Thursday 3 November 2016

Men On Cain II

See Men On Cain.

"'...Hamud ibn Rashid and Jacques Ngolo had been woodsmen...'" (David Falkayn: Star Trader, pp. 308-309)

Here are two more of the men on Cain. Thus, we now have names for eleven of the twenty. Manuel and these two former woodsmen will track the Lugals whom they have allowed to escape because they need someone to lead them to wherever the three missing members of their own crew are being held captive.

Manuel Felipe Gomez y Palomares from the human colony planet, Nuevo Mexico, is Captain Per Stenvik's ensign. He tells van Rijn:

"'My father was a huntsman in the Sierra de los Bosques Secos, and I traveled in space as a mercenary with Roger's Rovers, becoming sergeant before I left them for your service.'" (p. 307)

Roger's Rovers sound familiar. Have we encountered them before? There was a British comic strip called "Roy of the Rovers," but that was about footballers, not mercenaries.

Here are at least two potential additions to the Technic History:

an installment set on Nuevo Mexico, making it as real as Avalon, Dennitza or Aeneas;
a sub-series about Roger's Rovers, including Manuel's adventures before he joined Solar.

2 comments:

David Birr said...

Paul:
The familiarity MAY simply be that the name resembles that of the real-life group Rogers' Rangers (light infantry for reconnaissance and special operations) that fought for Britain in the French and Indian War a.k.a. the Seven Years War.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and DAVID!

I think we are missing some of the implications of Manuel's comment about how he was once a mercenary. First, while for most of the era of the Polesotechnic League, there was peace within its vaguely defined bounds, nonetheless wars happened frequently enough for mercenary units to find employment. Second, this warfare seems to have been mostly between very small states fighting for limited gains with limited means. Because I don't think it would be practical to fight LARGE wars over vast distances with only mercenaries. Third, it seems a bad sign that some states took recourse to war, no matter how limited. A sign of the Time of Troubles to come?

Sean