on screen, the Federation and the Klingons;
in James Blish's Cities In Flight, Earthmen and Vegans;
in Poul Anderson's Mirkheim, Hermetians and Baburites;
in Anderson's The People Of The Wind, Empire and Domain;
in Anderson's Ensign Flandry, Empire and Roidhunate.
The author must imagine FTL capacity, then imagine what combat might be like at such velocities. As we have remarked before, Anderson writes like a veteran.
His space wars have realistic ambiguities. It turns out to be human beings that had armed the Baburites. What had seemed to be an inter-species conflict turns out to be the first civil war in the Polesotechnic League. We favor the Domain of Ythri when it resists the Terran Empire but favor the Empire when it resists the Merseian Roidhunate. Later, Domain and Empire together resist the Roidhunate.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But the Empire never tried to take over the entire Domain, only to "readjust" border disputes in its favor when the Imperium concluded Ythri was not serious about resolving these quarrels. The war in THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND was very much like an 18th century "cabinet war," fought for limited goals and ends. Not an existential life and death struggle. And some of the characters admitted the Domain was partly at fault for the war.
I think the Ythrian concept of "death pride" got in the way of the leaders of the Domain making a truly realistic assessment of the situation. It seems to have blinded them to grasping how much STRONGER the Empire was compared to the Domain. I think a human state in such a situation would have tried offering concessions to the Empire--which in turn would have been willing to negotiate on how MUCH to seriously demand.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I've said it before, but Poul Anderson gives us a very convincing depiction of what a battle between warships in space will very likely be like in Chapter 17 of ENSIGN FLANDRY. Even Jerry Pournelle and Dave Drake, who have both written excellent military science fiction, did not surpass Anderson here. Pournelle and Drake were excellent at showing us what wars on planetary surfaces are likely to be, however (as was Anderson, when he needed to show such things). But battles in SPACE doesn't seem to interest that many writers. Perhaps it seems too abstract and non "concrete" to them?
Sean
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