"'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:
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
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