"Vaster than Empires and More Slow" is a science fiction story by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the collection New Dimensions 1, edited by Robert Silverberg.
The team realizes that the entire vegetation on the planet is part of a singular consciousness, which is reacting in fear at the explorers after spending its whole life in isolation.
Like Le Guin's later novel The Word for World Is Forest, this story examines the relationship between humans and their natural environment.
The story was republished in Le Guin's collections The Wind's Twelve Quarters and Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, as well as in many other anthologies.
"Vaster than Empires and More Slow" is set in the fictional Hainish universe, which Le Guin introduced in her first novel Rocannon's World, published in 1966.
The people of Hain colonized many neighboring planetary systems, including Terra (Earth) and Athshe, possibly a million years before the setting of the novels.
"[5][7] In the internal chronology of the Hainish cycle, "Vaster than Empires" takes place after The Dispossessed and before The Word for World is Forest.
[8] "Vaster than Empires" follows the crew of a survey ship sent by the League of Worlds to a planet far outside the region of the galaxy it has previously colonized.
[9] After some exploration, the scientists find that there is nothing resembling animal life on the planet; all of its life-forms are either photosynthetic, or feed off of dead plant material.
[15] They find that the fear emanations can be felt at their new camp as well, which is in a grassland, which makes them realize that the sentience extends over all of the vegetation on the planet.
"[5][7] The "vegetable love" referred to in the poem from which the title is taken can be used to describe the final relationship between Osden and the planetary intelligence of World 4470.
[5] The intelligence of Le Guin's forest has been contrasted to the "low" position occupied by vegetative beings in the works of other science fiction authors such as Arthur C.
[5] They are regarded as being of "unsound mind" by the people of Earth and Hain, because they were willing to travel on a voyage that lasted 500 years of actual time.
[5] In choosing a sort of union with the planet, Osden shows that the singular consciousness of the vegetative creature is preferable to the chaos and discord in human society.
"[5] Osden achieves a completely empathetic relationship with the planet, "both literally and figuratively in touch with the forest;" which also grants him temporary goodwill towards humans, as he says "Listen, I will you well" before leaving his colleagues.
"[17][20] The second reference is in the penultimate paragraph: while describing Osden’s relationship with the planet, Tomiko says, "Had we but world enough and time…", quoting verbatim from "To His Coy Mistress".
In his introduction to the story, Rabkin stated that it "takes the frenzy of exploration and science, paints it green, and frames it with stability.
[23] A retrospective review in Tor noted that the story was unusual for a Hainish Universe piece for not examining a human society, and said it raised interesting ideas about "disability, ecology, sentience, and emotion".