The End of All Things, John Scalzi

[kaberett]

I am kind of amused by the extent to which the voice of his male characters is the voice of Whatever. It was rollicking, I enjoyed it, I found some of the stuff about pronouns very soothing, it was a satisfying read in terms of how story threads tied together.

BUT.

I am starting to wonder. The thing about how the Colonial Union requires the Earth for soldiers and colonists. It's... not obvious to me why. All existing colonies are established and more colonists can be provided from other colonies; we KNOW they've got the infrastructure to grow enough bodies to meet the CDF demand for them; and we KNOW about the Ghost Brigades. So it's... not at all obvious why the CU actually, in any sense whatsoever, needs Earth. IDGI. And it's kind of what this book and the last couple have been predicated on.

Has this been answered somewhere I haven't noticed? Any of you lot got thoughts on it?

Comments

[swaldman]

I have not read this far into the OMW books. I should.
*adds to big pile of things to read*

[kaberett]

I look forward to hearing your thoughts :-)

[hilarita]

I thought there was something about this in the Human Division - that they *can't* grow enough bodies to meet the CDF demand, and that they still need the human recruits to have enough bodies in a short-enough timescale.

(I may be misremembering though; I did read Human Division while on an extremely stressful trip.)

[kaberett]

Hmm, I don't remember that (and should look it up), but given that all the Earth-humans get immediately re-bodied when recruited to the CDF it doesn't seem consistent that they can't grow enough?

[catyak]

A couple of things spring to mind.

1. Genetic diversity - the Earth is a huge pool of resources, colonies have a more limited genetic base.

2. Responsible adults - somewhere it notes that your average ghost is effectively a child, albeit a well-trained and conditioned one.

Also, if you can maintain the location of your homeworld as a secret from all the other races in space, you've got an advantage should they attempt to wipe you out.

[kaberett]

Hmm, but they've been pulling genetic material from Earth for long enough that diversity in that regard shouldn't be an issue? Plus initial colonies were mixed (pre-current-policies), so I'm unconvinced that the CU would have significantly lower genetic diversity than Earth.

Re 2 -- maybe, but we see that the special forces members who survive get very rapidly very very good, and there's a fair few of them around who could do the leading.

I'm also... unconvinced that the rest of the intelligent species in the area don't know about humanity's home world? Like, they *clearly* failed *utterly* at that.