History Fridge / Lensman

* I wondered for years why ''Galactic Patrol'' spent page space having Kinnison make contact with the inhabitants of Trenco and learn that they were sentient, and recruit them as assistants for the Patrol, when that only facilitates a minor plot point (the bulk harvesting of the thionite for the attack on Helmuth's base) that could easily have been resolved another way. For over a decade, I thought it was just another way of showing how awesome Kinnison's mental powers were growing. Only recently did I realize that the real point of that sequence is to show why ''Trenco continues to exist at all''. Trenco's unique ecology and atmosphere is the only origin point for the galaxy's single most dangerous and addictive substance, and the Patrol spends vast expense (and takes casualties) every year patrolling it against thionite runners who come to harvest the stuff, and yet still can't entirely succeed. And thionite trafficking is a significant chunk of Boskonia's profit margin. And in the very next book, the Patrol gains possession of planetbusting weapons. Rather than keep up the costly and deadly anti-thionite patrol, it would have been ''far'' simpler to just ''throw the entire planet Trenco into the sun''... except that if Trenco has innocent bystanders living on it, who can't live anywhere else, then the Patrol can't do that!

* I wondered for years why ''Galactic Patrol'' spent page space having Kinnison make contact with the inhabitants of Trenco and learn that they were sentient, and recruit them as assistants for the Patrol, when that only facilitates a minor plot point (the bulk harvesting of the thionite for the attack on Helmuth's base) that could easily have been resolved another way. For over a decade, I thought it was just another way of showing how awesome Kinnison's mental powers were growing. Only recently did I realize that the real point of that sequence is to show why ''Trenco continues to exist at all''. Trenco's unique ecology and atmosphere is the only origin point for the galaxy's single most dangerous and addictive substance, and the Patrol spends vast expense (and takes casualties) every year patrolling it against thionite runners who come to harvest the stuff, and yet still can't entirely succeed. And thionite trafficking is a significant chunk of Boskonia's profit margin. And in the very next book, the Patrol gains possession of planetbusting weapons. Rather than keep up the costly and deadly anti-thionite patrol, it would have been ''far'' simpler to just ''throw the entire planet Trenco into the sun''... except that if Trenco has innocent bystanders living on it, who can't live anywhere else, then the Patrol can't do that!
** Too bad Smith never returned to that concept; in RealLife [[http://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams-sources/adam-ruins-drugs.html drug legislation]] - let alone the {{Flanderized}} version practiced in the Lensman universe - if someone has drugs in their system, from selective racial enforcement to chronic pain victims and special cases who need drugs just to ''survive'', then they're a criminal. '''[[DrugsAreBad Period]].''' If a single drug, that could be grown only in a single place, was a major profit source to an enemy of the West, that place would get put through a wood chipper. Case in point, the DEA [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraquat#.22Paraquat_pot.22 regularly sprayed]] Mexican marijuana fields with paraquat, which was not only sold anyway but got into the water table, giving a ''lot'' of Mexicans Parkinson's disease. In the Lensman universe? Where entire species get exterminated as "collateral damage" in the aeons-long war between Arisia and Boskone? Trenco ''should'' have been genocided.

** Too bad Smith never returned to that concept; in RealLife [[http://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams-sources/adam-ruins-drugs.html drug legislation]] - let alone the {{Flanderized}} version practiced in the Lensman universe - if someone has drugs in their system, from selective racial enforcement to chronic pain victims and special cases who need drugs just to ''survive'', then they're a criminal. '''[[DrugsAreBad Period]].''' If a single drug, that could be grown only in a single place, was a major profit source to an enemy of the West, that place would get put through a wood chipper. Case in point, the DEA [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraquat#.22Paraquat_pot.22 regularly sprayed]] Mexican marijuana fields with paraquat, which was not only sold anyway but got into the water table, giving a ''lot'' of Mexicans Parkinson's disease. In the Lensman universe? Where entire species get exterminated as "collateral damage" in the aeons-long war between Erisia and Boskone? Trenco ''should'' have been genocided.

