(i) In Poul Anderson's Technic History, David Falkayn and the Polesotechnic League save Merseia from supernova radiation. Merseians, resenting outside help, become mankind's worst enemy.
(ii) In James Blish's Black Easter, magicians release major demons to find out what they will do if unrestrained for an entire night. They fight and win Armageddon.
(iii) In Bill Willingham's Fables, overthrowing a magical empire causes the release of the even greater evils that it had suppressed.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I can think of many examples from real world history where world altering events made perfect examples of that law of unintended consequences. In 1789 Maximilien Robespierre was an obscure lawyer who certainly had no intention of becoming a fanatical, blood drenched tyrant. But that was exactly what the twists and turns of the French Revolution eventually led him to becoming in only a few years.
Ad astra! Sean
Human history has several recurring themes.
One of them can be summed up in a saying: "Never do an enemy a -small- injury."
Also: "Those who half make a revolution dig their own graves."
It would be interesting to have a list of such themes.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I have to agree, sometimes it's necessary to kill your enemy if you don't want him to kill you or those you care about.
Paul: I don't think so. what happened during the French Revolution and other horrors, like the Russian Revolution, were the revolutions eating their own, like Saturn devouring his children. Robespierre and his cronies moved from killing "counter revolutionaries," to less fanatical revolutionaries, and then they started purging the Jacobins. And that led to their downfall and being guillotined themselves. The same thing happened with Lenin and his hence men. the Bolsheviks turned on each on other in struggles for power after Lenin died. Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, all that ghastly crew, schemed and plotted against each other. With Stalin winning and purging them all.
Revolutions have a habit of eating their children. How I despise revolutions!
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: that's another version of the old saw that if you strike at a king, you had better kill him.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And you also have to be willing to DIE as well, to be as sure as possible of killing the man you hate. The July 20 plot against Hitler might have succeeded if Col. von Stauffenberg (correct name?) had stayed near Hitler, with that briefcase loaded with a bomb. Another man had casually moved the briefcase from where it had been placed next to Hiter. If von Stauffenberg had stayed to prevent that, he might well have died, but so would Hitler!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: many more men are willing to -risk- their lives than are willing to accept a -certainty- of their own deaths.
It's very difficult to stop someone who has completely accepted their own death; that's why suicide bombers are such a problem.
It's also why those who run, eg., concentration camps, set things up so that people can (with a bit of wishful thinking) imagine that they, as individuals, will survive.
Or arrange things to keep the interval between knowledge of certain death and death itself as short as possible, often accompanied by surprise.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And your comments reminded me of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The first bomb thrown at his coach shattered the vehicle and killed/wounded several of his guards and nearby bystanders, but Alexander II was not injured. But just as he stepped out of the ruined coach and began to help the wounded, a second bomber, crying "It is too soon to thank God!," ran up and threw his bomb point blank at the Tsar. They were both mortally wounded, and the gruesomely mutilated Alexander soon died at the Winter Palace.
The Emperor's surviving guards should have FORCED him into the back up coach and dashed away at once after the first bomb was thrown!
I have heard of the things you wrote here about concentration camps. It reminds me of the trusties seen in Nazi and Soviet concentration camps.
Ad astra! Sean
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