough to be a worthwhile target...not sure he ever was... he'd have had a small, well-armed and a force that was at least halfway trained. > > > > Risking going afield and into the weeds.... > > A trained force will almost always win against an equal force of untrained men. > > > > Take the top 20 soccer players (I have no idea how many men on a team) put them up against the next tier who have trained and played a season together....guess who wins? > > > > Blackie Whatever had a bunch of out of work farm hands (I'm so not going to call people forced out of work tramps] who, in a land of weapons aplenty, appeared to have a random selection of firearms. > > > > Real militaries consist of much more then guys with guns, there is the little factor called logistics. > > > > Remember the scene in Uller Uprising were Paula is congratulated for understanding ammunition has to be made...it doesn't fall from heaven as a gentle rain...sorry wrong anology. > > > > Given "Merlin Limited" had a real colonel in charge, I'd venture he had all his bases covered. > > > > The battle at the volcano suggests some level of sophistication on the part of Merlin Limited and a total lack of coordination on Blackie's part. > > > > If you are interested, and physically able, look up a paintball gang, er club and sign up for an afternoon of fun and pain. It will show you how training together means you can work as a team, teams almost always win. > > > > The Vikings and Amerinds, and most Islamic forces were great warriors, pathetic soldiers. They were great at hit and run skirmishes... > > [Way OT, the rebel forces in the US war of independence could not stand-up toe to toe with the Brits and fought the same way as the 3 groups I mentioned.] > > > > There is a difference, a big difference, between a warrior and soldier. > > > > Since HBP mentions the Alamo in A Planet For Texans/Lonestar Planet... > > In real history, the defenders of/at the Alamo were out of ammunition when their walls were breached. > > > > If the "company" on Uller had run out of ammunition...how long would the humans have lasted. > > > > ________________________________ > > From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> on behalf of Terrence Fugate <xxxxxx@hotmail.com> > > Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2026 12:56 PM > > To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> > > Subject: Re: [HBP] Re: differences between a Cargo Cult and Poictesme > > > > A "Cargo Cult" is waiting for their gods to bring "Cargo" to them, the people on Poictesme were looking [waiting] for Merlin to return and save them. Merlin was lost, misplaced, on their planet. > > > > While I don't believe King Arthur ever existed.... > > according to the myth, he fought, was injured (or died) and went away to return when England was in danger. > > > > During his reign there was peace and prosperity for all. That all went away with the Germanic "invasion," but Arthur would return someday and bring back peace and prosperity. > > > > When Merlin was located, prosperity would return.... > > > > Heck the people on Poictesme were "hip deep in 'cargo'." > > > > They clearly weren't waiting for their gods to bring 'cargo'..... > > > > > > I'm going back to 1957 through 1987 here so please bear with me.... > > > > I'd spend at least a month every summer from 1957~1987 with my maternal grandmother in Eastern Kentucky. While I'm still connected to Eastern Kentucky (You can check out anytime but you can never leave), I don't have the yearly cultural update... > > > > I noticed one odd thing about Eastern Kentucky, broadly speaking there were two types of people, those with ambition and those without. Those with ambition left, those without stayed. Those who stayed were beaten by poverty... > > > > In many ways, the people HBP described in Junkyard Planet reminded me of most of the people in Eastern Kentucky in the 1957~1987 timeframe. > > > > The people of Poictesme had given up and were waiting on a god to bring prosperity. Many of the people of Eastern Kentucky had also given up... > > > > I'm still not sure what the people in Eastern Kentucky were waiting on...to die and go to heaven? > > > > > > [Might I suggest anyone interested in one way a society can be broken read Night Comes To The Cumberland by Harry Caudill > > https://dn760104.eu.archive.org/0/items/nightcomestocumb1963caud/nightcomestocumb1963caud.pdf] > > > > I suspect HBP experienced the same things I saw; his home town was economically destroyed when the railroads reorganized. I'd love to have visited Altoona Pennsylvania in 1960....I suspect the area is called Penntucky for a reason. > > > > Human societies are both amazingly resilient and Frighteningly fragile. Knock out the right (or wrong) parts and they come "undone." > > > > Poictesme society was badly broken [undone]. They had everything they needed to build a vibrant society, but lacked "ambition." > > > > I'm using "ambition" for lack of a single word to describe all the things necessary for a functioning society. > > > > My wife read Junkyard Planet years ago and she just told me "Those people were waiting to die, they were looking backwards and couldn't look or move forward." > > > > The society had become static, Conn disrupted the frozen society. > > > > [Disrupted, he used a Hellburner!] > > > > Graveyard