Tuesday, 20 November 2018

The Threedom

Poul Anderson, The Fleet Of Stars, 9.

Terrans and Lunarians settled on Mars for profit, honor or achievement. In addition, some Terrans were political dissenters whereas some Lunarians were in blood-feuds. Initially, Lunarians were more numerous. A Selenarchy might have arisen not to terraform but to lunaform Mars. However, Terrans bred faster, Mars joined the Federation and began its decline.

There was a "Lyudov Rebellion" (p. 116) on Earth. This is one of those future historical events that remain off-stage so that we have to deduce what we can (not much) about it. It instigated three Lunarian towns, the Threedom, Arainn, Layadi and Daunan, in the Tharsis region, to declare independence. After the Rebellion, they disarmed and remained peaceful but did not recognize either the Federation or its successor, the Synesis, refusing to participate in elections or data collection. When discontent grew on Mars, Lunarians from the Threedom and elsewhere made weapons and went into the wilderness. Is their name significant: Inrai - InRaI?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I thought it ominous that the human colony on Mars began to decline after it joined the Federation. Hindsight tells us this was something the cymbercosm egged on as part of its policy of removing human beings from space and other worlds.

So, instead of having the Synesis crush the Threedom the cybercosm preferred to simply ignore the breakaway settlements, calculating they would gradually die without anything overt needing to be done.

Sean