High Justice
Encyclopedia
High Justice is a 1974 collection of science fiction
short stories by Jerry Pournelle
. It was republished in a omnibus edition with Exiles to Glory
in 2009 as Exile -- and Glory.
A major part of the background of these stories is the final fall of the Welfare States; Russia is never mentioned, and the US is downsliding due to inflation and political corruption. In short, Earth's civilization is about to collapse under the weight of its bureaucracies, but a new civilization is being built by determined multinational corporations. The stories were published between 1972 and 1975, and reflect Pournelle's concerns with the effects of environmentalism, welfare states, and high taxes on the ability of people to make advances in technology. At that time the Great Society
, America's version of the Welfare State, was not even 10 years old.
Each short story concerns itself with the problems facing large technological tasks in the near future. These include plutonium fuel breeding, deep sea thermal power, large scale food cultivation and access to fresh water. The protagonists are the agents of multinational corporations - engineers engaged in large scale projects and troubleshooters engaged in protecting said engineers. Though economic competitors are mentioned in passing, the primary antagonists are political - untrustworthy governments and covert operatives acting on their behalf.
Pournelle's view of corporate mega-projects is similar to that of Robert A. Heinlein
as expressed in stories such as The Man Who Sold the Moon
, or more recently in the work of Tom Clancy
. Top executives concentrate on financial risk, while engineers on the ground handle logistics and are extremely competent. Incompetent engineers get fired. There are no meddling vice-presidents, craven middle managers or deadhead employees of the sort generally found in any large technical effort-mostly because Pournelle's corporations lack trade union
s to prevent their expulsion.
The projects described in these stories reflect technologies described in Pournelle's non-fiction collection, "A Step Farther Out":
The short novel Exiles to Glory
is a sequel, featuring two characters from these stories. Another short novel, Birth of Fire
, is considered by the author to also be part of this universe, and has similar themes, though it draws more from the author's military SF. Also, Pournelle has plans to add a story he currently calls "Lisabetta" to this series.
The stories are considered by some as part of the CoDominium
series, a future history
stretching to the early 31st century. Certainly the themes of decay in the rich democracies are the same. The technology excludes innovations like the Langston field
and the Alderson drive
which are the main driving forces in the human diaspora
projected for the 21st century. The publisher makes the claim that these are the stories that "started it all", but Pournelle himself considers it a separate "no FTL" universe.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
short stories by Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....
. It was republished in a omnibus edition with Exiles to Glory
Exiles to Glory
Exiles to Glory is a short science fiction novel by Jerry Pournelle, published in 1978. It is a sequel to the stories in the collection High Justice. As with those stories, it weaves the story of pioneering individuals in space with considerations of the technical and financial challenges facing them...
in 2009 as Exile -- and Glory.
A major part of the background of these stories is the final fall of the Welfare States; Russia is never mentioned, and the US is downsliding due to inflation and political corruption. In short, Earth's civilization is about to collapse under the weight of its bureaucracies, but a new civilization is being built by determined multinational corporations. The stories were published between 1972 and 1975, and reflect Pournelle's concerns with the effects of environmentalism, welfare states, and high taxes on the ability of people to make advances in technology. At that time the Great Society
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
, America's version of the Welfare State, was not even 10 years old.
Each short story concerns itself with the problems facing large technological tasks in the near future. These include plutonium fuel breeding, deep sea thermal power, large scale food cultivation and access to fresh water. The protagonists are the agents of multinational corporations - engineers engaged in large scale projects and troubleshooters engaged in protecting said engineers. Though economic competitors are mentioned in passing, the primary antagonists are political - untrustworthy governments and covert operatives acting on their behalf.
Pournelle's view of corporate mega-projects is similar to that of Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
as expressed in stories such as The Man Who Sold the Moon
The Man Who Sold the Moon
The Man Who Sold the Moon is a science fiction novella by Robert A. Heinlein written in 1949 and published in 1950. A part of his Future History and prequel to "Requiem", it covers events around a fictional first Moon landing, in 1978, and the schemes of Delos D...
, or more recently in the work of Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...
. Top executives concentrate on financial risk, while engineers on the ground handle logistics and are extremely competent. Incompetent engineers get fired. There are no meddling vice-presidents, craven middle managers or deadhead employees of the sort generally found in any large technical effort-mostly because Pournelle's corporations lack trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s to prevent their expulsion.
The projects described in these stories reflect technologies described in Pournelle's non-fiction collection, "A Step Farther Out":
- A laser launchLaser propulsionLaser propulsion is a form of beam-powered propulsion where the energy source is a remote laser system and separate from the reaction mass...
system for sending cargo into orbit, with MHDMagnetohydrodynamicsMagnetohydrodynamics is an academic discipline which studies the dynamics of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such fluids include plasmas, liquid metals, and salt water or electrolytes...
power generators based on rocket engines. - The NERVANERVANERVA is an acronym for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application, a joint program of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and NASA managed by the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office until both the program and the office ended at the end of 1972....
nuclear rocket engine project. - Spacecraft using ion drives traversing the Solar System.
- Asteroid miningAsteroid miningAsteroid mining refers to the possibility of exploiting raw materials from asteroids and planetoids in space, including near-Earth objects. Minerals and volatiles could be mined from an asteroid or spent comet to provide space construction material , to extract water and oxygen to sustain the lives...
