Thursday 27 July 2017

Former Enemies

In the twentieth century (history), in Star Trek (futuristic sf), in Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization (future history) and in SM Stirling's Emberverse (alternative history), former enemies become friends and allies.

Reflections:

a pity that we could not all have been friends in the first place!;

can this process continue until every enemy has been transformed into a friend?;

I think that some societies deny their own internal conflicts by projecting them outwards, e.g., campaigners against local injustices must be agents of a foreign power?;

looking ahead to the blurbs for later novels, there seems to be a dynamic in the Emberverse that throws up a new enemy every time one has been defeated?;

I still hope for an eventual age of peace both in the real world and in others.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, one reason why so much of the better kinds of fiction, in and out of science fiction, uses strife, conflict, war to drive plots is because it SELLS. Stories and novels about quiet, peaceful, unadventurous people are not likely to sell like hotcakes!

And getting to a deeper point, unfortunately, to use Jerry Pournelle's title for his series of stories about military science fiction and non fiction articles, THERE WILL BE WAR. I see no reason, in the past, the present, and the foreseeable future, NOT to expect "wars and rumors of war," to paraphrase/quote another Person.

Sean