"I don't blame [the Sartaz of Alfzar] for wishing a plague on both our houses, Flandry thought..." (p. 296)
By googling, I have learned that the phrase, "A plague on both your houses," is a quotation from Romeo and Juliet. This quotation is appropriate in the current context because the independent Betelgeusean System, ruled from the planet Alfzar, is a buffer zone between the Terran Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate.
Interstellar realms in this period of the Technic History are:
the Terran Empire
the Merseian Roidhunate
the Domain of Ythri
the Dispersal of Ymir
the Gorrazanian remnant
the Betelgeusan System which has forty-seven planets, six with life, and which rules a few nearby stars for defensive purposes
"A plague on both your houses" is an important principle. We should never accept that there are only two sides and that, if we are against one, then we are for the other. Irish Republicans said, "We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland." During the Cold War, one left group said, "Neither Washington nor Moscow..."
4 comments:
The problem with the "Neither King nor Kaiser" was that either the King's country or the Kaiser's was going to win -- and if the Kaiser's did... well, as the Belgians and the Poles about that one.
Or the Russians or the Romanians; take a look at the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest, which Germany imposed on them when they were defeated -- they make Versailles look like a Quaker love-feast.
Ireland had considerable prospects for getting autonomy and/or independence in the existing international system of 1914, though in ways involving compromise.
If Germany succeeded in destroying the system -- which was, basically, their war aim -- then Ireland, like everyone else in the area, was in deep doo-doo.
So that attitude was, at best, short-sightedly selfish, and more probably catastrophically stupid.
It persisted into WWII, where it was even more of both, with de Valera sending official condolences on the death of Hitler(!) to the German embassy. I invite you to contemplate the consequences for Ireland if Hitler and Germany had won -that- one.
Note also that the British Empire itself made extensive instrumental use of exactly the same attitude -- I hate my neighbor X, so let's call in foreign power Y against them -- to take over Ireland itself originally, and then applied it on a much bigger scale in North America, Asia and Africa.
The New England Indians who sided with the Puritan English settlers against the Pequots (who'd been threatening and arrogant towards their Indian neighbors and made themselves detested) lived to regret it.
Though most of them didn't live much longer than that.
There's a similar dynamic in this Flandry story.
The Terran Empire is a satiated power; it just wants to preserve the status quo, and is perfectly happy to see the Belguetese system maintain its independence. They're a useful buffer, they save Terra trouble, good for them.
The Meresian attitude is, to put it mildly, very different.
Thank you for such comprehensive analysis.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, and, however irritated the Sartaz might sometimes be with Terra, he must have realized the complete triumph of Merseia would mean ruin for his realm.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment