We like secret organizations in fiction and the Scaine Croi is a good one. We think of SPECTRE but I find that I have already made that comparison.
When a bribed pilot delivers a hijacked plane to SPECTRE, he receives a stiletto through his chin, mouth and brain and experiences momentary surprise, pain and light. Then he ceases to be the viewpoint character and the omniscient narrator describes his murder's subsequent actions. We remember this when we read that Falaire's affection for Nicol, prospective space pilot hijacker for the Scaine Croi:
"...meant he could hope to get his pay in money, not a bullet or a knife thrust." (p. 138)
Indeed.
To give Nicol more positive motivation, Falaire immerses him in a "dreambox" simulation of the Lunarian colony planet, Proserpina, so far away that the sun is only the brightest star.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I became dissatisfied with the Bond stories after Fleming replaced SMERSH with SPECTRE. Because it's my belief that clandestine black ops organizations need the protection and resources provided by a powerful State to be really effective. Private sectarian terrorist groups like al Qaeda were able to perpetrate the 9/11 atrocities only because an indifferent US
had not given it enough attention. Once an enraged US focused its attention and resources to crushing it al Qaeda was DONE for.
Another characteristic of official clandestine bodies like SMERSH is that as agencies of a State they have to hew to the lines laid down by their political masters. Meaning they don't generally plan for operations as spectacular as 9/11 because that would be very risky for the States they serve, being acts of war. However hostile their political masters might be to a rival nation they generally don't allow bodies like SMERSH to go too far.
Ad astra! Sean
Yeah, you need State power to do anything significant politically.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
But I believe SPECTRE like organizations can sometimes commit acts which are politically significant. The terrorist Serbian Black Hand was not an official agency of Serbia, but successfully plotting the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914 led to WW I and all its baleful consequences.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: but the head of the Black Hand was also head of Serbian military intelligence -- for which he was executed later, btw. The assassins were aided by Serbian state and quasi-state agencies on their trip to Sarajevo.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Dang, then I have to sit corrected! What this means is that States too can succumb to folly and recklessness. I should also have remembered how centuries of oppression by the Ottoman Turks had deeply instilled a tradition of ruthless intrigue and treachery with many Serbs.
Serbia got no lasting joy out of its WW I conquests: Slovenes, Montenegrins, Croats, Magyars, etc., resented Serbian domination and began bloodily breaking away after Tito's death.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: not to mention that 25% of Serbia's population died in WW1. That's -nearly- a record; the Ottoman Empire may have matched it, though the figures are disputed.
The fifty years before WW1 saw a massive "ethnic shuffle" in the Balkans, and WW1 and the period after it saw another. The countries there have much more homogenous populations now than the areas they occupy did in the 19th century.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I remember somewhat vaguely reading of how horrendous casualties were for Serbia in WW I. Which should be a lesson for ambitious States that any wars they provoke are not always going to end as they hope.
I recall reading that one reason Ottoman losses were so bad at places like Gallipoli was because they ignored the advice of their Austrian and German allies not too fight too aggressively at the wrong times/places. The Anglo/French were defeated at Gallipoli, but it was a Pyrrhic victory for the Turks.
Not surprised by that ethnic reshuffling before and after WW I. The Christian nations of the Balkans had been oppressed for centuries by the Muslim Turks, with all the usual humiliations imposed on non-Muslims by Sharia law. The Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars, etc., got their revenge by killing or driving out the Muslims. And the Turks were even worse to the Greeks and Armenians living in Anatolia before/after WW I. Adrian Breze, in your Shadowspawn books, mentioned how the Armenians still hated the Turks with a white-hot fury.
IWHBD, unfortunately.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, I've always wished the Greeks had won the Graeco-Turkish war in the 20's. Which they would have done without Lenin giving Ataturk clandestine aid, btw.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Not sure I knew that bad man Lenin intervened to prop up the Turks. I got the impression the Greeks were defeated due to overconfidence and incompetence.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: certainly those played a role, but Lenin sent them massive shipments of armaments. Without ammunition, Kemal's competence wouldn't have mattered so much.
If the Greeks had won the war, most of western and northern Anatolia would be Greek, the Armenians would have set up a much bigger state in the east, and the Turks would be confined to an island in central Anatolia.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yet another black mark against Lenin, propping up the Turks!
I agree it would have been far better for the world if the Turks had been stripped of most of Anatolia. And the Armenians would not have lost their ancestral homeland around Lake Van.
Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk to be) was an interesting dictator. He really does seem to have wanted to modernize Turkey and even bring in some kind of democracy. The big problem, of course, being Islam, with its autocratic and theocratic nature. Which would inevitably undermine any attempts at democracy if most of a nation's people are Muslims. Even if he disliked Islam my belief is any successful effort by Ataturk and his supporters to truly modernize Turkey would require the Turks no longer being Muslims.
Ever since Erdogan came to power in Turkey Ataturkism has been gradually dismantled by Islamists. Unlike like other similar minded Sharia supremacists, Erdogan has been slow and cautious, gradually removing Kemalists from key offices in the military, the police, civil service, etc., and replacing them with his own supporters. And being careful not to be too openly and violently jihadist.
Ad astra! Sean
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