An alien, in this case a centauroid Xoan, comments on Earth:
"'All those ridiculous nations and tribes there - hold overs from the Stone Age, and still unable to agree...in the face of galactic culture...agree on unity and global peace...'" (11, pp. 91-92)
According to the recorded testimony of this Xoan, who is a member of what in the Polesotechnic League is called a trade pioneer crew, it made good business sense to some members of his species to sell a doomsday device to no less than two different political-military alliances on Earth! After all, the Terrestrials themselves had discussed this idea. It seems that it was the detonation of one of these devises that sterilized Earth and in any case:
"'I tell you, they were mad. The whole race was mad. Best they did die, before their lunacy threatened everyone else.'" (p. 92)
Will that be the epitaph for mankind?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Final epitaph? Not if mankind manages to get off this rock to found new nations and societies elsewhere!
And that "lunacy" the Xoan thought was characteristic of our species goes back to how humans are innately prone to being quarrelsome, competitive, and aggressive.
I can think of several ways of how Earth might be unified. First, an alliance of the English speaking nations, the Anglosphere, might become the core around which a Solar Commonwealth or Terran Federation might arise. And it won't be peaceful, there will be wars in which defiant holdouts will be forced into this federation. Second, or one of the great powers, either the US or China, eliminates its rival and dominates the world.
Something like the first alternative is what I think happened in the Technic timeline. And David Wingrove had China conquering the world in his CHUNG KUO series.
Ad astra! Sean
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