Flandry tells McCormac:
"'Go a long way, McCormac, as far as you possibly can. Find a new planet. Found a new society. Never come back.'" (p. 512)
We imagine a new society on a new planet far way. But we need not just imagine it. This is a future history series. "Starfog," set millennia later, shows us a human-descended spaceship crew from a planet far away in another spiral arm of the galaxy. We infer their descent from the exiled Aenean rebels. And there is more to it than that. Later in his career, Flandry will rescue a colony planet called Vixen. And a man not from Vixen but from its colony, New Vixen, will meet that crew from the planet far away, which is called Kirkasant. The Technic History has shown us three planetary sources of wealth, Satan, Mirkheim and Wayland. Kirkasant is located inside a nebula that turns out to be full of planetary sources of wealth. The history continues although, unfortunately, beyond our ken.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree the Kirkasanters very likely descended from the McCormac rebels. But only from some of them. The story mentions how the Kirkasanters knew of only one ship which had brought their ancestors to Kirkasant. These ancestors either defected from McCormac's fleet or somehow got lost.
Ad astra! Sean
Yeah, why would the bulk of them go all the way into a weird nebula? They could just go a couple of hundred light-years and find some nice Terresteroid planet to settle. It's made clear that the Empire doesn't care what happens that far away.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, only misfortune or accident could have gotten the ancestors of the Kirkasanters settling so marginal a planet.
I also think Flandry would prefer McCormac leading his followers at least 500 light years away from the Empire, too far away for them to be a realistic threat.
Ad astra! Sean
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