Forever War

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, said to be complementary to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Where one glorified war, the other showed how senseless it was with the ending. Both kept it as close to being ``hard'' science fiction as it was possible. Neither as crazy as Lensman series by Edward E. Smith in terms of power scaling---to be fair, hardly anyone can reach that level, not even the Dragon Balls series, nor One Punch Man.

What struck me in The Forever War is the concept of time scales. It plays it straight with [general] relativity in that the plot takes into account that near-light speed travel would lead to time dilation, which caused the subjective time of the traveller to be less than that of the non-travelling people. The other series that plays it straight as well is the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card. It reminded me also of Permutation City by Greg Egan, which explores the other means of having different [subjective] time scales which relies on the concept of simulation as opposed to general relativity. These stories that are more careful with how they portray the passage of time as compared to many other works that involve light/faster-than-light travel, with the different rates of time being an important factor in the set up of the plot. For The Forever War, it is even explicitly acknowledged that the United Nations Exploratory Force (UNEF) planned battles in time scales that spanned centuries to take into account the level of technology of the fighters that they send out and the overall strategic impact.

Naturally, the hows aren't explicitly written. To me, it's good enough that this potential world-building loophole is addressed explicitly with a plausible in-world description.

I enjoyed the book a lot despite finishing it in a single day. I wasn't intending on writing a book review (I still think I haven't really written a book review here), and won't say more than the various things that I had said earlier. Next up is going to be A Thousand Small Sanities by Adam Gopnik---I think it is a rather recent non-fiction work that critiques the concepts of liberalism, humanism, and conservatism. I think it ought to help reify the wrong that I feel when I see and read the many paradoxical thoughts/actions that I see online, even among acquaintances and friends.

It doesn't mean that I am going to go on a trip to ``convert people'' to whatever new thought. Despite being a believer, I still stand by the principle that one should not force one's beliefs upon another; or in other words, if the person is unreceptive and the context is inappropriate, one should just shut up and not try to proselytise, whether it is the gospel or something else. To evangelise is to be a messenger, and messengers usually follow the ``pull'' methodology of responding to someone's query if they have a message for them, and not a ``push'' metholodology where they just blast out their message whether or not it is wanted. Think of it as the difference between answering an enquiry and receiving an advertisement.

Anyway, this is a short entry. The last thing I want to add is that the new Hololive English VSinger IRyS has a lovely voice and a chill personality (so far), almost like a cross between Hololive English's Ninomae Ina'nis and Hololive Indonesia's Pavolia Reine. I think that these calming and less chaotic VTubers are just what these chaotic times require.

Alright, that is that. Till the next update.