See:
Why Should An Interstellar Civilization Be Unstable?
We receive some answers.
The Shar of Barjaz-Kaui on Davenigo/Ettalume IV has started to tax traders. The Nomads cannot overthrow him by force because the Coordination Service knows of Davenigo. (Otherwise, the Nomads would have overthrown the Shar by force...?) Next best thing, the Nomad ship, Adventurer, and maybe also Bedouin, will try to subvert the Shar's government and to replace him with someone friendlier. If that is what some Nomads get up to, then no wonder the Cordies have to work overtime. And some Nomads have strayed a long way from their original "...undying voyage..." (CHAPTER II, p. 7)
Even more blatantly, the Stroller has sold guns to a race deemed unready for such technology and the Cordies have found out. Other Nomads do not condemn the Stroller but learn to watch their step with the Cordies for a while. Nomads are indeed disruptive.
More generally, Trevelyan Micah explains to Braganza Diane that:
human beings have visited a million stars and this number continually increases;
many visited stars have one or even more planets inhabited by intelligent beings with alien psychologies;
these beings' responses to an interstellar civilization are unpredictable and could be catastrophic.
The Cordies, unlike the Nomads, are concerned about the interests of all intelligent species.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But recall how Stirling commented in another combox how hard it would be for the authorities to control or restrain frontiersmen, citing the failure of the UK's effort to do so after the Seven Years War as one example. And it would be even harder to do that on an interstellar scale with FTL.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
We see another buccaneering frontiersman in "Teucan," albeit he came to an ironic end in that story.
Ad astra! Sean
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