Bors and Elva have an eight-room apartment in the highest part of the Lebedan Tower;
Dirzh is bigger, smokier and uglier than before;
more people cease to be clients, go underground and join the gangs;
patrons hear pitched battles in the tunnels;
the mine and slag mountains are being converted into tenements;
live shows offer blood-lettings by means other than combat;
the news is of workers shipped from Imfan to fill the labor shortage resulting from a suppressed revolt on Novagal.
How long can this last? There is suffering and struggle on the lower strata of any oppressive society but, on Chektoi, the social pyramid is literal and physical: patrons in their towers hear battles in the tunnels directly below them! How long before the towers are invaded, cut off or undermined?
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! How long can so dangerously LOP SIDED a society as that of Chertkoi last? Any reasonably stable or tolerable society needs to be one where most people don't feel or ARE miserable and endangered most of the time. Even without defeat in the Vaynamo war, I would expect Chertkoi to soon suffer a catastrophic collapse.
Sean
Some very nasty societies have lasted a long time; but Cherktoi seems to be undermining the physical supports necessary for the system to go on.
*Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly! A wasteful, short sighted, inefficient use of resources brought Cherktoi to this disastrous point.
I would be interested to learn some examples from you of nasty societies lasting a long time. I've thought of the USSR from 1917-91, or the grotesque Kim "dynasty" misruling North Korea from 1950 onward.
Sean
North Korea's a good example -- one reason I used them as a villain in the later Change books.
The state of Chin/Qin, culminating in the First Emperor, Shi Huangti, also comes to mind, and its State philosophy, Legalism.
"Punishment produces fear; fear produces obedience; obedience produces discipline; discipline produces virtue. Therefore, punishment produces virtue."
One of their maxims was to punish the mildest offenses with maximum severity, to instill fear.
The results have been parodied in a conversation among some conscripts, sitting in the mud because of heavy storms, just before the insurrection which overthrew the First Emperor's dynasty.
Q: Brothers, what's the penalty for being late?
A: Death.
Q: Brothers, what's the penalty for rebellion?
A: Death.
Q: Well, Brothers, here's the situation... WE'RE LATE!
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