"...was lonesome among his fellow conquerors..."
-Poul Anderson, "The Game of Glory" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010),, pp. 303-339 AT I, p. 306.
In The Rebel Worlds (1969), written later but set earlier, we learn that such atrocities, indeed even worse ones, began when the degenerate Josip became Emperor. Thus, retroactively, Terran Imperial history is revised. In fact, apart from these aberrations during Josip's reign, it is, generally speaking, safer and more beneficial for a planet to be inside, rather than outside, the Empire.
But is this view consistent? In Ensign Flandry (1966), when Josip is still Crown Prince, Lord Hauksberg thinks:
"...Everybody knows the Empire was won and is maintained by naked power, the central government is corrupt and the frontier is brutal and the last organization with high morale, the Navy, lives for war and oppression and anti-intellectualism."
-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER ONE, p. 6.
And this contradicts Tabitha Falkyan's account in The People Of The Wind (1973). See Empires.
Different people say different things about empires and one author can think different things at different times when writing a series.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I disagree with what Lord Hauksberg said. His views reminds me a LOT of how left wing attackers of their own country were saying about the US in the 1960's and 1970's. So we need to take what Hauksberg said with a strong pinch of salt. I recall personally how left wingers were bashing the US like crazy for undoubted crimes like My Lai and wildly saying that was ALL that the US stood for. And making no allowance for human weakness and folly and refusing to take into account efforts to correct them.
I think you should also take into account what we learn in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, where we see the Empire making strong efforts to reform, correct, and amend Aaron Snelund's abuses of power. Yes, the weak and degenerate Josip did little or nothing to encourage such efforts, but they WERE made.
And I agree with what Tabitha Falkayn said. The Empire DID expand by means both peaceful and forceful. As was precisely the case with the US. And as was the case with almost all other nations larger than Andorra that I can think of.
Ad astra! Sean
This has sparked other thoughts that will follow today or tomoz.
Kaor, Paul!
Another point I should have made was how I personally remember as well was how "liberals" and unabashed left wingers in the '60's/'70's and even '80's were constantly ignoring, minimizing, denying, or even excusing the vastly worse misdeeds of the USSR. Which again reminds me of how hard Lord Hauksberg tried to do the same for Merseia in ENSIGN FLANDRY.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Stalinism was a millstone around our necks. A very small section of the left denounced the Russian regime as oppressive and exploitative - and were denounced for this in their turn.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That is or was the problem, only a VERY small number of left wingers had the honor and decency to denounce LENINISM/Stalinism. I refuse to excuse Lenin because he BEGAN what Stalin merely extended and completed.
Ad astra! Sean
A phenomenon as vast as the Terran Empire would be many different things to different people. That was true of the British Empire, where at any given time high-minded benevolence, ruthless plunder, and mutually beneficial synthesis existed in tension or mixtures or geographically separated enclaves. Read a history of the Brooke family in Sarawak for a particularly weirder-than-fiction mix.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! Anything as vast as the Terran Empire is very, very likely to have the kind of "mix" you listed. And I think PA showed that very well in his stories. And I did think of the Brookes of Sarawak!
Ad astra! Sean
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