Of Dreams is perhaps a more rational story of Poictesme. Conn comes back with the word there is no Merlin, realizes the older people are locked into their mindset so he decides to start rebuilding his society starting with his younger brother.... > > > > Look at Poictesme a bit differently. Look at the resources they had, oodles of left-over military stuff.... > > > > "Where are you going to sell that stuff?" he asked, pointing at a passing skid. > > "There's enough combat equipment around now to outfit a private army for every man, woman and child in Poictesme." > > > > ...forget the weapons, but think of the other stuff a military has to have, construction equipment, power sources, tools, heck, melt the weapons down and make plough shares out of them. They had everything they needed to have a vibrant society; instead they were lost, drifting...dreaming of lost glory. > > > > My wife said "They had everything they needed except a clue. > > > > Sort of like the "Lost Cause" belief still prevalent in some areas in the south. > > > > > > ________________________________ > > From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> on behalf of David Sooby <xxxxxx@gmail.com> > > Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2026 7:24 AM > > To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>; David Sooby <xxxxxx@gmail.com> > > Subject: Re: [HBP] Re: differences between a Cargo Cult and Poictesme > > > > On Wed, Jun 24, 2026 at 8:27 PM Terrence Fugate <xxxxxx@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > > I really should have been more careful in my use of "cargo cult" but I did so because it has already been used herein. > > > > You might want to review whatever sources you used for your definition of a Cargo Cult. It had much more to do with ships offloading supplies than any war materials that were left. > > > > > > My comment, to which you are responding, wasn't intended to be a definitive summary of "cargo cult" culture. I've posted such a summary previously, and not all that long ago. > > > > As you say, the documented cases "cargo cult" mass delusion were not really about the manufactured goods (or "cargo") left behind on various Polynesian islands, but rather that the primitive natives of those particular islands had gotten used to the wealth, the "cargo" imported to their islands, which were being used by more advanced, industrialized nations as supply depots for a major war. And when those who brought in the cargo left because the war had ended, the natives found themselves suddenly without the wealth they had come to expect. On some of those islands, "Cargo Cults" arose as a result of a desire to bring back the wealth. And as you say, this wasn't limited to the WW II era. According to Wikipedia, the most-documented earlier case was called "Vailala Madness", and arose after the end of WW I rather than after the end of WW II. I don't think it's any coincidence at all that "Vailala Madness" arose only after military forces from an industrialized nation (in that case, Australia) had withdrawn from that location at the end of a major war. The very similar case of U.S. forces withdrawing from South Pacific islands at the end of WW II, producing similar "Cargo Cults" in native Polynesian communities on some islands, cannot be a coincidence. Similar causes in some Polynesian island communities produced similar results in others, a generation later. > > > > My own first exposure to the "cargo cult" concept was reading /Dream Park/ by Larry Niven & Steven Barnes, pubbed in 1981. This would have been after I had already read /The Cosmic Computer/ at least once. The connection between /The Cosmic Computer/ and "cargo cults" would never have occurred to me independently, because of course the people of Poictesme are not ignorant savages who thought the manufactured goods imported to their planet were created by their ancestral spirits. The people of Poictesme knew perfectly well where the war matériel came from and how it was created. That is a rather important way in which /The Cosmic Computer/ is *not* an analogy of "cargo cults". > > > > I find it surprising that the most common trope associated with "cargo cults" is the mock-ups of airplanes which the natives built, in an effort to use sympathetic magic to attract "cargo" back to their community. As you said or suggested, most of the imported "cargo" arrived by ship, not cargo planes. But perhaps — just guessing here — the natives in their ignorance saw the wonder of flying machines as being more closely associated with the spirits of their ancestors, who they believed was the *true* source of "cargo". > > > > Where I think the analogy between "cargo cults" and /The Cosmic Computer/ is strongest is in the surprisingly widespread belief on Poictesme that a god-like being (Merlin) will magically restore prosperity to the community; a prosperity which their community had enjoyed as a result of being a major supply depot in a major war, and suddenly ended when the war did. > > > > Obviously Piper was also drawing an analogy between the System States War and the U.S. Civil War; the aftermath of the latter is another inspiration for /The Cosmic Computer/. It's so obvious, and has been discussed so heavily here, that I didn't think I needed to repeat that. > > > > --------------------- > > —David Sooby
