Treaty

After Doomsday, 5.

The Soviet Union and the Draga Council of Vorlak had signed a treaty. Donnan is shown:

"...parallel Russian and Vorlakka texts. He could read enough of the former to get the drift. '- common cause of the peace-loving peoples against imperial aggressors...unity in the great patriotic struggle -' He didn't think any non-human could have done the phrasing that exactly." (p. 46)

They could not and we commend Poul Anderson for getting the phrasing just right! We remember some Merseian "blat" (as Afal Uroch had thought of it):

"'All folk heed, we wish you no harm. We are here expressly at the request of your rightful chieftains, the Liberation Council which wills an end to centuries of oppression. His Supremacy the Roidhun recognizes the Liberation Council as the legitimate government of the Gorrazanian Realm. Even so, we of Merseia have no desire to intervene in your affairs. Consider simply how remote our dominions are. It is the sheerest altruism for us to cross such stretches of space, under peril of attack by the aggressors of Imperial Terra, in answer to an appeal - not to give military aid, no, not for any warlike purpose, but to convey hospital supplies to the valiant armies of your Liberation Council. If we come armed, it is for self-defense. If we fight, it is because we were set upon, without the least provocation on our part. Note that we do not pursue the fleeing units of the lawless and discredited Folkmoot regime -'"

-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 309.

Poul Anderson could have written propaganda for the Soviet Union and the Merseian Roidhunate. (This might remind some of us of Alan Moore who, within the context of fictional texts, can also turn his hand to propaganda, advertising, pornography etc.)

Vorlak is at war with Kandemir. The Soviet Union produced weapons which were collected by a Vorlakka ship at a secret rendezvous on Venus. Russian military personnel were to gain experience of interstellar war by serving as auxiliaries. Thus, the USSR would get ahead in the Terrestrial arms race...

"Vanity of vanities."