Desai's Theory

For human beings at least, there is a historical cycle with over fifty examples, including Old China three times, older Egypt three times, India and the Roman Empire;

the stages are -

growth,
wrong decisions,
breakdown,
wars,
Pax enforced by the universal state or Empire,
dissolution of the Pax,
its reconstitution,
final collapse or disintegration,
a dark age,
a new society beginning in the ruins;

the wrong decision for Technic civilization was the transformation of the Polesotechnic League from a mutual-aid organization of free entrepreneurs into a set of cartels;

the Terran Empire is the universal state of Technic civilization;

its Pax is a militarily enforced subservience, giving only a respite from the wars multiplying after the original breakdown;

this anarchic phase or interregnum can include stretches of peace and relative prosperity but will last for only about another eighty years unless modern technology, nonhuman influences or interstellar distances alter the duration;

suspicion and centralization encourage incompetence;

defence and civil functions disintegrate, provoking rebellion;

the Empire will rise again as a centralized divine autocracy (Diocletian);

that second peace of exhaustion will be followed by the final collapse and the Long Night, although this is not inevitable because a fresh start is possible with the will and the means;

however, an empire in the anarchic phase is prone to invasion and conquest;

thus, Osmans, Afghans, Moguls, Manchus, Spaniards, British etc conquered older cultures;

in this way, Terra is threatened not by barbarians, Ythri or Gorrazan but by Merseia;

in fact, Aycharaych and others in the Roidhunate probably know and apply this theory of human history;

the basic theory was formulated a millennium earlier and is to be found in the archives but Desai's experience and further study confirm it;

it has been successively rationalized, ignored and suppressed and Desai can share it with Flandry only by speaking in confidence;

there is not yet any comparable theory about other races, including the Merseians, but Desai intends further study in his retirement;

Emperor Hans would be better advised not to lead an armada against the barbarians but to remain at home to guard against civil wars, even at the expense of losing the Spican sector.

In this exposition, Desai does not use the terminology of the "Principate" and "Dominate" phases of the Empire which is used in Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization.