Heim rams one Aleriona spaceship with another. Fox II liberates New Europe. Earth defeats Alerion. Heim settles on New Europe which declares independence from the World Federation. Heim spells out the usual Andersonian moral that mankind needs diversity, also adding that isolated, self-sufficient planets have nothing to fight about. When it is pointed out that there has just been an interstellar war, he replies that that was precisely because someone had tried to hinder human development. However, there will be another war for other reasons in the sequel. Do American sf writers find it difficult to stop writing about wars? Sometimes trade replaces war as the main interstellar interaction and two Andersonian short stories describe the peaceful biracial colonization of Avalon.
Typical quotes:
"'The universe is too big for any one pattern. No man can understand or control it, let alone a government.'" (The Star Fox, p. 205)
"'Let's find out how many kinds of society, human and non-human, can get along without a policeman's gun pointed at them. I don't think there is any limit.'" (ibid.)
And the passage that provides a title:
"'We're lying the foundations of' - he hunted for words - 'admiralty. Man's, throughout the universe.'" (p. 207)
Several Andersonian futures point in the same direction.
2 comments:
To the aliens in question, restraining human expansion was a deadly serious necessity. For reasons that seem odd to humans... but then, they're -alien-.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly! Beings of other races should not be expected to always have reasons for opposing mankind "we" consider rational. And that is true of many, many conflicts among humans as well.
Ad astra! Sean
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