"Now The Earth Book Of Stormgate is ended. From my tower I see the great white sweep of the snows upon Mount Anrovil. I feel the air blow in and caress my feathers. Yonder sky is calling. I will go.
"Fair winds forever."
Poul Anderson, AFTERWORD IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverside, NY, March 2011), p. 323.
History continues:
"...poor devastated Terra.." has been sacked by the Baldics:
"...twice in fifteen years."
-Poul Anderson, "The Star Plunderer" IN Rise Of The Terran Empire, pp. 325-362 AT p. 327.
This might be the first use of "Terra" as a name for Earth in the Technic History. Over the page, we learn that the grey, four-armed barbarians attacking the narrator and his companion are Gorzuni. If we have read the History so far in its internal chronological order, then we remember this species as mercenaries in Satan's World and are surprised to read about them sacking Terra as part of the Baldic League.
The narrator's reference to a stupid policy of the Commonwealth reminds us of the ineptitude of the Solar Commonwealth in Mirkheim. "The Star Plunderer" is the pivotal story of the entire Technic History because, in it, the Commonwealth is defunct and the Empire is proclaimed.
4 comments:
Again, this is odd if Rome is taken as a template. The Republic's government decayed sharply in the last generations of the Roman Republic, but one thing it never fell down on was subjugating foreigners.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yes, but the Solar Commonwealth was never a warlike and aggressively expanding power, unlike the Roman Republic. And when it tried to be aggressive, during the Mirkheim/Babur crisis, the Commonwealth botched it up badly!
Also, those mentions of the Gorzuni, in the "earlier" Technic stories, as often being hired by outsiders as mercenaries had bad consequences. It made the Gorzuni aware of both the wealth of Technic civilization and realization of how they could take advantage of that. It's the old problem with mercenaries: how do you keep hireling foreign soldiers loyal to their paymaster?
Ad astra! Sean
You need something like the Foreign Legion or the Gurkha regiments.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! The French Foreign Legion and the UK's Gurkha regiments were unusually loyal to the nations they served.
However, as the Fourth Republic was ignominiously collapsing in 1958 and Charles de Gaulle assumed dictatorial powers to restore order, some (not many) Legionnaires, infuriated by de Gaulle's decision to cut France's losses and evacuate Algeria in 1961 took part in the abortive coup to overthrow the President. De Gaulle thought first of disbanding the entire Legion, but decided it was enough to reduce it from 40,000 troops to 8,000.
The Legion was formed by King Louis Philippe in 1831, to amalgamate the foreign regiments serving in the French army.
Ad astra! Sean
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