Territoriality and violence are built into the lifestyles both of Ythrians and of Freehold outbackers. In the outback, a man who kills a landholder thereby proves that he is fit to hold the land - not in my estimation - and to father children. There is no marriage but few women want children by landless men. A man's territory supports him and his family and retainers. He bequeaths it to whichever son he chooses. Society has stabilized so that territorial battles are rare. The landless are servants, assistants, guards, entrepreneurs or itinerant labourers. Forests bear ample food all year. The plentiful meat animals have been bred to be easily lured or can be driven by controlled insects. Some plants have paper leaves and ink juice. Printing presses are wind- or water-powered. Records are not kept.
As with Avalon, the lifestyle combines attractive and unattractive features and is genuinely different from anything with which Poul Anderson's readers are familiar. This second factor makes the outbacker way of life worthy of preservation according to two criteria favoured by Poul Anderson: freedom and diversity.
4 comments:
The Imperial commander made a very bad mistake by giving the Outbackers the terms he did. The cities were loyal Imperial subjects, and they lost their homes; and he let people profit from defying the Emperor's authority in arms.
Very, very bad precedent.
I'd have demanded unconditional surrender, on pain of the planet being bombarded from space until the oceans boiled.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I understand your points and I'm inclined to agree with you. But a few factors comes to mind which made the decision made by the Imperial admiral at least arguably valid. One, the Nine Cities had already been destroyed by the Outbackers, and it had taken centuries of slow growth on a metal poor planet to reach the level they had attained by the time of "Outpost." I don't see any quick attempt to rebuild them in the teeth of continued Outbacker opposition being likely to succeed. Not unless you were willing to first destroy the planet--which seems counterproductive. The best I can think of is to do what Ridenour recommended: the Outbackers would have to agree to pay compensation to the people of the Cities.
Second, another factor is this: by the time of "Outpost of Empire" Freehold was becoming important enough, because of the Nine Cities, to attract the attention of Merseia. The destruction of the Cities and an end of the conflict there, would make Freehold less important and less likely to attract Merseian interest.
These and other factors helps to explain why the admiral made the decision he did.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: rebuilding them wouldn't generate Outbacker opposition if they surrendered unconditionally and had a gun socketed in their ear.
Certainly the Imperial commander had -reasons- for his decision, but I don't think they were sufficient.
It's one thing to show mercy when you've won; a very different thing to make concessions under threat.
That encourages anyone who hears about it to try you on; whereas a reputation for never giving up and being remorseless about crushing opposition does the opposite.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Except for continuing to have my doubts about the VIABILITY of rebuilding the Nine Cities of Freehold, I can't fault the logic of your argument here. Esp. about how RELENTLESS determination would have broken Outbacker resistance. I wish I had thought of these points and suggested them to Anderson in one of my letters to him.
Ad astra! Sean
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