I’m re-reading H. Beam Piper’s Paratime series. It’s one of many, by now, series of stories concerning parallel or alternate universes, a genre I’ve enjoyed for a long time.
The Paratime series centers around the Paratime Police, whose purpose is to protect the Paratime secret. Simply put, the people of an advanced Earth discovers how to travel between parallel time lines (but not into the past or future), just in time to keep their resource-impoverished world of 500 million from dying in war and squalor (yes, I know). Now they’re equal parts parasites and traders, obtaining some resources from tens of thousands of parallel Earths. Naturally they don’t wish the other timelines to know what’s going on, therefore Paratime travel must be kept a secret from all other timelines.
Of course this entrie setup is unsustainable. Nature keeps no secrets, therefore any other civilization at their level,a nd there are many, would figure out Paratime on its own. Also, according to the setup in the first story, some timelines as very similar to their own, therefore they must also know about Paratime already.
But that’s not important. The stories are what’s important, and these are quite good.
There is another troubling aspect. Piper had an unshakable belief in the paranormal, particularly as regards reincarnation. Indeed, one of his best stories has reincarnation as a central part of its theme. So how can it be one of the best?
Easily. In this story, called “Last Enemy,” the people of a parallel timeline have scientific proof of the existence of reincarnation (I know. Assume you’ve called a large construction crane to suspend your disbelief for the duration, ok?). But there is a debate on whether the discarnate individual identities (referred to as personalities or individualities) remain self aware after discarnation (essentially death, but never called death) or not.
And this is where it gets interesting. Rival hypotheses about the issue give rise to two different political groups. One, the Statisticalists, believe the incorporeal essence is not self aware, but rather wonders about minldessly until it eventually stumbles upon a body it can enter. These people favor socialism.
The other group, the Volitionalists, believe the individualities are self-aware and purpusefuly seek a body in which to reincarnate, according to criteria of their own. This groups favors capitalism and priavte property.
The political arguments are like this:
The Statisticalists say that since you have no choice on the circumstances of your rebirth, you’d be better off next life is wealth was evenly distributed among all. The Volitionalists say since you can reborn wherever you want, it would be wrong to deprive you of your current property for the next life.
Piper comes close to the point without actually makign it. But it’s interesting nonetheless that those who believe the mind to be fundamentally irrational favor socialism, while those who believe otherwise favor Capitalism.
Another interesting story deals with an accidentally missplaced Pensylvannia state trooper. He finds himself in a North America colonized by people descended culturally from Ancient Greece, who exist at a medieval level of technology dominated by a theocracy. The theocrats, followers of the god Styphon, ahve a monopoly in the manufacture of gun powder. The trooper knows how easy gun powder is to amke, and he shares this information with his hosts. More important, he shows them it’s an entirely natural phenomenon, devoid of any religious or supernatural aspects.