prespace adj.

No one seems to know, although there are many guesses of course, just how pre-space man arrived at the mysterious A.D. which he appends on his stone carvings everywhere he first trod. Astronomical research into this has only brought bewilderment since absolutely no stellar nor terrestial cataclysm can be located which would begin his A.D. And when he changed to a sensible binary day and a galactic year the records of that moment were subsequently destroyed.

That’s the oldest song you ever heard, my boy. It’s pre-space. It used to be called ‘general quarters’ where ships like big iron houses floated on the waters of earth and fought each other.

A hundred thousand worlds circle their suns here, many of them earth-like; others are too young for intelligent life to have developed; some cradle pre-space humanoid cultures; still others have in-system space travel; many are dead worlds.

[...] Luddism... the commenting agent had flagged that word and supplied a definition. It meant people who were against progress, based on a political movement of 1811 and some years after, against the introduction of weaving machines in pre-space England.