First contact during the first Grand Survey.
Polesotechnic League intervention to shield Merseia from Valendary supernova radiation. (Falkayn on Merseia.)
Disaffected Merseians join the Baburite space navy.
Some Merseians emigrate to Dennitza.
The Merseian Roidhunate is a distant but growing threat at the time of the Terran-Ythrian War.
The Roidhunate becomes the single major threat to the Terran Empire. (Flandry on Merseia.)
Major defeats of the Roidhunate, including the loss of Chereion.
Demoralization of the Roidhunate leadership...
(A spectacular rise and decline.)
Ythrian
First contact during the first Grand Survey.
Ythrians move into space.
Some Ythrians study at the University of Nova Roma on Aeneas and explore Gray/Avalon.
Falkayn leads the human-Ythrian colonization of Avalon.
Ythri responds to the Troubles by establishing the Domain.
The Terran-Ythrian War. Avalon remains in the Domain.
An Avalonian Ythrian spy assists the Empire against the Roidhunate. Human Avalonians have dropped the habit of government.
Flandry says that mixed species cultures like Avalon look promising.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I remain skeptical about humans ever dropping that "habit" of gov't. The quarrelsomeness and violence so typical of human beings makes me unconvinced the State will ever wither away so easily.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Without cooperation, we would not exist. Without quarrelsomeness, we would exist. Therefore, cooperation is more basic than quarrelsomeness.
Many people live without violence and the conditions that generate violence can be eliminated.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, quarrelsomeness springs from our competitive drives, urges, ambitions, desires, etc. Something to be managed, not eliminated.
Your second comment is flat out wrong, because those "conditions" generating violence are innately present in all humans. And you can never predict when, how, where somebody might be violent. Also, people can live together in peace because the State exists and enforces that peace.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: we evolved cooperation in large part to be able to fight more effectively -- since it's usually a collective activity.
Sean,
Competition is not quarrelsomeness. Sporting competition is healthy. Ambitions are socially conditioned. There are societies that encourage cooperation and discourage self-promotion.
Conditions generating violence are not innately present in all human beings. There are many people whom I confidently predict will never become violent - unless, of course, their external conditions become very different. We do not fight for the air that we breathe because it is abundant. Many people would fight for the last oxygen cylinder in a space station. External conditions matter and make the difference. I confidently predict that my Muslim next door neighbours will not attack me as a infidel this evening. The other day, one of them came in to help us with a TV aerial that has become dangerously loose on the terraced roof. Many people are not constrained from violence merely because the State exists. They do not want to become violent anyway. That reliance on State monopoly of violence can become less and less until it is no longer needed. We repeat ourselves.
"...cooperation in large part to be able to fight more effectively..." So not just to fight more effectively? Cooperation is necessary because children are initially helpless and need to be socialized linguistically. I think that it is language, cooperation through communication, that differentiates us as a species plus, of course, cooperative changing of our environments with hands and brains. Thus, also, change, not any unchanging "human nature," is essential to humanity.
I do take the point that collective fighting has been with us from a very early stage - but it need not accompany us into an indefinite future.
I do not want to eliminate desires! But we can manage them without fighting about them. With understanding, technology and more cooperation (which is to be encouraged, not discouraged), a great future lies ahead of us - possibly. We have choices, both individually and collectively.
Paul.
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