So far in the Technic History, we have seen the Terran Empire:
forcibly annexing Ansa;
failing to annex Avalon;
defeated on Freehold;
suppressing a rebellion led by Aeneas.
Now the newly introduced viewpoint character, Ivar Frederiksen, leads a new Aenean attack on Terrans. Given the history so far, we cannot know whether he will succeed.
We have also seen Dominic Flandry defending the Empire on Starkad and on Irumclaw and by defeating the first Aenean rebellion but, if we expect Flandry to be recalled to resist Frederiksen, then we will be disappointed. Commander Flandry will be quoted once but will not appear in this novel. From Chapter 3, Terra is represented not by an Intelligence agent but by Chunderban Desai, High Commissioner of the Virgilian System, based in Nova Roma on Aeneas. Frederiksen and Desai will meet at the end of the current novel. Flandry and Desai will meet in a later novel. The Technic History is a complicated future history series with different viewpoints and perspectives.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would not say the Empire was wholly defeated in "Outpost of Empire." Anderson had the Outbackers on Freehold accepting a compromise in which they still remained part of the Empire.
Incidentally, Stirling pointed out the Empire could have utterly broken the Outbackers with the ruthless use of overwhelming force.
Ad astra! Sean
Yup. If you're sitting in orbit above a planet, you can just drop rocks on it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly. And it's a matter of prudential judgement deciding how much force can or should be used in particular cases.
Ad astra! Sean
"Yup. If you're sitting in orbit above a planet, you can just drop rocks on it."
For a possible defense by the people on the planet see this.
http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/10/anti-orbit-laser-submarines.html
Kaor, Jim!
And we see Anderson suggesting something very similar as happening on Avalon, in THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND. But the caveat is that such defensive systems are likely to be very costly and takes years to build. And that means advocates of those defenses will very likely have to overcome objections, protests, resistance. And it was a hard struggle for First March Warden Ferune and Daniel Holm to do, requiring years of arm and wing twisting, log rolling, exerting political pressures, etc. Their efforts could very easily have failed!
Ad astra! Sean
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