A humorous Catholic preacher described the Church Triumphant (in Heaven) as "all saints," the Church Suffering (in Purgatory) as "all souls" and the Church Militant (on Earth) as "all sorts." That third description - and not the first - also applies to the Patrol.
Are there agents, maybe originating in violent societies, whose morality differs drastically from that of Poul Anderson and his readers but who are accepted by the Danellians because they serve the aims of the Patrol? The Patrol preserves vicious regimes whether or not it also recruits from them. If future milieus include a Nazi dictatorship, does the Patrol police that milieu only with agents born in more benign civilizations or does it instead employ some Nazis to brutalize others? We are shown only a very small section of the total history of the Patrol.
See also here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
If the Time Patrol is MOSTLY a reasonably decent organization, I find it difficult to imagine it recruiting agents from convinced Nazis or Communists. Esp. not from the Gestapo or the KGB. Their fanaticism and brutality would make them unfit and dangerous to recruit. Perhaps some lower down officials, but still in useful posts, with secret doubts about the rightness of Nazism and Communism, would be "signed up."
I'm reminded of Don Luis Castelar, whom we see in "The Year of the Ransom." He was a VERY intelligent and able man, and a quite decent sort, by his and our standards. There was even some argument within the Patrol, for a while, on whether Castelar should be offered a job with the Patrol. Don Luis would be the kind of "local" the Patrol would keep eye open for as possible recruits.
Sean
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