League
In "Lodestar," inequalities in Technic civilization cause a conflict between Falkayn and van Rijn.
In Mirkheim, cartelization causes civil war in the League.
Empire
In The Rebel Worlds, Josip's succession to the Throne causes the McCormac Rebellion.
In The Day Of Their Return, the aftermath of the McCormac Rebellion enables Aycharaych to foment a potential jihad.
In A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, Josip dying without an heir has caused the Molitor usurpation.
These events have encouraged other potential seizures of power, as in A Stone in Heaven and The Game of Empire.
Later
Technic civilization has ended and there is no longer a single human civilization so that any further rise and decline will occur in a particular volume of space and in a single spiral arm.
14 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think you meant to say in "Later" that any further rises and falls of post-Technic civilizations will happen elsewhere and separately?
Ad astra! Sean
Any rise and fall will affect one volume of human-occupied space, not all of it.
Since they have cloning technology, Emperors dying without heirs begs the question of why they don't just clone the Emperor.
Clones would have the same general similarity in abilities and personality that identical twins do -- and they resemble each other quite emphatically.
I'd also point out that historically lack of an heir to a throne was -usually- the result of the high infant mortality rates of the preindustrial period.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I first came across the concept of cloning more than 52 years ago when I first read ENSIGN FLANDRY. Concept, not the word "cloning." The idea was still so new when ENSIGN FLANDRY was first pub. in 1966 that the word, at least in this context, had not yet been coined.
I urge, in extenuation for this possible weakness in Anderson's plot line, that cloning was so new an idea that even writers like Anderson should not be expected to understand at once all the implications and ways cloning might be used. Such as childless monarchs using cloning to get an heir.
Using cloning for political reasons like that is an intriguing suggestion. And we do see Edwin Cairncross, Duke of Hermes, deciding in A STONE IN HEAVEN (1979), that he would get himself cloned after succeeding in seizing the Imperial throne. So Anderson did think people unable to have children the normal way might use cloning to remedy that by 1979.
As a Catholic I have reservations and doubts about the rightness of cloning human beings. But I know darn well it's going to happen if human cloning becomes practical. I would not be surprised if some billionaires are secretly funding research in making that kind of cloning a reality.
Ad astra! Sean
"doubts about the rightness of cloning human beings"
And some possible applications of cloning would definitely be evil.
In some of L. M. Bujold's stories the villains are people who will clone someone for a fat fee & do a brain transplant from the old person to the young clone, as a means of life extension. The clone has a perfectly good brain that is discarded.
Kaor, Jim!
And I agree that would indeed be a truly horrible and evil way of using cloning!
Ad astra! Sean
Not only evil, but probably doable within the next century. The big hurdle would be reconnecting the nervous system, but they've already made some progress on that.
Of course, then you'd have to factor in the impact of -young- blood and hormones and such on an -old- brain. You might have severe side-effects for a while.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Gruesomely fascinating, if doable!
Again, I'm reminded of Heinlein's I WILL FEAR NO ABLE, in which an aged billionaire named Johan Sebastian Bach Smith had his brain surgically transplanted into his young secretary's skull after an accident destroyed her brain. A fascinating premise ruined by RAH's endless boring ruminations about his sexual kinks, hangups, and obsessions.
Ad astra! Sean
"-young- blood and hormones and such on an -old- brain"
I have read that connecting the circulatory systems of old & young mice rejuvenates the old mouse & ages the young mouse.
So people are trying to figure out if there is something beneficial in the young blood or something harmful in the old blood. If the 1st then adding that beneficial thing would be an "antiagathic", if the 2nd then some sort of filtering of it out of an old person's blood would be a benefit.
IIRC that is how the ordinary people on earth the Howard Families fled from increased their lifespans, after the exodus.
Kaor, Jim!
Interesting, I agree! I also suspect such research may succeed too late to do "us" any good. (Wry smile)
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, I'm probably going to be one of the last people to die of old age... 8-).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha! And I as well. Such is life!
Ad astra! Sean
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