Category: SF & Fandom

Lensman Universe Drop Shafts

There’s an interesting worldbuilding detail in Edward E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series. They’ve got this technology of “inertialessness”, which is what allows them to go faster than light, but it also has domestic uses—elevators have been replaced by open drop shafts that you fall down, inertialess, very quickly and completely safely (because “inertialess collisions cannot even be felt”). (He doesn’t say how the UP shafts work, but I’m guessing artificial gravity pointing up, since they have artificial gravity in other contexts.)

I’m not going to try to explain “inertialessness”. He’s fairly specific about how it behaves, and of course it’s not how the real universe behaves. But he’s pretty good about having the defined behavior remain consistent and control what can and can’t be done in various situations.

Most of the information on drop shafts is in two books, the actual first book and the second later prequel. (No, I don’t really expect that to make sense to anybody not already familiar with the series. But I don’t expect this article to be of any interest to people not already familiar with the series, either.)

I don’t think Smith ever actually calls them “drop shafts”, that’s a later term used in the field, but just “shaft” is rather too broad so I’m using the later term. Also I’m applying it to the ones going UP as well as those going DOWN.

Samms cut off; and, after a brief exchange of thought with Kinnison, went out into the hall and along it to the “DOWN” shaft. There going free, he stepped through a doorless, unguarded archway into over a thousand feet of air. Although it was long after conventional office hours the shaft was still fairly busy, but that made no difference—inertialess collisions cannot even be felt. He bulleted downward to the sixth floor, where he brought himself to an instantaneous halt.

First Lensman, chapter 4

So; we know there are separate “DOWN” and “UP” shafts. We know that there is no door or other guard across the archway to the shaft, which is over 1000 feet tall. We know that when Samms reaches his destination (the 6th floor) he brings himself to an instantaneous halt.

Clearly this shaft is not regarded as any danger to anybody; it has no door, no guards of any kind. (Presumably the safety issues are things like backup power for the Bergenholm that keeps the interior of the shaft inertialess, which are not visible in descriptions of using the shafts. Plus making sure the Bergenholm field and the gravity don’t reach outside the shaft.)

I’m a little unclear about the phrase “There going free”. That seems to suggests that it’s something Samms does, rather than something that happens to anybody who steps through that archway. It could be that everybody wears portable neutralizers (as Lensmen do in their armor, as described multiple places in Galactic Patrol), but it seems to me unwise to count on people not walking into the shaft without their neutralizer, plus there could be issues with people panicking and failing to turn theirs on. Also, this scene can’t be that long after Civilization first gets the Bergenholm working at all; it’s still a new technology in this scene (no precise time since the Nevian incident is given, but as I read the text a few years seems like a reasonable estimate).

It seems like the failure possibilities would be far fewer if inertia is neutralized within the shaft by mechanisms in the building, rather than by something each user has to carry and control. The phrase bothering me isn’t utterly incompatible with that, I don’t think.

Now, how fast would people be moving in these shafts? The DOWN shaft could simply work by gravity; in the free state, any object instantaneously acquires the speed that balances the forces on it against the resistance it encounters (air resistance in the shaft in this case).

The next paragraph of the book has another useful tidbit. It says “skirts went out, as office dress, when up-and-down open-shaft velocities of a hundred or so miles per hour replaced elevators”. That gives us a rough minimum speed of 100 miles per hour, and tells us the up and down shafts run at about the same speeds. (There’s a nasty question here. Is the air in the shaft free? If so, does it not resist the falling bodies at all? If that is the case at what velocity do the bodies then fall? But clearly, the air molecules push dresses around, so they’re not free, for whatever reason, so the velocity is limited. But in that case, hair as well as skirts should be subjected to 100 mile per hour winds, so styles there might also change.)

That’s in the ballpark for the terminal velocity of a human falling through atmosphere, which ought to be the speed that a free human in a 1 gee field in normal atmosphere would instantly achieve.

Now, I’m not clear how reliably I could spot the 6th floor coming a few feet from my face when I was moving at 100 miles per hour, or how reliably I could grab something to brake myself at just the right moment. But if there are many vertical rails around the edges of the shaft, say, one could grab one early and slow without stopping by gripping it lightly.

