Ridenour to Admiral Fernando Cruz Manqual who is from Nuevo Mexico like another Terran Admiral that we have known and also like some of Nicholas van Rijn's employees:
"'What's the real good of the Empire? Isn't it the solidarity of many civilized planets? Isn't it, also, the stimulus of diversity between those planets?'" (pp. 126-127)
Here is Poul Anderson's constant message yet again. Ridenour even uses the word, "diversity," which I have been using because it has seemed appropriate.
Ridenour also reflects that, if the Empire falls, then the Free People will carry on something of what was the Empire's but he does not say this to the Admiral. We know from a later story that Freeholder biological techniques will still be in use when new civilizations are being built long after the Fall of the Empire. Dominic Flandry tries to strengthen some colonized planets so that they will survive the Empire. Here Ridenour does likewise. The theory of Chunderban Desai and the practice of Flandry and Ridenour are more plausible than those of Isaac Asimov's Hari Seldon.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but "Outpost of Empire" was first pub. in 1967, long before "diversity" became the debased and corrupted buzz word flung around so carelessly by the woke crazies of our decadent times.
Ad astra! Sean
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