Natural Selection Of Fictional Characters

Nicholas van Rijn has persuaded leaders of Flock and Fleet that they can agree. Only the Fleet Admiral resists but he is an absolute monarch. How does van Rijn solve this problem? Flamboyantly, of course, but how specifically?

First, he deliberately provokes the Admiral. An aggressive man severely provoked will punch or kick whereas a carnivorous Diomedean similarly provoked tends to bite, especially since van Rijn obligingly offers a tempting target: standing directly in front of the Admiral but turning his back to bow to the audience. Van Rijn reasons: Diomedean food poisons human beings so the reverse should be true. Further: as soon as the Admiral sickens, his more reasonable and amenable prime minister, "Chief Executive Officer," will be able to seize control. Problem solved.

Thus, van Rijn has survived sabotage, shipwreck, capture, rescue, long journeys, defeat in a land battle, a stalemated sea battle, starvation, hostile negotiations and a personal assault. Is this possible? Yes. We must remember that many Master Merchants of the Polesotechnic League would have succumbed at one of the listed stages. That last hurdle could have been the fatal one. He might not have survived the personal assault. Thus, by a process of natural selection and in a galaxy littered with the corpses of unsuccessful merchants, van Rijn has survived to become the hero of an sf novel by Poul Anderson.