The town ruled by the Eyrie has a gaudily painted, Asian-looking temple for prayers to Yasu and sacrifices to Oktai. Havig is told:
"'Give them their religion, make the priests cooperate, and you have them...'" (p. 66)
He asks:
"'Where's the gallows?'" (ibid.)
- and is told that there are no public hangings.
What would I want to do?
Do not interfere with popular religion.
Do not make anyone cooperate.
Do cooperate as far as possible with everyone.
No hangings, public or otherwise.
On the one hand, life is rough during recovery from the Judgment. On the other hand, the Eyrie is brutal and Havig will rebel against it. Great acorns will grow from small seeds. An interstellar civilization lies ahead. Havig will glimpse that civilization without yet knowing that he is also going to initiate it.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I do not entirely agree because I believe some crimes are so appalling they are rightly punished with death. That said I have no problem with capital punishment being difficult to carry out.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that conditions of life in the 19th century were simply rougher than they are now in 1st-World countries.
For example, 156 out of 1000 children in England in 1900 died by the age of four -- that's worse than it is in Burkina Faso now.
So human life simply didn't have the same value to them.
I myself walked past dead and dying famine victims in the street when I was 10, and saw a room where two guys had slashed each other to death with pangas (machetes) when I was twelve.
I remember vividly coming back to Canada in my late teens, and after a month or two looking around and thinking to myself:
"What a bunch of wimps!"
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, life was much harder for nearly everybody not that long ago. And I do not share the confidence some have that it can be made safe and comfortable for everybody someday forever and ever.
Considering my own sheltered life I'm just as wimpy as those Canadians!
Ad astra! Sean
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