Reigns
Georgios: ineffectual; Crown Prince Josip's favourites gain power.
Josip: atrocities wring wealth from outlying planets.
Hans: reformist and austere.
Dietrich and Gerhart: continuations of their father, Hans.
Karl: still to come.
Thus, a general picture emerges from several instalments and is summarized here.
A Possible Future (Prevented)
Emperor Olaf reforms, cleanses, strengthens, keeps his promises, calls for a genuine peace, bargains honestly, makes Merseian-instructed appointments to the Policy Board and High Command, arbitrates forcefully and incorruptibly and dies old and honoured.
His heir, openly served by Merseian advisors and by intellectuals extolling Merseian ideals, accepts Merseian help to enforce distasteful edicts.
His grandsons and their contemporaries are:
"...the first generation of the new humanity." (p. 441)
Insidious.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I would rather say that Emperor Georgios, while a slowly dying man during the last year of his reign, almost inevitably could not help but be less firm in his direction of Imperial affairs. That might not have mattered too much if Crown Prince Josip had been a better man. Instead he was a weak, vicious, and none too intelligent person manipulated by corrupt favorites.
Audacious, indeed, this scheme by the Merseians to place Olaf Magnusson on the throne as a puppet Emperor! With the idea of slowly and gradually bringing the Empire under their control. As you said, insidious!
And there was an earlier Emperor named Olaf, mentioned in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, Olaf the Clown!
Ad astra! Sean
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