At the Coral Palace, for the Emperor's Birthday, Crown Prince Josip receives:
"[Hauksberg] often wondered what would become of the Empire when that creature mounted the throne." (p. 9)
We find out later in The Rebel Worlds. Then, later again, in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, we find out what happens when Emperor Josip has died without leaving an heir. After a civil war, most of which has happened between volumes, Captain Flandry takes his orders directly from Emperor Hans - the usurper. The new Molitor dynasty is still in place by the end of the Flandry subseries although there have been two attempts to overthrow it. The Empire is in a turbulent period which the Merseians understand and attempt to exploit. Indeed, the pretender, Olaf Magnusson, is their man although this is exposed not by Flandry but by a new team including his daughter. And we want this story to continue although, unfortunately, the next instalment of the Technic History is set after the Fall of the Empire. We are relieved to learn that Merseia has not filled to space left by Terra but we could use some information on the decline of the Roidhunate.
As JRR Tolkien wrote of The Lord of the Rings: "It is too short."
6 comments:
I did find it a bit odd that the Empire continues to rely on the 'genetic crapshoot' of normal reproduction. Why not just clone an able Emperor?
Genes don't absolutely determine personality, but they heavily influence it -- look how similar identical twins raised separately tend to be.
And failing profound environmental traumas during upbringing, genes -do- largely determine the -abilities- of individuals.
So a line of cloned Emperors, reared in even merely generally similar circumstances, would give you a high level of continuity, -at- a high level of competence.
No bad Emperors.
And it's mentioned that human cloning is easily available.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
In fairness to Anderson, the concept of cloning was still so new and strange at the time he wrote ENSIGN FLANDRY that I don't think anyone had yet thought thru its possibilities.
It is intriguing, the idea of a dynasty of cloned Emperors. We see Edwin Cairncross, Duke of Hermes, unable to have children the normal way, thinking of getting cloned in A STONE IN HEAVEN. If he had succeeded in usurping the throne, he might have tried that.
But, setting aside questions about its morality, I wonder how widely or often cloning will be used if/when it becomes practical? If most people who want children can get them the normal way, that would seem to mean cloning would be relatively rare.
So Emperor Georgios, despite being able to use cloning, begot a son the normal way, with Josip turning out to be a very disappointing heir.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: a human being is a DNA molecule's way of making more DNA molecules. Cloning is more efficient at that, since it gives you offspring with -all- your genes.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree. I simply wonder how often cloning will be used if/when it becomes practical.
Some might argue the random mixing of genes, as has been done thru out human history, is better for the human race.
I can imagine elderly millionaires beta testing cloning technology like that! As a means of getting children with their talents/abilities.
Truth to say, I think the medical use of cloning more likely to be widely used. That is, if I have heart disease, cells could be taken from it to clone a new, healthy heart, to replace the diseased heart. Or, if I lose an arm or leg, my DNA pattern could be used to grow new limbs.
It was in ENSIGN FLANDY that I first came across such ideas. That book, first pub. in 1966, has to be one of the earliest SF stories using the concept of cloning.*
Ad astra! Sean
*The word "cloning" does not seem to have been known in 1966.
Would cloning the able, or something like the set up in Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" be better?
The 'Heinlein Solution' to the ethics of genetic engineering is to pick which half of your genome goes into your child. As knowledge is gained of genes which seem to make a person more likely have good sense, that might be better than duplicating an individual of ability.
For more on Heinlein's proposal see
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2015/01/robert-heinlein-and-looking-beyond-this.html
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