The UP shaft can’t of course work by gravity. I would argue that it would be highly advantageous for it to have the same upward force on users that the DOWN shaft has downward force, since otherwise you’d have to develop different sets of habits for the up and down shafts, which seems undesirable. (Not a safety issue though; if the space inside the shaft is all free, there’s nothing any user can do to cause accidental injury in the shaft. It might be embarrassing to miss your floor and end up at the bottom, but it won’t injure you or anyone else). So, since we know they have artificial gravity, let’s presume that the UP shaft has a 1 gee upward force, or at least that it matches the downward force in the DOWN shaft.

There’s some more information in Galactic Patrol. There’s a detailed description of the graduating class of Lensmen marching into the shaft and hitting bottom precisely on a beat of the march and continuing to march out of the shaft.

In perfect alignment and cadence the little column marched down the hall. In their path yawned the shaft—a vertical pit some twenty feet square extending from main floor to roof of the Hall, more than a thousand sheer feet of unobstructed air, cleared now of all traffic by flaring red lights. Five left heels clicked sharply, simultaneously upon the lip of the stupendous abyss. Five right legs swept out into emptiness. Five right hands snapped to belts and five bodies, rigidly erect, arrowed downward at such an appalling velocity that to unpractised vision they simply vanished.

Six-tenths of a second later, precisely upon a beat of the stirring march, those ten heels struck the main floor of Wentworth Hall, but not with a click. Dropping with a velocity of almost two thousand feet per second though they were at the instant of impact, yet those five husky bodies came from full speed to an instantaneous, shockless, effortless halt at contact, for the drop had been made under complete neutralization of inertia—“free,” in space parlance. Inertia restored, the march was resumed—or rather continued—in perfect time with the band.

Galactic Patrol, chapter 1

(2000 feet per second is 1364 miles per hour.)

This, of course, is not ordinary civilian use of the drop shaft. Note that for this ceremony it was cleared of all other traffic.

The detail of the cadets’ right hands snapping to their belts is interesting. Is that supposed to indicate they are manipulating some control that relates to the shaft? Of course, since this is not the ordinary use of that shaft, they may be doing something special that isn’t part of normal use.

We don’t know how long after First Lensman this book is set, but probably hundreds of years, so the “normal” configuration of drop shafts may well be different now than it was back then.

Either the artificial gravity in the shaft is set to a much higher setting than 1 gee for this ceremony, or perhaps the cadets are using thrusters or something to force themselves down, triggering them with their right hands at their belts. Maybe they are using thrusters to force themselves down because the DOWN shaft doesn’t have artificial gravity, only the UP shaft?

At least they don’t have to see their floor coming and stop themselves, since they’re going to the bottom. Even Lensmen might have trouble reacting fast enough to something going over 1000 miles per hour just a few feet from their face!

As usual, when one keeps poking at world-building, little issues turn up here and there.

Names for the Rolling Stone

In Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones, there’s discussion of what to name the ship the family is purchasing, and a list of suggested names is assembled.

I realized some time ago that Susan B. Anthony being the only real name of a historical person might mean something; specifically, that the feminist content (Hazel’s rant about the glass ceiling for example) is not an accident.

This also lead me to thinking about the other names more, eventually. (At least two others are definite references to historic people, but not their actual names).

So, here are the names, and what I’ve found out about them.

Dauntless

A common naval ship name (Royal Navy and American), and also in Doc Smith’s Lensman universe.

Jabberwock

The Jabberwock is a fearsome and fictional beast from Lewis Carroll. It was in Through the Looking Glass.

H. M. S. Pinafore

Title of (and ship in) one of the “big three” Gilbert & Sullivan operettas.

The Clunker

I don’t know any particular history for this name. It obviously suggests they don’t have high expectations of their ship.

Star Wagon

Again, I know no particular history for this. This seems much more optimistic than The Clunker.

Go-Devil

Again, I don’t know the reference. There’s a piece of oil pipeline equipment, a logging sled, an infantry regiment (60th Infantry Regiment starting in 1942), and a brand of outdoor equipment, none of which look especially relevant. It does suggest aggressive forward movement, which fits.

Onward

Another name suggesting aggressive forward movement; “Out far, and onward yet!” (from Rhysling / Heinlein’s poem The Green Hills of Earth).

Icarus

Reference to early human flight, but with a tragic outcome. But they’re heading away from the sun, so maybe they’ll be safe.

