Irwin Milner, commander of planet-based Baburite occupation forces on Hermes, speaks Anglic with a North American accent and is naturalized on the remote neutral human colony planet, Germania, therefore not guilty of any treason - he claims. I suggest that:
any human being who serves either the Baburite Autarky or the Merseian Rodhunate is a traitor to his species;
human Avalonians who fight against the Terran Empire in order to remain in the Domain of Ythri are not traitors to their species;
zmayi, Dennitzans of Merseian species, who want to remain in the Empire and to keep out of the Roidhunate are not traitors to their species;
Aycharaych was loyal to the Chereionite heritage, not to the Roidhunate, but committed crimes against all rational beings when he served the Roidhunate albeit for his own ends.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
You are raising complex issues which needs responding to in some detail to adequately unpack.
I don't agree Irwin Milner was a traitor to the human race, because as far as I recall, the Baburites were not racial supremacists of the kind seen later in the Merseian Roidhunate. Their attitude seems to have been more like what Commander Abrams said of the human race and the Empire while discussing Merseian views in Chapter 9 of ENSIGN FLANDRY: "The race, not the nation, counts with them. Which makes them a hell of a lot more dangerous than simple imperialists like us, who only want to be top dogs like us and admit other species have an equal right to exist." The Imperial Band of Babur only wanted the Baburites to be their equivalents of top dogs in the sphere of space they were claiming.
Long later, humans serving the Roidhunate of Merseia, which did have a racist ideology, could rightly be called traitors to the human race. But, even there, some distinctions have to be made. I'm assuming the law of treason for the Empire was modeled on that of the famous Treason Act of 25 Edward III, as revised by later Acts (statutes which influenced the definition of treason given in the US Constitution). Such humans, if born and raised in the Roidhunate, and captured during one of the clashes between Empire and Roidhunate, could not legally be treated as traitors, because they had never been subjects of the Empire. They would have to be treated like legitimate prisoners of war, as codified in the laws of war and diplomacy in the Covenant of Alfzar, a treaty ratified by the major civilized interstellar powers.
I agree the human colonists of Avalon were not traitors, because they had never been citizens of the Empire. Legally, their status would be the same as those humans born within the Roidhunate. And the same reasoning SHOULD apply to those Dennitzans of Merseian race in the Empire. I stressed that "should" because I'm not entirely sure the Roidhunate, given its racist ideology, would agree. The Roidhunate might regard such Dennitzans as traitors to the Merseian species.
I agree Aycharaych served Merseia, not because he cared that much about it, but for his own reasons and ends.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Post a Comment