On Cynthia, there are trade routes but no tribes, clans, nations, states, choths or Vachs. Trade routes that have joined interstellar Technic civilization feel no obligation to help those that have not.
When, flying above Merseia, Chee Lan sees a cultivated plain with villages surrounding castles, she wonders whether the Merseians have combined feudalism with industrialism. The set-up sounds feudal, Vachs sound like feudal realms and also:
in the social dislocation following the industrial revolution, the baronial tradition survives as the Gethfennu, organized crime;
-copied from Merseia.
I think of the Mafia as a survival of feudal relationships.
Thus, a Cynthian applies a Terrestrial concept to Merseian society.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I can see why some characters, such as Chee Lan, would note how the Gethfennu (and Terran analogs from the past, such as the Mafia), would resemble feudalism. Esp. in its practical organization and functioning. But I think care is needed not to press this resemblance too far. After all, the feudalisms seen on Earth and Merseia arose in a context where they became accepted as legitimate, governing according to the laws and customs of their societies. That was never the case with the Mafia or the Gethfennu, which operated in violation of and opposition to those laws.
True, Falkayn's actions in "Day of Burning" led, ironically, to the Getfennu obtaining a power and quasi-legal status it had hitherto lacked. But, as Morruchan Long-Ax made plain at the end of the story, many others on Merseia would never ACCEPT that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yeah, but European feudalism started more as a product of the chaotic collapse of the Carolingian Empire and its attempted restoration of Roman methods; as local protection setups... often "rackets"... when central and regional authority collapsed amid the squabbles between Charlemagne's heirs and the Norse and Magyar and Muslim invasions.
Meresia reminds me of Japan a good deal -- and they continued feudal traditions into the industrial era, too, and have ancient organized-crime setups (the yakuza are sometimes centuries old as institutions.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Again, I don't disagree. I do believe European feudalism mostly arose in the anarchy following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire and from local strong men simply seizing control of larger or smaller territories as little better than extortion/protection rackets.
And the Norse, Magyar, and Muslim raids and invasions made it even more anarchic after the death of Louis the Pious.
I have seen suggestions that the US Mafia also has old origins, that it dates back to similar organized crime rackets in Naples and Sicily.
Ad astra! Sean
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