Susan B. Anthony

Important feminist and suffragist.

Iron Duke

A nickname for Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (probably most famous for winning the battle of Waterloo, which was the turning point in the Napoleonic wars).

Morning Star

Nickname for the planet Venus, and also for Lucifer.

Tumbleweed

Blows around at random in the wide open spaces, I guess.

Oom Paul

Nickname for Stephanus Johannes Paulus “Paul” Kruger, a 19th century South African politician. Seems strange that anybody in the family would want to name their ship after him, all things considered.

(This one I had to have pointed out to me, in a private Facebook group).

Viking

Yet more wanderers, though these often returned home (though they did sometimes colonize).

The Same Hazel?

People have wondered, and debated, for decades whether the Hazel in Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress could be the same as the Hazel Meade Stone who is the grandmother in The Rolling Stones.

Later on, Heinlein has said that they are, both in his later World As Myth works (which I personally don’t consider a definitive answer; when he brings back old characters they never feel like themselves, which leaves me doubting everything else he says about the older works also), and in private letters to people (no, not me; I never wrote to him).

TRS was published about 15 years before TMiaHM. So, if they are the same character, Heinlein decided when he wrote TMiaHM to build things so that Hazel Meade could become Hazel Meade Stone.

I’ll refer to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as ‘TMiaHM’, and The Rolling Stones as ‘TRS’, for brevity.

I have just happened to read those two books, at the same time, this last week, so I have opinions. (I should probably say that I think TMiaHM is Heinlein’s best book, and that TRS is probably the book of his that I’ve re-read the most times, which means dozens.)

In TMiaHM, the character Hazel Meade is a young girl, 13 at the start, living at Cradle Roll Crèche. She was transported as an infant, and then lost her father and mother on Luna. Manny first notices her at the meeting where he meets Wyoming Knott; she’s rolled in a ball, on a ballistic trajectory to hit the knees of one of the Warden’s police at the door to the hall when the raid happens. Her parents may both have been under sentence for subversion, but it’s not certain.

She turns up throughout the book, sometimes a bit gratuitously (Manny notices her in the crowd after their mission to Earth, for example). She does play an important role as captain of the Baker Street Irregulars, and she is adopted into Manny’s family.

It’s noted in TMiaHM that Slim Lemke Stone is courting her, prepared to “opt” her when she’s willing. Later Manny reports “Slim got Hazel to change name to Stone, two kids and she studied engineering.” So her becoming Hazel Meade Stone by name and by profession is pretty clear. (That paragraph goes on to say “All those new free-fall drugs and nowadays earthworms stay three or four years and go home unchanged. And those other drugs that do almost as much for us; some kids go Earthside to school now.”)

She does sign their declaration of independence; Manny signs right below her (and she hadn’t been able to write when his family adopted her). She claims to have written free speech into the Lunar charter herself, and that’s not contradicted by anything I’ve noticed in TMiaHM.

So, what’s the problem? Seems clear-cut pretty much.

The problem is that Hazel Meade Stone’s story as told in TRS isn’t fully compatible with this. Now, she’s definitely a bit of a tall-tale teller; early on there’s this bit:

“Don’t try to bring me up, Roger. At ninety-five my habits are fairly well set.”

“Ninety-five indeed! Last week you were eighty-five.”

“It’s been a hard week.”

So, maybe it’s entirely a matter of her being an unreliable narrator in the book where she speaks directly to us a lot. (Right near the end, she says to Roger “I finished with you when you were in short pants. You’ve been bringing me up ever since.”)

At the end of TMiaHM Manny says she and Slim had two kids (so Roger has a sibling; never mentioned in TRS) and she studied engineering. Manny doesn’t say she went to Earth to study, and he does discuss the drugs to help with gravity changes in that very paragraph; that’s quite a bit like saying she didn’t go to earth to study, to my mind. It does at least set a rough limit on the length of one trip to Earth, no more than 3 or 4 years (the drugs for high gravity work less well than the ones for low gravity, and earthworms visit Luna for 3-4 years without harm).

There are problems, though. In TRS, when Roger is discussing baseball with the twins, Castor says

“But you grew up in a one-g field; you’ve got a distorted notion of physics.”

Which seems to say Roger Stone grew up on Earth, was old enough to play baseball there. That’s clearly more than 3 years.

