Friday, 9 October 2020

Wild Beasts Howling

 "Flight to Forever."

"'Welcome to the hold of Brontothor! Welcome to the Galactic Empire!'
"'The Empire?'
"'Aye, this is the Empire, or what's left of it. A haunted fortress on a frozen ghost world, last fragment of the old Imperium and still trying to pretend that the Galaxy is not dying - that it didn't die millennia ago, that there is something left besides wild beasts howling among the ruins.'" (pp. 251-252)
 
I quote this dialogue for its:
 
haunted fortress;
frozen ghost world;
last fragment of the old Imperium;
wild beasts howling among the ruins.
 
I noticed this last phrase in particular because it is usually people that howl in the ruins after the destruction of a civilization. See here. Some might howl but others will try to rebuild and hopefully on a better basis than before.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I even suggested to Anderson in one of my letters to him that a portion of the Terran Empire might survive elsewhere, after the Long Night began, and be analogous to our actual Eastern Roman Empire. And he agreed that a "ragged remnant" of the Empire might have survived like that.

And I also thought of Flandry's anxious reflections on the ultimate fate of Admiralty Center in WE CLAIM THESE STARS, that barbarians would eventually be howling in the smashed ruins of a fallen Empire.

Yes, people will try to rebuild after a civilization falls. But I would rather mankind first got off this rock before that happens!

Ad astra! Sean