I had wanted images of Sikhs to illustrate a parallel between my experience and that of Poul Anderson's Terangi Maclaren whom we are pleased to meet again, having first encountered him in The Enemy Stars. Maclaren knows that he should address an Arvelan couple as "'...Voah-and-Rero.'" ("The Ways of Love," p. 132. See here.) When I visited the house of Daljit Singh in Manchester, I knew that I should not address his wife as "Mrs. Singh." That is all. But the details help. I once offended a Jewish man by pronouncing the Tetragrammaton and will avoid that mistake in future.
In "The Ways of Love," the Citadel is busy controlling humanity, including the extrasolar colonies where there is disaffection, subversion and rebellion. Then grant the colonies their independence and treat them as equals! Has no one learned anything from history? The Arvelans have no government so some human beings ask whether humanity needs the Citadel. Good question. Arvelans are different but such questions need to be asked. Merging human and Arvelan matter transmission systems will double the space and planets accessible to humanity, thus making the human race ungovernable, causing it to expand unpredictably in many directions. The Protectorate will not survive. Then it does not deserve to. We are back to earlier Arguments.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson being Anderson, you will find characters in his works giving opposing POVs. In this case I found a text in Chapter 9 of THE ENEMY STARS giving us what amounts to a PRO-Protectorate view (David Ryerson speaking): "...I've heard the story of the poor oppressed colonies before now. I think you yourself are proof the Protectorate is better than you deserve. As for me, I never saw a milli of this supposed extortion from other planets: my father worked his way up from midshipman to captain, my brothers and I went through the Academy on merit, as citizens of the poorest and most overcrowded world in the universe. Do you imagine you know what competition is? Why, you blowhard clodhopper, you wouldn't last a week on Earth."
Several things can be inferred from this: the Protectorate, at its best, at least preserved the peace on Earth and the colonies. And most of the tribute it collected necessarily went to meeting the costs of doing so. Also, Earth is the REAL center of the known humanly settled galaxy; and even people from modest or humble origins could rise on Earth if they had what it took to do so.
But, yes, the shock finally encountering non-humans would have disruptive effects on the Protectorate, so much so that the ruling dynasty was likely to fall in a generation or so due to this contact with aliens. And it was better for the human race to accept permanent contact with the Arvelans despite the upheavals that would come from doing so.
Sean
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