Dominic Flandry prepares to hijack "...a conqueror-class subdestroyer..." (CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 491):
"Emblazoned above her serial number was the name Erwin Rommel. Who the deuce had that been? Some Germanian? No, more likely a Terran, resurrected from the historical files by a data finder programmed to christen several score thousand of Conquerors." (p. 492)
In fact, a German Terran. Terrestrial history is known. The Terran Empire exists and is modelled on the Roman. But Flandry does not know details like Rommel. In James Blish's and Norman L. Knight's A Torrent of Faces, a future city has been named "Gitler," again without anyone remembering who that might have been.
In Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire, the existence of Earth has been forgotten. The interstellar Empire of Frank Herbert's Dune projects itself back into Terrestrial history. Thus, there is a reference somewhere to the Emperor Hitler and his legions.
Finally, think about that phrase, "...several score thousand..." And that refers to just one class of Naval spaceship. Will technology really be deployed for that much destruction in future?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
THE REBEL WORLDS is set more than a thousand years from now. It would not be reasonable to expect even someone as historically well read as Flandry to be deeply familiar about WW II and the opposing generals who fought in it, such as Erwin Rommel.
Apologies, but I think your last paragraph here is unrealistic. REAL human beings what they are, I fully expect people to fight and quarrel in the future, including having wars. And we have no grounds, as of now, for expecting non-human races not to be equally quarrelsome and prone to conficts/wars.
Ad astra! Sean
Technology is a tool; the purposes for which it is used are instinctual. Spears, spaceships, all same-same.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! And I get so frustrated with what I have to consider hopelessly Utopian unrealism.
Ad astra! Sean
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