Some people do not understand about information lag. They assume that, if an important event has occurred, then everyone simultaneously knows that, why, how etc it has occurred. The event is like a visible object that everyone perceives and from the same angle. No inference or interpretation, let alone ignorance, is involved.
Tachwyr knows that the Terrans have learned that Magnusson was a Merseian agent. He does not know how the Terrans have learned this. Tachwyr infers that, as soon as the news broke, Magnusson's crew mutinied and killed him quickly. He infers that Magnusson's partisans are deserting his cause and that, if they do not surrender immediately, this is only because they are holding out for pardons. Tachwyr's colleagues agree with the inferences while recognizing that they are inferences.
Other possibilities include Magnusson's arrest, trial, conviction and execution or, alternatively, his escape to Merseia where, according to Tachwyr, he would wind up:
"'...dragging out a useless existence as a pensioner...'" (p. 446)
He would not. Or, at least, he would if he himself saw it that way. As long as a self-conscious being is alive, then he is capable of contemplating and transcending his own past actions. Prisoners make religious conversions maybe because, deprived of everything else, they latch onto an ultimate escapism but it does not have to be that way. As long as they are alive and aware, their existence is not useless unless they think that it is.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Actually, it's very probable Magnusson's infuriated ex-supporters did not kill him quickly. Flandry mentioned how the details of his death were not publicized by the Imperium, lest sympathy be aroused for him.
Even if Magnusson had escaped to Merseia I have my doubts a man like him would have the kind of religious/philosophical conversion you hypothesized. Not impossible, but unlikely.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Magnusson is a bit of a fanatic -- he was raised to it, so to speak, by a very keen student of human nature with unusual abilities. Any sort of repentance is very unlikely.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly! Magnusson was brainwashed/indoctrinated/conditioned by the Merseians and Aycharaych to being what he became.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Too true, and that would have dismayed people like Flandry, as being another sign of the decline of the Empire, force being used to determine the Imperial succession--instead of law, precedent, custom.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Well, the Terran Empire does have the problem that the Roman empire did; the first Emperor seized power by force, and everyone knows it. It happened in historic time, not legendary time.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Respectfully, I disagree. My belief is it would be a mistake comparing the Terran Empire too far or closely with the Roman exemplar. It amuses me to quote a bit from a letter I wrote to Anderson dated Sunday, November 18, 1979: "In Imperial China, by contrast, rules of legitimate succession through hereditary descence [sic] were emphasized. Furthermore, you had the future first Terran Emperor, Manuel Argps, say in Ch. IV of "The Star Plunderer," of the state he planned to found: "It'll be an empire in fact,... and therefore it should be an empire in name. I interpreted this as meaning the establishment of a monarchical state having a dynastic, hereditary line of succession." The mere existence of Terra having dynasties like the Argolids and Wangs, complete with things like crown princes and empresses dowager (such as the widow of Georgios) supports that view.
A big reason why Manuel Argos was able to found a monarchy lasting more than 400 years under two dynasties before Hans Molitor's reluctant usurpation was because of how discredited the Solar Commonwealth was by Argos' time. The last century or more of the Commonwealth, during the Time of Troubles, with its oppressiveness and incompetence, culminating with the Sack of Earth by the Baldic League, so disgusted and disillusioned many people that they were willing to accept the new Empire founded by Manuel I. Many, many people simply did not have any lingering reverence for the Commonwealth of a kind that would hamper the establishment of a new monarchy. Unlike Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, who did have to cope with sentimental wistfulness for the Roman Republic.
Merry Christmas! Sean
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