Is there someone behind the scenes pulling the strings on a historical or cosmic scale? Poul Anderson's Time Patrol operates behind the scenes of history, ensuring that every event, even the Holocaust, happens on schedule. The Patrol has counterparts in mythology and fiction:
pantheons include gods of the elements;
Rupert Bear (see image) meets Imps of Spring, Elves of Autumn and a Clerk of the Weather;
Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series features anthropomorphic personifications of seven aspects of consciousness - Destiny, Death, Dream, Desire, Despair and Destruction.
Time Patrollers are in good company. Maybe.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
While interesting to play with, if we start seriously imagining there is someone/something pulling the strings behind the scenes, on a cosmic scale, we are going to succumb to paranoid delusions. Stirling used that secret conspiracy idea in his Shadowspawn books.
I think the plots hatched by Aycyharach* against the Terran Empire in the Flandry stories was Anderson's contributions to the secret conspiracy idea.
Ad astra! Sean
*E.g., in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE, A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, and THE GAME OF EMPIRE.
In the Flandry stories by Anderson the Mersian and Terran Empires are known by all to exist and to work against one another. The exact natures of the schemes each side works on to harm the other are not known to many, but anyone who pays attention knows there are such 'conspiracies'. Similarly in real life there are and have been countries and empires that are/were hostile to each other and work to harm the other with varying degrees of secrecy.
Hiding the very existence of such organizations is another matter. Could the mysterious THEY actually exist?
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/they-2
Intelligence operations often involve intricate deceptions. Apart from that, and occasional assassinations and so forth, long-term conspiracies are vanishingly rare.
It's just too difficult to keep secrets for any length of time.
Kaor, To Both!
You gentlemen made points I mostly agree with. But I think occasional and rare long term conspiracies are possible. Here I mean how, in THE GAME OF EMPIRE we see Merseia and Aycharaych engineering a really long range plot to insert a deep cover agent who would rise thru the ranks of the Terran Navy to the point where he could aspire to seize the throne.
Paranoically yours! (Laughs) Sean
Sean: well, it helps to have a superintelligent universal telepath on your side...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
It certainly would! Also, there were wild rumors after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981 that the Bulgarian who shot him was an agent of the Bulgarian Communist secret police, who were controlled by the Soviet KGB. Allegedly Brezhnev was so enraged at how the Pope was undermining Soviet domination of eastern Europe that he ordered the KGB to engineer the hit.
Naw, too complicated to believe. No matter how angry an increasingly senescent Brezhnev was, I think more prudent underlings in the KGB would object, pointing out obvious dangers and costs.
Ad astra! Sean
How about the CIA assassinating Kennedy?
Paul: exceedingly unlikely. The fact is that most assassinations are not conspiracies -- they're just lone nutters. Not invariably, of course, but usually. The fact is that it's harder to stop a lone nutter than it is a conspiracy, because conspiracies often 'leak'.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: It would have been far more likely the tyrant Castro would try getting Kennedy assassinated. These two did not love one another one bit, with JFK having the CIA trying to find ways of eliminating Fidel.
Mr. Stirling: Unfortunately, some conspiracies actually succeeded, such as the Serbian Black Hand's plots for murdering Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: I don't think Dragovic expected it to succeed. It was low-cost and "oh, well, might as well try" was his attitude, I think.
That it did succeed was the result of a cascade of unlikely coincidences.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Stupefyingly unexpected coincidences! First, the archduke's driver made a wrong turn, then the car stalled directly in front of Princip. Even pulp fiction magazines might hesitate to accept stories with such implausibilities.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: fiction has to be believable. Reality doesn't.
Sean: You mentioning the attempted assassination of John Paul II, reminded me of speculation that John Paul I might have been killed because he was investigating financial irregularities in the Vatican Bank.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: Ha, too true!
Jim: Highly unlikely, because John Paul I had a weak heart, so his death by a heart attack was not a matter for suspicion. Many popes have had brief reigns, due to age and failing health.
The problem with anyone handling large sums of money is how tempting it would be for its managers to embezzle funds, at secular banks as well, not just the Vatican's bank.
Ad astra! Sean
The thing to bear in mind is the SAT principle -- "Somebody Always Talks".
That's why there has only been one successful slave revolt in the whole of human history, for example -- Santo Domingo/Haiti, and that took a -cascade- of unlikely chances.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That makes sense to me, and I agree.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment