Another infodump: while Grand Duchess Sandra Tamarin-Asmundsen conducts her morning exercises, she watches a newscast that informs her of the Mirkheim crisis and of a Liberation Front rally at a Longstrands resort. The Grand Duchy of Hermes has both external and internal problems. Next, a memorandum from Sandra's executive secretary informs her of the arrival on Hermes of Captain Nadi of Supermetals, the company that has been secretly mining the planet Mirkheim, now claimed by the suddenly belligerent and imperialistic Baburites. The name, "the Autarky of United Babur," suggests that these hydrogen-breathers have learned by example from at least one oxygen-breathing species.
Because of its stellar proximity to both Babur and Mirkheim, Hermes becomes a pawn in the escalating conflict. The sense of troubled times is palpable.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What a laugh! A "Liberation Front"? Seriously??? Are readers actually to think a regime as mild as the Grand Duchy was some brutal totalitarian despotism a la the USSR or Maoist China? (Sardonic snort!)
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I would have supported social and political reforms on Hermes, though.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I would have regarded those alleged "reforms" with extreme skepticism! Too many times, in real history, putative reforms have backfired and failed catastrophically. E.g., the law of unintended consequences.
If something works, it's better not to try to "fix" it!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
These are general observations but, in a society, you always have to ask, "WHO does it work for?" If there wasn't dissatisfaction, then there wouldn't be a Front. Just look at the rigged electoral system.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Wrong, you should ask how people are actually doing. Are most Hermetians reasonably happy and prosperous? Is the Grand Duchy ruling tyrannically and corruptly? If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no," then the system works quite well.
Voting was not rigged on Hermes, it was weighted for specific reasons and purposes, such as limiting the powers held by the State. And those who did not have the franchise were also not taxed. And all this was openly and candidly arranged long before when the Grand Duchy was set up.
That "Liberation Front" deserves only a horse laugh!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Wrong. Sandra consciously reflects that the Front has a lot of support. When that many people who are denied a vote start campaigning for it, then they should receive it. If they were reasonably happy, then they would not be campaigning.
Of course I can lose the word "rigged" while still arguing that the system was unjust and discriminatory. The majority work but do not vote. An intermediate class has a single vote. The top, minority, class has multiple votes. This is to limit the powers of the State? The Front argues that its members want to vote on whether they should be taxed, by how much and for what purposes. This is a serious debate, not a horse laugh!
Paul.
Note that the "Front" only survives because it fought -against- the invaders, who ostensibly had an agenda more or less congruent with the Front's.
Note the results of the French Revolution (the Terror, Napoleon, both making the later Bourbons look like pussycats), the Russian one (unspeakable Lenin and even more unspeakable Stalin, both worse than any Czar), and the English one (Cromwell, who made the Stuarts look good).
The American Revolution succeeded mainly because it was a revolt -by the actual ruling class- in the American colonies, who were in effect -resisting- encroachments by the Crown and its agents on their long-established local systems of rule.
It was gussied up with universalist terminology, because that was the fashion during the Enlightenment, but that's what it amounted to.
I mean, George Washington? Master of great lands and hundreds of slaves and a vast manor house?
Sure, but there were figures in the ARW who were rather more "universal" in their outlook than Washington, after all. Adams, Franklin, Paine, William Cushing, etc.
And to give Washington his due, he appointed Cushing to SCOTUS, and six years after stating this in Commonwealth vs. Jennison:
"As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle, that (it is true) has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws formerly, but nowhere is it expressly enacted or established. It has been a usage – a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the then Colonies, for the benefit of trade and wealth. But whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses-features) has inspired all the human race. And upon this ground our Constitution of Government, by which the people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal – and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property – and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract ..."
There was much more to the American Revolution than a simple autogolpe.
Paine was a good guy.
True. Given the era, most of them were reasonably decent human beings.
Kaor, Paul and Dave!
Paul: We are not going to agree about the "Liberation Front." First, it survived because of the mildness of the Grand Duchy. Second, most of the LFers were patriotic enough to resent Strang's dictatorship. Otherwise they would have been utterly smashed and discredited when he was overthrown. Better for Hermes if they had been!
Dave: Of all the founders of the US I like best John Adams, because he was a conservative who had no tom fool illusions about human beings. As Stirling said, the US war of independence succeeded because it was that rarity, a conservative revolution.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That undemocratic voting system cannot be defended. I do not understand why you would contemplate such a system, then claim that the people living under it are doing well and are happy despite the fact that so many of them are protesting against it and want it changed.
One person, one vote, surely?
Paul.
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