Consequences Of Neutrality

"The Troublemakers."

This is the time of evening for me to go off an a tangent.

"'And if they did fight, and win, and I wasn't in on it, it'd look bad later on.'" (p. 110)

That sentence encapsulates issues about choices, loyalties and self-interests. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Betelgeuseans, in their buffer state, play off Terra against Merseia.

Alan Moore wrote a short comic strip about an angel who remained neutral during the War in Heaven and was cast out by both sides afterwards. Dante mentions neutral spirits and James Blish's black magician, Theron Ware, hopes to join them. CS Lewis wrote that, if God lost, then he, Lewis, would take the Viking attitude: "Let us die fighting on the right side with Father Odin."

So one guy in the Pioneer, in "The Troublemakers," can send us on a journey into Anderson's Technic History, then through Heaven and Hell as presented by four different authors.

Which side are you on?