This seems to suggest that Hazel Meade Stone spent more time on earth than the drugs would have allowed, at least in one trip. (Yes, they could have been apart some of his childhood; but there is no slightest suggestion in either book that they were.) And if Roger spent his childhood bouncing back and forth from Luna to Earth and back, it doesn’t really make sense to say he grew up in a one-g field.

At another point, Hazel claims to have been a lawyer in Idaho at one point.

“Who’s not a lawyer?”

“You aren’t.”

“Of course I am!”

“When and where? Be specific.”

“Years and years ago, back in Idaho—before you were born. I just never got around to mentioning it.”

Her son looked her over. “Hazel, it occurs to me that the records in Idaho are conveniently far away.”

“None of your sass, boy. Anyway, the courthouse burned down.”

“I thought as much.”

Roger doesn’t claim this is obviously impossible, only that he thinks it’s unlikely. So maybe she did spend an extended period on Earth.

But to study engineering, and law, to professional levels (she’s worked as both, she claims, and Roger confirms the engineering), while raising two kids, on a planet where you weigh 6 times what you’re used to, is getting on towards super-human. Particularly if you have to do it in 3-year stints.

More likely that she’s never actually been a lawyer. But why Idaho? Well, hard to check for one thing. But if she hadn’t spent a lot of time on Earth, it would be an obvious lie, and Roger’s reaction feels more like “possible tall tale” than “obvious lie”.

Another possibility is that Manny understates the power of the drugs. But…why would Heinlein have him do that?

TMiaHM starts in 2075, the revolution succeeds in 2076. The framing story around that, though, is not dated. Manny says he isn’t 100 yet (discussing going out to Asteroids, right at the end). We know his birthday is Bastille Day, but what year? Best I and others have managed as of this instant is we all think he’s 40 plus or minus quite a few years, i.e. not very certain. So, “not 100 yet” means fewer than 60 years later. Up to 60 years is a wide window, doesn’t really constrain Hazel’s story much.

I’m finding the “grew up in a one-g field” moment the bit that’s hard to get past. That’s clearly the story as known to his family, and it seems unlikely that it’s a lie (and with his mother living with them, she’d know).

They might well be intended to be the same; perhaps Heinlein forgot or couldn’t find a way around that one bit. I do think it’s that one bit that made it completely clear to me that they weren’t actually the same character, not from the same universe anyway. Heinlein does that a lot; tripedal martians with similar characteristics occur in Double Star, Red Planet, The Rolling Stones, and Stranger in a Strange Land. He recycles aspects of his world-building a lot in stories that clearly aren’t actually part of the same universe.

Reading Order for Lensman Series

That is, the Lensman series by Edward E. “Doc” Smith; the one my license plate is from.

I wrote this originally elsewhere, but it’s so long, and represents things I’ve been thinking through for decades, I decided to record it here to keep it around.

So. My thoughts on the best reading order:

You can’t win. (Also the first law of thermodynamics; but I digress.)

They were written and published in the magazines, as has been explained, as Galactic Patrol through Children of the Lens. Original publication order is nearly always a reasonable choice for anything famous—that order is how it earned its fame, so it can’t be a horrible choice.

I personally love a few things in Triplanetary all to bits (Rome and WWII), and rather dislike the actual story Triplanetary. And it’s certainly not an introduction to the real series. Plus it gives away in the first introduction all the secrets that were kept through the original 4 books, and gradually released to great effect.

First Lensman is a huge favorite of mine—largely because I love watching him back-fill all sorts of things given us in the basic 4-book series without explanation. That might be okay as a starting point also, or people might wonder why time was being spent on where weird names came from.

(Those two were assembled and published starting in 1950, when the series was first published in books, the Fantasy Press hardcovers.)

The versions of the basic 4 books have been revised to also give away the things that were kept secrets in the magazine versions—so you can’t have the experience of reading them as people really first read them, without tracking down the magazines (hint: the issues with Lensman novels in them are kind of expensive).

(And The Vortex Blaster as published in book form at least is solidly set in the Lensman universe, but is not fully compatible with it and it’s not a Lensman story. I love it all to pieces too, for its own reasons, though.)

So—my recommended approach is to read Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensman, Second Stage Lensmen, Children of the Lens, Triplanetary, and First Lensman. And The Vortex Blaster. But every possible reading order has some points against it.