* I wondered for years why ''Galactic Patrol'' spent page space having Kinnison make contact with the inhabitants of Trenco and learn that they were sentient, and recruit them as assistants for the Patrol, when that only facilitates a minor plot point (the bulk harvesting of the thionite for the attack on Helmuth's base) that could easily have been resolved another way. For over a decade, I thought it was just another way of showing how awesome Kinnison's mental powers were growing. Only recently did I realize that the real point of that sequence is to show why ''Trenco continues to exist at all''. Trenco's unique ecology and atmosphere is the only origin point for the galaxy's single most dangerous and addictive substance, and the Patrol spends vast expense (and takes casualties) every year patrolling it against thionite runners who come to harvest the stuff, and yet still can't entirely succeed. And thionite trafficking is a significant chunk of Boskonia's profit margin. And in the very next book, the Patrol gains possession of planetbusting weapons. Rather than keep up the costly and deadly anti-thionite patrol, it would have been ''far'' simpler to just ''throw the entire planet Trenco into the sun''... except that if Trenco has innocent bystanders living on it, who can't live anywhere else, then the Patrol can't do that!

* I wondered for years why ''Galactic Patrol'' spent page space having Kinnison make contact with the inhabitants of Trenco and learn that they were sentient, and recruit them as assistants for the Patrol, when that only facilitates a minor plot point (the bulk harvesting of the thionite for the attack on Helmuth's base) that could easily have been resolved another way. For over a decade, I thought it was just another way of showing how awesome Kinnison's mental powers were growing. Only recently did I realize that the real point of that sequence is to show why ''Trenco continues to exist at all''. Trenco's unique ecology and atmosphere is the only origin point for the galaxy's single most dangerous and addictive substance, and the Patrol spends vast expense (and takes casualties) every year patrolling it against thionite runners who come to harvest the stuff, and yet still can't entirely succeed. And thionite trafficking is a significant chunk of Boskonia's profit margin. And in the very next book, the Patrol gains possession of planetbusting weapons. Rather than keep up the costly and deadly anti-thionite patrol, it would have been ''far'' simpler to just ''throw the entire planet Trenco into the sun''... except that if Trenco has innocent bystanders living on it, who can't live anywhere else, then the Patrol can't do that!
** Actually, that's a valid cop. In the books, none of Trenco's native life is shown to be sentient. The only sentient beings are the Patrolmen (who could blast off any time they want, and who were actually the ones that helped Kinnison gather his thionite) and presumably the thionite-runners (who the Patrol is trying to exterminate anyway). Annihilating the native life would be of no concern to Patrol, as we see in all the cases where Kinnison's gotten out of trouble by dominating some spider or worm on a Boskone homeworld, only to go ahead and blow up the planet anyway (spider/worm and all). So yes, it's mysterious indeed why the Galactic Patrol never similarly eradicated the thionite scourge at its source.

* The {{Lensman}} series by E.E. "Doc" Smith: This Troper wondered for years why ''Galactic Patrol'' spent page space having Kinnison make contact with the inhabitants of Trenco and learn that they were sentient, and recruit them as assistants for the Patrol, when that only facilitates a minor plot point (the bulk harvesting of the thionite for the attack on Helmuth's base) that could easily have been resolved another way. For over a decade, I thought it was just another way of showing how awesome Kinnison's mental powers were growing. Only recently did I realize that the real point of that sequence is to show why ''Trenco continues to exist at all''. Trenco's unique ecology and atmosphere is the only origin point for the galaxy's single most dangerous and addictive substance, and the Patrol spends vast expense (and takes casualties) every year patrolling it against thionite runners who come to harvest the stuff, and yet still can't entirely succeed. And thionite trafficking is a significant chunk of Boskonia's profit margin. And in the very next book, the Patrol gains possession of planetbusting weapons. Rather than keep up the costly and deadly anti-thionite patrol, it would have been ''far'' simpler to just ''throw the entire planet Trenco into the sun''... except that if Trenco has innocent bystanders living on it, who can't live anywhere else, then the Patrol can't do that!