But what of those planets that are formally part of the Empire but described as follows:
"...for most the connection was ghostly tenuous..." (p. 348)
Most? Ghostly tenuous? How tenuous is that? Might there be some whose contact with the Empire was almost as minimal as I suggested in "Interstellar Empire." (See the above link.) Or planets most of whose inhabitants most of the time did not even know that they were notionally part of an Empire?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
You raised an interesting point I wish I had thought of, that planets visited only once or never within the sphere claimed by the Empire would de facto be protected by a Terra preventing Merseians or barbarians from raiding or seizing them.
I recall reading somewhere in the stories that even some planets which had formalized relations with the Imperium were only asked to keep a fixed portion of labor or resources available for use by the Empire in case of need. That would be quite tenuous!
I speculated in my "Sector Governors in the Terran Empire," that the Imperium subdivided the Empire into 100 sectors averaging a thousand planets each. At the top of a sector was the governor, at the bottom would be residents, who might actually be only one man or being! Intermediate would be the various ranks of commissioners, expected to handle personally large and difficult territories.
We also see mention of tribute assessors, Naval officers who focused on recruiting for the armed forces, and accountants and welfare investigators, etc.
And there might well be some planets, notionally and formally part of the Empire, but so vaguely so most people on them did not know that was the case.
Ad astra! Sean
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