Question and Answer - The Psychotechnic League

The Psychotechnic League

Although "Question and Answer" is similar in background to the stories that make up Anderson's Psychotechnic League future history, there are good reasons to doubt that it forms part of that series. First, Anderson himself did not include "Question and Answer" in a timeline of the Psychotechnic League stories that he created to accompany the novella "The Snows of Ganymede" in the Winter 1955 issue of Startling Stories, even though the story had already been published in Astounding by then. He also failed to mention any connection in his introduction to the 1978 Ace Books edition of the story.

Second, the outcome of World War III, as well as events in the centuries immediately following the war, is inconsistent between "Question and Answer" and the Psychotechnic League stories. In the book, as noted, the Soviet Union conquered North America and Europe fell into a centuries-long devastation and chaos; conversely, in the Psychotechnic League history, the Soviet Union was totally destroyed, the survivors of its population reduced to the condition of "howling cannibals", while Europe recovered from its war devastation within a single generation.

Logically, given the above, the development of psychotechnics itself is quite different, and in "Question and Answer" there is no mention of the Psychotechnic Institute. (In "Marius" it is noted that psychotechnics was started by the Finnish Professor Valti - a staunch opponent of the Soviets, who had a major role in freeing Europe from their occupation; obviously, Valti's life and scientific career would be completely different in a history where the Soviet Union won the war). Still, Anderson evidently assumed psychotechnics would be still be developed, even under vastly different historical conditions.

Aside from the above, the basic difference between The Psychotechnic League and the present book is in Anderson's attitude to psychotechnics. In Psychotechnic League stories and books, psychotechnics stands for human peace and prosperity, for unification of Earth and afterwards of the entire Solar System - as against the forces of militarism, nationalism, political and religious extremism, which have caused World War III and might, if not stopped, cause "another war which humanity may not survive" (as described in "Marius"). On these terms, Anderson is obviously on the side of psychotechnics and the characters representing the author's point of view act accordingly.

In "Question and Answer", however, psychotechnics - having succeeded in establishing peace and stability - sets itself squarely against spaceward expansion, seeking to keep humanity within the protecting cocoon of the Solar System and prevent its spread throughout the Galaxy. With this at stake, Anderson (and the character representing his point of view) turns against psychotechnics and for galactic expansion. This is inevitable, given Anderson's staunch support and advocacy of space flight in all periods of his fiction and non-fiction writing.

The basic theme of the book is similar to that of Asimov's "The End of Eternity" - though this similarity becomes evident only towards the respective ends of both books. In both - one dealing with spaceflight and exploration and the other with time-travel - an organization of well-meaning meddlers interferes to "guide" and manipulate the course of human history, with the aim of promoting safety, security and stability, and with the price being to stifle spaceflight and galactic exploration and colonization. And in both, the protagonist finally decides to abort these efforts and opt for galactic expansion, even at the cost of instability and uncertainty.