Draka Darkness

For recent blog comments by SM Stirling, see here.

The sub-genre of military sf is not my preferred reading. I value sf for new horizons and cosmic perspectives, not for high tech replays of World War II. However, good sf writers, notably Poul Anderson and SM Stirling, write good military sf - or maybe sometimes "good naval sf," if we transfer marine terminology to space combat: spaceships have Captains; space fleets have Admirals etc.

Clearly, Robert Heinlein approves of the society that he describes in Starship Troopers. Equally clearly, SM Stirling cannot possibly approve of what he describes in the Draka History! However - like Alan Moore depicting in merciless detail what a superhero-turned-villain would do to London -, Stirling is prepared to follow a fictional premise all the way to its horrific conclusion. Moore looks beyond London to a Golden Age whereas I suspect that Stirling's continuing series delves deeper into the Draka darkness.

We know from Marching Through Georgia that the Draka enslave populations and plan world conquest. In Under The Yoke (New York, 1989), they treat prisoners of war dishonorably. It is frankly sickening. I cannot bring myself to describe in detail what they do. Avoiding details, defeated enemy leaders are not respected but paraded, derided and shot. The Draka deliberately eschew any humane values.

Security Strategos Vashon, remembering such a victory spectacle, reflects:

"...that had been a good time. A time to be at one with the Race, when they could relax from the long years of grinding effort and feel the pride of a great accomplishment. Limitless vistas of power and possibility opening out before them..." (p. 55)

Sounds good? Sure, if our "Race" is the human race and if "power" does not mean subjugation.

Vashon thinks that it is a "...self-evident lie that all men were created equal." (p. 57) We are unequal in abilities but can be equal before the law. Alfie Rouse was hanged not for murdering anyone important but for burning to death an unknown, and still unidentified, hitchhiker. The law would have treated Rouse no worse if he had assassinated the Prime Minister whereas serfs (euphemism for slaves) who attack Draka are impaled as examples.

A ten year old Citizen girl, armed with a knife, thinks that her mother should punish two uppity serfs. Her mother gives her the advice quoted in the second image. Sound, pragmatic advice to a slave-owner, no doubt. But not all Draka give orders that they know will be disobeyed. Serfs can become trusted domestic servants and friends, albeit still unsalaried and unfree. Individual compassion is possible even within an oppressive system. See Schindler.

Systematic cruelty often brings out the worst in those who climb one step up the ladder, e.g., serfs becoming security guards. That this does not have to be the case is shown by Yasmin who protects fellow serfs and deflates a bullying guard. Because she is owned by a powerful family, she can strike the guard but he cannot risk striking her back...

When the ten year old girl has become old enough to think about clothes, she also wants to buy a serf of her own with money saved from her allowance. Imagine bringing up a child to think like that! And what chance does she have of learning to think any differently? If only one global generation could be brought up free from the "muck of ages..." I believe that adults should tell children, "This is what I think but you might think differently when you have learned more." But this means that I disagree with all the parents who want their children's education to include religious instruction. And it would also be wrong for me to try to enforce my view through legislation. Intolerant secularism is no better than intolerant belief.

I have passed over two instances of torture, both enjoyed by Draka witnesses. Finnish Resistance fighters, waging all out war against the Draka invaders, call them "...the snakes..." (p. 40), a denial of their humanity - appropriate in the circumstances. We, in our timeline, do not face the Draka but do face comparable threats, even including neo-Nazis. Stirling simply presents a worst case scenario for the history that he and his readers live in.

I am too young to remember World War II but did attend three different talks by Holocaust survivor Leon Greenman, who stayed with us when he spoke at Lancaster Town Hall. Leon ended one question-and-answer session by saying, "If anyone here is a Nazi, do not do it! You will become a monster, hated by your fellow men." In the Draka timeline, some European refugees escape to Britain... (Ketlan and my daughter leafleted every afternoon showing of Schindler's List to build for the Greenman public meeting, which filled a large hall to capacity. Later, Holocaust deniers attacked and damaged Leon's house so I got my union branch to donate to his defense fund.)

In our timeline, EP Thompson wrote The Making Of The English Working Class and Eric Hobsbawm wrote The Age Of Revolution, The Age Of Capital, The Age Of Empire and The Age Of Extremes. In the Draka timeline, EP Hobsdown wrote The Age Of Domination.

A possible proofreading point: on p. 17, Andrew von Shrakenberg seems to change his name to Alfred and back again?

It is Wednesday. I am reading new works by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman and drafting this post. As yet, I have read only a small part of Under The Yoke so there will be more posts about this novel. Stirling shows us oppressors who are credible human beings but who have become as accustomed to oppressing the serfs that outnumber them as we are to using twenty first century technology: unsettling but plausible.

Strategos Cynthia Carstairs informs Chiliarch Denford de Fourneault:

"...Security tells me there's another of those loony cults running through the factory compounds, claiming all the Draka are being spirited away by their master Satan."
-SM Stirling, Marching Through Georgia (New York, 1991), pp. 210-211.

So many of the Draka have gone to war that they must have been spirited away... Carstairs contemptuously refers to a "loony cult" but the factory serfs are deliberately isolated and kept in ignorance. Consequently, they can explain external events only by recourse to superstition: an appalling regime but one that the Draka must now maintain for their own survival.