A premise for an endless series: an immortal explorer travels between civilization-clusters, trying to trace the origin or origins of the superlight drive.
"Occasionally there was contact with one of the other loose astro-politico-economic clumps. There was no economic force to maintain it, and, culturally, these clusters diverged too much." (pp. 33-34)
An author would have to show the cultural divergences. And:
"...there was no question of a single culture for the whole cluster, or any sort of overall government." (pp. 34-35)
We are also told never to forget that even each planet is a whole world, another common Anderson theme. Who tells us never to forget? Does the omniscient narrator come on-stage to address the reader? No, this passage is a reflection by Donnan who thus reminds himself never to forget.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I remember Flandry commenting in THE REBEL WORLDS about how the Empire contained many wildly differing races, and how that forced the Imperium to develop equally variant ways of managing them well enough for an interstellar community to work. A few basics were: acknowledging allegiance to the Throne, payment of a modest tribute, and being willing to live in peace with your neighbors. Otherwise the race of the Empire pretty much governed themselves.
Sean
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