In Conquistador, SM Stirling turns this Alexandrian premise on its head. Alexander lived to seventy and bequeathed a vast, undivided empire that lasted for a hundred years but then fell apart in civil wars and barbarian invasions. Its twentieth century legacy is city-states, kingdoms and tribes with late medieval technology worshiping Zeus-Alexander and an undiscovered New World ripe for conquest from a timeline very similar to ours.
That is it for this month, folks. Posts will resume some time in July.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Dang! I'm tempted to set aside Wright's ARCHITECT OF AEONS to reread Stirling's CONQUISTADOR. One point about the "Alexandrine" Secondside world discovered by John Rolfe VI is: what happened to the Jews there? No Judaism means no Christianity, and everything that flowed from them. Including no REAL science as we know it. Recall "Delenda est" where Anderson had Manse Everard saying that without the Judaeo/Christian belief in One God and the sharpening of logic and reason by Christianity, there would have been no science as we know it.
Hmmm, I could speculate that even if Judaism disappeared and Christianity never arose on Secondside by Our Lord becoming Incarnate in that world/time line, salvation would be offered to men thru Christ by missionaries eventually spreading from the Commonwealth. Both Catholic and Protestant missionaries, I'm sure.
Sean
Sean,
Christianity requires for its origin not only Judaism but also the Roman Empire. But something like Christianity might have arisen when the SecondSide Alexandrian Empire was disintegrating.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Since Judaism seems to have disappeared on Secondside (meaning, among other things, no Christianity independently arising there), the only other religion I can think which might come somewhat close in theological importance is Zoroastrianism. I don't in the least believe in its or any other type of dualism, but I think Zoroastrianism to be the noblest religion after Judaism and Christianity. G.K. Chesterton thought so as well in his book THE EVERLASTING MAN.
Sean
Sean,
Mithraism, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, could have become more like Christianity in different circumstances.
I think that Buddhism is the noblest religion but then my whole underlying philosophical approach is different.
I think that Mani claimed to synthesize Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity although again I would need to google to confirm that it was precisely these three.
Discussing sf involves discussing everything else.
Paul.
*What If?*, edited by Robert Cowley, is a collection of essays by historians on various might-have-beens. One of them explored the possibilities of a world in which Alexander died YOUNGER than he historically did -- but it briefly mentioned that a world in which he lived LONGER than in our own might not be as nice as the utopia Arnold Toynbee imagined for such a case.
"We might posit that if Alexander really had lived for another thirty years, there would have been much more widespread destruction of existing Asian cultures and disastrous impoverishment in the process of the sapping of local resources to finance a never-ending cycle of opportunistic predation that offered little but misery in its wake. And so we might posit that the Hellenistic world (and its modern legacy) might never have come about if its progenitor had lived much longer."
Stirling seems to have agreed with that assessment, whether he actually read it or came up with an independent version.
Kaor, Paul!
I have to partially disagree with you about Mithraism. I agree it's an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, but it had pagan/polytheistic accretions which I believe would have limited its appeal to serious seekers of God.
And you know my view of Buddhism, such as how it teaches things like reincarnation, the nothingness of Nirvana, a detached view of the world amounting to disdain, practical atheism, etc., which no Christian can agree with. It's more a philosophy, not a religion.
Like you, I don't know enough about Manicheeism (spelling?) to comment adequately about it. I think Mani taught the physical world is bad or evil, an idea Christians have to reject.
I certainly agree that the discussion of SF seems to lead to discussing everything else! (Smiles)
Sean
Hi, David!
Interesting what you said about Stirling's view about what might have happened if Alexander the Great had lived 30 or 40 years longer. That is, Alexander's empire would have been mostly a bad thing for the world. I'm rereading CONQUISTADOR, so I'll try to watch out for that idea.
Sean
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