-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 4, p. 104.
We knew that Dominic Flandry had defeated the Aenean Rebellion. Now we are told how that Rebellion felt to people on Aeneas. It is always possible to revisit a historical period and learn more about it.
Later in the Technic History:
we had known that Emperor Josip was corrupt but now we learn how the Imperial corruption alienated Erik Magnusson so that his loyalty shifted to Merseia;
we also learn about the earlier history of the Zacharians and of Dakotia - previously unknown to us, they had always been part of the History.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
That very same sternness and righteousness of Erik Magnusson COULD have made him, if anything, more loyal to the Empire. Magnusson pere could have reflected that Emperors, like presidents and prime ministers, come and go. So Josip's could have been a much better Emperor. PREFERABLY, a Wang Dynasty Emperor.
Josip III was a corrupt Emperor, but his very weakness and stupidity would tend to lessen the harm he might otherwise have done. Esp. when his mother the Empress Dowager was alive, to keep him on a reasonably short leash. I think the most harmful single thing Josip did was refusing to marry and have children, to provide heirs for an indisputably legitimate sucscession for the throne.
Sean
Again, I made a maddening mistake! I meant to write "Josip could have been SUCCEEDED by a much better Emperor" in the next to last sentence of the first paragraph of my first comment here. Darn!!!
I do think it's necessary sometimes to be "dreadfully serious and constructive" to prevent misunderstanding.
Sean
It's interesting that the Empire has cloning technology but doesn't use it. That would make a hereditary succession much less of a genetic lottery. You could guarantee that the monarch would be intelligent and forceful; those aspects of personality are largely inherited. How you use them depends on "nurture" of course, but that could be roughly controlled.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
But regenerating of damaged or lost limbs and organs was known, as can be seen in both "The Problem of Pain," and ENSIGN FLANDRY. Recall how Cmdr. Abrams explained to Dwyr the Hook how his own superiors had lied to him about it being impossible to heal his war wounds. Abrams said the DNA pattern in undamaged parts of Dwyr's body would be used to regenerate/clone lost tissue, limbs, organs, etc. Dwyr's outrage at how he had been lied to was why he defected to the Empire.
Chapter 1 of THE GAME OF EMPIRE shows us a Navy rating with a new, cloned arm, replacing the arm he lost in battle. So cloning was known and used in the Empire. But I agree Anderson could have made more use of it, such as in both preserving the Imperial succession and making sure the cloned sons of Emperors were reasonably intelligent and able men.
I would put down this rather minimal use of cloning in Anderson's Technic series largely to it being still a very hypothetical technology, until he wrote A STONE IN HEAVEN. We do see Edwin Cairncross in that book deciding that he would clone himself if he succeeded in making himself Emperor.
I think it would be very interesting if an SF writer did take a really deep look into what it might be like if cloning was used to ensure a succession of able leaders. I can imagine both good and and possibilities!
Sean
Post a Comment