[TML] Hi Pop World advice sought

[Richard Aiken]

On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 2:57 AM, Stuart Frew <stuart at frew.net.nz> wrote:
> So perhaps the planet is lifeless and everyone is living inside. Assuming
> they are manufacture food it gets rid of the arable land problem and they
> brought their own life support.

Or perhaps the planet is full of life and everyone's still living
inside.  Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War series has a highly-advanced
spacefaring culture which . . . for reasons which her main characters
never discover . . . worship trees and forests.  Quite literally:
their main space station is built in the form of a Christmas Tree,
while their courtrooms resemble something a wood elf would create and
the height of decorating style is to convey the sense that you aren't
in a room at all, but in a cooly shaded forest glade.

No details are given on the planet itself, except for the fact that
the social status of families are rated by how many thousands of acres
of original and/or re-forested terrain they control.  But I can easily
imagine that everything is built underground, except for the absolute
bare minimum surface facilities.  So from orbit, the world would look
really empty . . .

Ship's Security Grunt, looking out the viewport with a very puzzled
expression as they circle in to land at the downport: "I thought you
said the Library Data gives this place 30 million folk."

Ship's Steward, equally puzzled: "It does."

Grunt: "Then where the Hell is everyone?"

Steward: "Beats me."  <shrug>  "Maybe it's a typo . . ."

BTW, the place (called Cascadia in the books) has an *extremely*
polite society and a fairly draconian set of laws.  It's literally
illegal to be rude . . . to anyone, for any reason.  One (rather
nasty) ship's captain actually gets executed for contempt of court.
And the world's court system moves FAST . . .

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein