This saying took on a different meaning when GK Chesterton's Fr. Brown said it to an Anglican clergyman - on TV, if not in an original story.
"'All roads lead to Trantor,' says the old proverb, 'and that is where all stars end.'"
-Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation (London, 1964), Part II, 22, p. 187.
"'A universe where all roads lead to roaming. Life never fails us. We fail it, unless we reach out.'"
-see here.
"Shortly afterward she struck the Ironhill road. It was wider and more rutted than most. 'All roads lead to Ironhill' - its folk supplied metals from their mines, trading for the timber of the forest people, the grain and jerked meat of the valley settlements, the salt and fish of the seadwellers. You could buy anything in Ironhill.
"Otherwise there was not much trade between towns. They were too scattered and too hostile."
-Virgin Planet, CHAPTER VI, p. 39.
So which destination would you prefer?
Rome;
Trantor;
roaming;
Ironhill.
14 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would prefer Nicholas van Rijn's "all roads lead to roaming...", etc.
But I have been to Rome as well!
I remember being a bit surprised at how quarrelsome the independent towns of Atlantis were. Perhaps a single sex planet would tend to be more pronounced in the bellicosity of its residents?
And in the Imperial era of the Technic history I can imagine people saying "All roads lead to Terra." Or, "all roads lead to Archopolis."
Ad astra! Sean
All of the above... 8-).
A wise choice.
Sean,
Maybe the women's limited number of genotypes rigidifies their society?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It does! That is, the women of Atlantis, reproducing (sic) by cloning, naturally a caste based system in which one or two "families" of women tended to be forceful, leadership types, others warriors, others workers, and so on. Also, the unbalanced sexuality of a single sex system, and societies based on it, might tend to heighten any inclinations towards bellicosity.
Ad astra! Sean
Note: men commit the overwhelming majority of murders -- and are almost as large a majority of the victims of murder.
But women are convicted in -equal- numbers of -hiring- (or attempting to hire) contract killers.
It's not that women don't -want- to kill people; they feel murderous impulses at about the same frequency as men.
But they're much more realistic about their chances of successfully -doing- it and getting away with it, and less likely to get a rush of blood to the head (or other organ) and act on the impulse with no regard for consequences.
Personalities do tend to run in families, as do abilities and interests, and twin-studies indicate this is much more pronounced in genetically identical individuals, so the caste society of VIRGIN PLANET is quite credible.
I don't think an all-female society would be more violent than a mixed one though an all-male one probably would.
Women aren't natural pacifists; female rulers have historically been perfectly prepared to use war as an instrument of policy -- Elizabeth I of England and Catherine the Great of Russia are examples. So was Maria Theresa of Austria, of whom Frederick the Great said during the partitions of Poland: "She weeps, she weeps, but she takes her share."
But it's notable that female rulers have tended to be cautious and pragmatic about war, less concerned with chest pounding and puffery.
Elizabeth I is an excellent example. She and her father Henry VIII were very similar physically -- both tall redheads -- and temperamentally. Elizabeth's anger was legendary, just as her father's had been... but Elizabeth controlled it and used it, whereas Henry let it use him.
Henry VIII made war because he'd been insulted, or felt his country had been slighted, and for glory and fame.
Elizabeth used force coldly, as an instrument of policy, and her policy was to build England's strength and defy the Hapsburgs, which she did with astonishing patience and skill, never taking an unnecessary risk, always willing to wait, advancing three steps and retreating one, using diversion and deception constantly.
She used macho types like Drake and Hawkins, but she never personally subscribed to their emotional mind-set.
I would expect an all-female planet like the one in VIRGIN PLANET to have politics more along those lines.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yes, I agree that women murderers and criminals tend to be more coldly realistic about their chances of getting away with their crimes then many men tend to be. And to take the time needed to think out the ways and means needed for achieving them. I've also read that women murderers tend to favor poison as an instrument of murder, which doesn't seem to be the case with men.
I too thought the all women, caste based system we see in VIRGIN PLANET quite realistic, for the reasons you cited. But you don't think the politics of an all women planet would have been as fragmented and quarrelsome as what we see in Anderson's book? I'm not so sure I would agree. The boss caste on Atlantis came from cloned Udall women, who, while forceful and energetic, were also quarrelsome and tactless. And that would seem to encourage the fragmentation and bellicosity we see on Atlantis.
Yes, I agree women rulers can be just as willing as men to use war as an instrument of policy. And I agree with the examples you cited. In fact Frederick II of Prussia grossly underestimated the abilities and sheer determination of Maria Theresa of Austria. She was everything he seemed to despise in women: gentle, devout, family minded, etc. BUT, instead of her being a pushover when Frederick grabbed the province of Silesia from her, Maria Theresa showed herself one of his fiercest and most determined enemies, trying for more than 20 years to destroy him and regain Silesia.
And Empress Elizabeth of Russia was notoriously another implacable enemy of Frederick, relentlessly driving on her armies, despite repeated defeats, to keep on unceasingly attacking him. Frederick was at his last gasp and despairingly seeking death in battle when Elizabeth's own death and the accession of her nephew, who admired him, miraculously removed the Russian death grip from the Prussian king's throat.
I agree with your characterization of Elizabeth I of England, and of how, in looks and character, she was much like her father Henry VIII. And that she differed from him in being far better able to control her rages and conduct politics, national and international, with cold rationality. Imo, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and Cromwell were the three most BAD of English rulers.
Ad astra! Sean
Henry VIII was a bad ruler in the most basic sense: he squandered England's strength in unnecessary quarrels that didn't produce results commensurate with the costs. He did some good things -- building warships, strengthening the central government -- but didn't advance the country's overall position. If a tenth of the money he wasted in Flanders had been spent colonizing North America (quite possible after Cabot's voyages in the 1490's) it would have produced real results, but he wasn't interested in something so prosaic.
Elizabeth and Cromwell left their country lastingly stronger, better-governed and more efficient than they found it.
Henry, for example, just couldn't accept that England was punching out of its weight when it tried to intervene in Continental military campaigns as a major player.
Both Elizabeth and Cromwell had a much more realistic sense of the possible.
Elizabeth knew that England couldn't afford to straight-up fight Hapsburg Spain and its huge possessions.
Instead she used pirates/privateers to harry Spanish commerce, interrupt their treasure fleets from the New World, force them to divert huge sums to defenses there, and hence weaken any strike against England... and to make a profit on it all the while, so that England could afford a bigger navy, crucial in 1588, and acquire tens of thousands of experienced seamen, better canon-founding industries, hugely more efficient ships, trained navigators, etc.
Likewise, she never sent English armies to the Low Countries to take on the likes of Parma head-to-head. Instead she encouraged -- with plausible deniability -- volunteers to go fight there at Dutch expense, thus painlessly acquiring thousands of men with experience of modern warfare, while tying down and weakening the Spanish in an endless grinding low-intensity war.
Unlike her father, she never tried to conquer Scotland -- something that experience had shown was beyond England's ability to accomplish in a lasting sense. Instead she subtly intervened in Scottish politics, got a friendly monarch on the Scottish throne... and made him her heir, thus doubly securing the Scottish border. Some of James' Scottish nobles fondly thought that this would mean Scotland dominating England; Elizabeth probably knew that it meant James would move to England and that his son would be an Englishman... thus securing English domination of Scotland without a shot fired or a man lost.
As a result, not only did England successfully fight off the Armada, but when a peace of exhaustion eventually occurred with James I, England was much stronger than it had been when Elizabeth came to the throne, and Spain despite its huge empire, much weaker. Not only militarily and economically stronger, but with a much stronger sense of national identity.
Cromwell did something similar, though from a stronger position, in his foreign policy once the Civil War was over and he'd unified the British Isles -- someone nobody else had managed, btw..
Both Elizabeth and Cromwell put heavy emphasis on strengthening the English Navy and merchant marine, you will note.
They also (and unlike Henry) put major effort into walloping the snot out of the Irish. The reason that Henry didn't wasn't that he was mild and humanitarian: it was because he was intoxicated by prospects of glory and thought of himself as a great conqueror, not someone who chased bare-arsed quasi-savages through fogs and bogs.
Elizabeth and Cromwell both recognized that beating the Irish was a) strategically advantageous in the extreme, and b) something that was actually within England's means, although not easily.
"The curse of Cromwell..." is the worst thing that you can say in the Republic of Ireland.
"Cromwell's men are here again..."
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
As coldly pragmatic rulers I agree Elizabeth I and Cromwell were far "better" rulers than Henry VIII. But, as a CATHOLIC who believes in the divine foundation of the Church, I can never approve of their anti-Catholic views and policies, which were contrary to the will of God. To say nothing, of course, of how all three of these rulers could be, and often were, ethical brutes. So, personally, I have no use for any of these three persons.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I would insist on church-state separation. Neither pro- nor anti-Catholic.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I could live with that IF the state was truly neutral and non oppressive. But too of the state has trespassed beyond its proper bounds and meddled with the Church or the churches. INCLUDING the US, where the gov't has been guilty of doing things like trying to force Catholic nuns to pay for immoral things like abortion and contraceptives in their health insurance. So, we will very likely continue to see clashes between Church and state.
Ad astra! Sean
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