. - Ocean thermal power generation with fish farmingFish farmingFish farming is the principal form of aquaculture, while other methods may fall under mariculture. Fish farming involves raising fish commercially in tanks or enclosures, usually for food. A facility that releases young fish into the wild for recreational fishing or to supplement a species'...
as a by-product of the artificial upwellingUpwellingUpwelling is an oceanographic phenomenon that involves wind-driven motion of dense, cooler, and usually nutrient-rich water towards the ocean surface, replacing the warmer, usually nutrient-depleted surface water. The increased availability in upwelling regions results in high levels of primary...
of cold nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean.
The short novel Exiles to Glory
Exiles to Glory
Exiles to Glory is a short science fiction novel by Jerry Pournelle, published in 1978. It is a sequel to the stories in the collection High Justice. As with those stories, it weaves the story of pioneering individuals in space with considerations of the technical and financial challenges facing them...
is a sequel, featuring two characters from these stories. Another short novel, Birth of Fire
Birth of Fire
Birth Of Fire is a 1976 science fiction novel written by Jerry Pournelle and first published by Laser Books, later published by Baen Books. It is related to the books Exiles to Glory and High Justice, and with those two, form a starting point for the CoDominium series.-Plot summary:The book starts...
, is considered by the author to also be part of this universe, and has similar themes, though it draws more from the author's military SF. Also, Pournelle has plans to add a story he currently calls "Lisabetta" to this series.
The stories are considered by some as part of the CoDominium
CoDominium
-The CoDominium series:*A Spaceship for the King *He Fell into a Dark Hole *The Mote in God's Eye...
series, a future history
Future history
A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...
stretching to the early 31st century. Certainly the themes of decay in the rich democracies are the same. The technology excludes innovations like the Langston field
Langston Field
The Langston Field is a fictional device featured in the CoDominium series of science-fiction novels, initiated by SF writer Jerry Pournelle....
and the Alderson drive
Alderson drive
The Alderson drive, named after Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Dan Alderson, is a fictional device that enables instantaneous interstellar transportation. It is featured in the CoDominium series of science fiction novels by Jerry Pournelle, including the Mote series by Larry Niven and Jerry...
which are the main driving forces in the human diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
projected for the 21st century. The publisher makes the claim that these are the stories that "started it all", but Pournelle himself considers it a separate "no FTL" universe.
Stories
- A Matter of Sovereignty - Nuclear General Company has to go to Tonga to set up its breeder reactors. Some large scale fish farming is a by-product, as is a sanctuary for some of the last blue whales on Earth. But there's always somebody looking to grab a piece of the action; Fiji has impounded a shipload of plutonium, not to mention a lot of Tongan fishing boats, and those darn Chileans want an arm and a leg to let icebergs be towed through their waters. The US Navy won't bully a small power to protect Big Business, and the Japanese are about to foreclose on the whole shebang-and make sushi out of the whales as an after-dinner snack. Solution? Take "flag of convenienceFlag of convenienceThe term flag of convenience describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship. Ships are registered under flags of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the...
" to the next level. - Power to the People - Nuclear General Company can park an iceberg on the coast of Namibia, process seawater with nuclear reactors and make the desert bloom. But that U.S.-born black revolutionary over the border has built his power on poverty and populism. He demands food and power for the people. Not his real motive, of course. But you can always take him at his word, even if the people don't get the kind of power he was thinking of.
- Enforcer - More bergs and reactors, this time mining the ocean floor off the Malvinas/Falklands. The new juntaMilitary juntaA junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...
in Argentina wants in on the project, never mind what the last Presidente agreed to. Call in INTERSEC, the trans-national enforcer of contracts. When the one holdout on the junta refuses to see reason, it's time for Plan B. (This story was written before the Falklands WarFalklands WarThe Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
took place). - High Justice - Solicitor General Aeneas Mackenzie cleaned up the White House and it cost him his job. Now he's working for the kind of people he crusaded against, who happen to work for his once and future lover. Laurie Jo Hansen has the Hansen Corporation and a lot of power. Power and money can still get humanity into space, even if the government can't, or won't. But when the Agency starts committing murder to sabotage the effort, it's time for justice to go into orbit, in the person of Judge Aeneas Mackenzie.
- Extreme Prejudice - Terminating a rogue agent ought to be simple. Especially when he's too busy ensuring the future of humanity to protect himself. But maybe that's the best armor of all.
- Consort - Aeneas Mackenzie has the ship Valkyrie ready to leave Earth orbit and go to the Moon. The Lunatic advance party is already on the ground preparing the site for the colony. But getting the NERVA rocket engine into orbit, along with Laurie Jo, requires one last deal with the devil. A corrupt President masquerading as an honest populist is the only one who can help them. He's also the one who fired Aeneas for purging half the White House. Thanks to Laurie Jo he's being hounded in the media. Laurie Jo can promise to call off her dogs if he delivers, and leave Earth forever to boot. But the President is more afraid of Aeneas Mackenzie, once his oldest friend, than he is of her.
- Tinker - An ion drive space tug is the only ship able to rendezvous with a disabled ship carrying valuable cargo and 1700 passengers. That it happens to be in the right place at the right time, with the right fuel on hand, turns out to be the pivot on which the whole story turns. A Hansen Corporation agent is on the job, however. (Incidentally, this story ends the collection on what could be considered a sour note. The rest of the stories were set on Earth, where the governments got their way and the multinationals had to scramble to succeed. This final story is set solely in space, where the multiplanetaries rule – and they're never going to let a government rise to challenge them. The corporate troubleshooter unilaterally punishes the political antagonists, and complaints are made that only those employed by the multiplanetary corporations will prosper from that point on. In short, democracy has failed – human civilization is now feudal, run by the corporations.)