On Kandemir, vast, fertile plains enabled nomads to domesticate animals,
to sustain government, literacy and technology and to dominate the
cities, where subject races labor in immobile industries like mining.
T'sjudan space travelers arrived and began to trade. Kandemirian
nomadism became an interstellar empire subordinating even T'sjuda but
opposed by a coalition led by the Dragar of Vorlak, a warrior class who
had displaced the Vorlakka imperium when space travelers reached Vorlak.
Cold and dryness plus lack of heavy metals, fossil fuels and
fissionables explain why the Altaians became nomads without losing
scientific knowledge.
See also:
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Some points should be which has not yet been said. Most humans would not have wanted to settle on Altai for many reasons: too cold, dry, lacking in metals and other resources. Recall how Oleg Khan told Flandry that the Russo/Mongols who colonized Altai were too WEAK to snap up a better planet. Which means that by the late 2300's, during the Breakup, most of the really desirable planets colonizable by humans within about 225 light years of Earth had been staked out by people who would not welcome uninvited outsiders.
Ad astra! Sean
And the original settlers of Altai wanted to farm, until they found that it wasn't practical whereas herding and nomadism were.
Incidentally, I'm building a mixed Russo-Mongol society in my BLACK CHAMBER books, where von Ungern-Sternberg stays in power in Mongolia for a lot longer, and Russian refugees from German and Japanese-held Siberia follow him, including the Cossacs from the Ussuri, Amur and Trans-Baikal Hosts.
He's smart enough to encourage genuine partnership with the Mongols -- he adopts their religion (which the historical man did), learns their language (ditto), wears their dress, eats their food, and marries a local princess (all also ditto the historical von Ungern-Sternberg).
And he encourages his Russian followers to do the same -- easier because Mongol society in the early 20th century had a large percentage of unmarried women due to so many men becoming Buddhist monks, while the incoming Russians have a male majority, like most population movements of that sort.
And the Russians also draw on Cossack traditions, already heavily influenced by cultural borrowing from steppe peoples.
Note that von Ungern-Sternberg was technically a theosophist, but Madame Blavatsky borrowed so extensively from Buddhist and Hindu theology that it's not much of a stretch. Especially when the Buddhism in question is Tibetan "Greater Vehicle" style, with its legions of supernatural figures and so forth.
When he wasn't being a bloodthirsty lunatic, von Ungern-Sternberg was actually quite a clever lad.
He also appoints lots of Mongol nobles to important positions, to make it clear that it isn't just a Russian takeover; this is made easier by the fact that he was Baltic German himself, not an ethnic Russian. He was a very strong monarchist and loyal to the Czar, but not a Russian ethnic nationalist to any substantial degree.
The Mongols of the period were also terrified of being overrun by Chinese immigrants, which had already largely happened in _Inner Mongolia_, south of the Gobi, which is part of China to this day and where Mongols are about as numerous relatively speaking as African-Americans are here.
Kaor, Mr. Stiring!
Fascinating comments! I'm already seeing some of what you wrote here about von Ungern-Sternberg in DAGGERS IN DARKNESS, which I'm getting close to finishing. And I do plan to comment on it here, with Paul's permission.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Maybe you could email your comments in an article which I can copy onto the blog?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Thank's how I was thinking it might best be done. Thanks!
Ad astra! Sean
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