Tuesday 5 September 2023

Transitional History

"Sargasso of Lost Starships."

Sometimes characters in future history series obligingly summarize their history for us. Tetsuo Takahashi, executive officer of the light cruiser, H.M. Ganymede, advises Basil Donovan:

"'Read your history sometime.'" (II, p. 384)

- then recounts it for us:

two centuries previously, the Commonwealth had broken up in civil wars;

savages with spaceships raided and conquered;

a dozen warlords scorched whole planets;

Manuel I proclaimed himself Emperor of Sol, expelled barbarians from the Solar System, conquered and civilized them, subjugated closer stars to protect lines of communication, then dealt with further trouble that arose elsewhere;

his successor, the second Argolid, continued what Manuel had started;

that successor's "'...son, Manuel II, is finishing the job.'" (p. 385);

the Empire is now large enough to be self-sufficient but not too large to control.

The transition from the Polesotechnic League period is complete. The stage has been set for The People of the Wind and the Dominic Flandry series.

6 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

Judging from the Flandry stories, normally the Empire sort of 'reigns over lightly' when it comes to most planets.

Incidentally, this was true of the Roman Empire, generally speaking, too. If you read Pliny's letters, for example, you get an idea of how -small- the Roman government generally was, even in places like western Anatolia, which were very prosperous and advanced by the standards of the day. It tried to keep the peace, oversaw the judicial system, and collected (rather light) taxes.

Jim Baerg said...

"collected (rather light) taxes."

Had the Romans learned from the resentments & rebellions provoked by "Tax Farming" where some rich Roman had the responsibility to collect a certain amount of tax revenue & kept any excess he managed to coerce out of the populace of the province?

S.M. Stirling said...

Augustus reformed the tax system, and limited the role of "publicans" (private contractors who bid for tax collection contracts). They were eventually eliminated in the 2nd century.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!

If the fictional "Sargasso" was placed about 150 years after Manuel I founded the Empire, then I think ENSIGN FLANDRY is to be thought occurring a bit over 250 years later.

And we both wondered if Manuel II was the Manuel the Wise mentioned by Aycharaych in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS.

Mr. Stirling: Correct, more than once in the stories it's mentioned how "lightly" the Empire ruled. "The Game of Glory" puts some stress on how even an advanced planet like Nyanza had only one Imperial official, the Resident. Most of the actual governing was done by the various Nyanzan principalities. I recall Flandry commenting the Imperium would prefer to have more officials on these planets, except it wasn't practical.

I touched on the basics of the administrative structure of the Empire in my "Sector Governors in the Terran Empire" note. Briefly:

The Emperor
The Policy Board
Central administrative and military agencies/ministries on Terra
Sector Governors
Various ranks of commissioners
Residents

And the Emperor's title of Final Arbiter implied the existence of an Imperial judiciary for handling law cases, civil and criminal, coming to it, say, by appeals from the courts of the planets.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Bear in mind that though the Roman Empire was a very advanced preindustrial culture in many respects, it was still preindustrial.

That meant that most people couldn't pay a large proportion of their income in taxes, because they just weren't that far over the margin of subsistence.

You don't get many taxes from people who you've starved to death. The basic productivity of the economy sets the limits.

Note that Rome's revenues were comparatively high because the Empire resulted in a very high level of long-distance trade in bulk commodities, which the central government tapped by ad-valorum taxes on trade, collected at provincial boundaries. They weren't very high but the total amount was enormous.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Makes sense to me. And, given the advanced tech and economy of the Terran Empire, the Imperium could actually tax somewhat more deeply but in ways most people would think quite light. But truly enormous sums would be raised!

And those funds would largely be used for the vast Navy the Empire needed.

Ad astra! Sean