"'In my opinion we should never have closed down the Communists..."
-Chapter Five, p. 81. (For the full reference to this novel by SM Stirling, see here.)
This is conspiracist language. A conspiracy theorist asks not, "Why were there two World Wars, then a Cold War, and why did the Soviet Union collapse?" but, "Why did the secret controllers of the world cause two World Wars and a Cold War and then destroy the Soviet Union?"
Apparently, it can be consoling to believe that events are controlled, not random, even if the controllers are neither us nor benign.
Could a future history be based on a conspiracy theory?
Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle & SM Stirling and others contributed to the Man-Kzin Wars period of Larry Niven's Known Space future history. Pournelle & Stirling imported a history-controlling Brotherhood. See The Conspiracy.
Anderson's Danellians let history follow its own course until it deviates from the path that leads to them. Anderson's Wardens and Rangers, waging their time war, cause all past ideological conflicts, e.g., Cavaliers versus Roundheads. One Warden wonders whether they will eventually kill the dinosaurs and crater the Moon.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The Shadowspawn are certainly not benign! But Adrian Breze, a Shadowspawn himself, believed it was not impossible for Shadowspawn to be reasonably decent persons IF they were raised to develop a conscience.
Sean
The Council of Shadows prefers authoritarian governments because they're easier to hijack. You simply put the knuckle on the people at the top. Also, thoroughly totalitarian ones virtually destroy the concept of 'truth', so it's easier to maintain the concealment of the Shadowspawn.
Beria, the chief of Stalin's secret police, in some respects lived like a Shadowspawn lord -- they're still digging up the bodies of girls he murdered from the garden of his house.
Mr Stirling,
Ugh! Beria was the Head of SMERSH in the first Bond novel but remained off-stage.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling!
Gads! That I had not known, about Beria killing young girls and burying them in his garden. Yes, Beria certainly lived like a Shadowspawn and probably was one in your urban fantasy series.
Sean
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