We are informed that the declaration of Lunar independence, which is described in one of the Mother of the Moon prequel chapters in The Stars Are Also Fire, occurred half a century before the events recounted in this part of Harvest Of Stars and we also remember from previous readings of Harvest... that the Selenarchy will have come to an end long before the end of the current volume. Much future history occurs in these two volumes.
Each of Rinndalir's ancillaries wears:
"...a medallion, a black circle ringed by irregular pearliness, the Eclipse of power." (p. 243)
This contrasts with, and even contradicts, both the Sunburst of Empire in the Technic History and the spaceship-and-sun of Empire in Asimov's future history: not a sun but an eclipse.
The Selenarchs have no capital city and do not exchange diplomats. Terrestrial envoys go where they are told to go and speak to whichever Selenarch chooses to listen. Lunarians spurn every tradition and expectation of their parent race. The only way that we will meet aliens in the Solar System is to create them. This is a big difference from Heinlein's Future History.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Just one tiny correction: the Spaceship and Sun was the symbol of Asimov's Galactic Empire in his FOUNDATION books, not of Anderson's Terran Empire in the Technic series. The Imperial symbol we see mentioned most often for the latter was a stylized Sunburst.
I think the closest the Selenarchs cane to having a gov't were those times when one of them was able, by deft intrigue and manipulation, to gather around him or her a faction able to temporarily cow their rivals into heeding their wishes.
Ad asta! Sean
Sean,
Thank you. I will find a reference to the Sunburst later.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Here's one such reference to the Sunburst of Empire, from Chapter 1 of ENSIGN FLANDDRY, at the Coral Palace: "The sky illumination had now formed a gigantic banner overhead, the Sunburst alive in a field of royal blue as is stratospheric winds bugled salute." Which has made me wonder if this was also a description of the Empire's flag.
Ad astra! Sean
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