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Short story, where FTL travel is very simple but humans never discovered it


I read a short story (I think, but it might have been a novel), where most races discover a very easy way to travel faster than light at a certain point in their technological development.


What I remember:



  • The guys in wooden ships bounced around subjugating the people without FTL travel.

  • Earth had never figured out the FTL, and so had poured its effort in a different path, achieving present day technology.

  • The aliens were freaking out about handing the humans FTL travel.


  • The story was told from the point of view of the aliens.

  • I read it in the last 10 years, but there is no telling how old it actually was, although I do remember them mentioning F-18s or F-14s.



Answer



I believe you are referring to the Harry Turtledove novelette: "The Road Not Taken", first published in Analog, 1985.


"The Road Not Taken" posits that the secret of interstellar travel is an absurdly simple technological concept (so much so that it seems obvious in retrospect, like the wheel), and yet Earth, by sheer happenstance, never stumbles upon it. Later, Earth is invaded by aliens in wooden spaceships armed with cannons and black powder muskets... who are confronted by humans who, having never discovered FTL drives, have instead devoted their research to other scientific pursuits, such as weapons that outclass the invaders' by centuries of development.


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