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"The point sticks in your head: physics rules. Virtue does not triumph unless the physics allows it."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Asterite | ||
| A person who was born and lived amongst the asteroids. |
As far as I know, the first use of this interesting term in an sf story.
| She was a native asterite, accustomed to the annihilating threat of contraterrene matter. |
| From Collision Orbit,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Here are a couple of additional quotes:
...
All the phenomena of space were real and immediate, to the native asterite, as they had never been to his Earth-born forbears. Even a terraformed planetoid, such as Obania, had no safe hundreds of kilometers of insulating atmosphere, but only a thin gaseous envelope. Meteors falling here were something more than mysterious streaks of distant fire; here they were grim dice of life and death.
An earlier use of this word occurs in the Buck Rogers comic strips from 1929-1931:
...the quiet little asterite had a stubborn independence... he was waiting for better times to come - living aboard the little space tug to save the cost of lodgings.
(Buck Rogers asterites)
The word "asterite" was also used in the 19th century (and possibly earlier) referring to a kind of opal that presented a star-like reflection.
Compare to belter from The Warriors (1966) by Larry Niven.
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