"Wherefore Flandry walked through smashed ruins under a red dwarf sun, with a few raindrops falling like blood drops out of great clotted clouds."
-Poul Anderson, "The Game of Glory" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 303-339 AT p. 304.
Clouds like clotted blood?
Is Flandry a "Defender" or a conqueror?
"...he was lonesome among his fellow conquerors..."
-ibid., p. 306.
On Mars in the Harvest Of Stars History:
"Corpses lay strewn among blackened, twisted hulks. Behind them, the hills out of which the guerillas had struck rose dark, torturous, riddled and seamed with hiding places, toward Arsia Mons and a sky the color of clotting blood."
-The Fleet Of Stars, 20, p. 252.
The sky matches the scene on the ground, of course.
"...landscape tumbled away in black desolation, weirdly pocked and riven, under a sky gone murrey."
-ibid., p. 256.
"Murrey" is one of Anderson's words that I had to google and my computer does not recognize it.
We, editorially speaking, are reading about a historical revolution and also about the Inrai outrages on one future Mars.
(For the full story, please read The Fleet Of Stars. I comment only on whichever arbitrary details catch my attention.)
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteJust a small error, the bit about Brae came from "The Game of Glory," not THE GAME OF EMPIRE.
The Brae affair was very bad, there was no need for the Empire to occupy the planet, it was nothing like Jihannath.
I googled, "Murrey" is a heraldic term used for coats of arms and is of a dark reddish-purple color.
Ad astra! Sean
For more about Jihannath interested readers might look up Appendix I of my "Futuristic Sex" article, where I discussed it in some detail.
ReplyDeleteAd astra! Sean
Every worthy cause (worthy to someone, at least) involves doing bad things. Because that involves politics, and violence is the ultimately decisive means of political action.
ReplyDeleteThis will never change.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling! (I assume)
ReplyDeleteTo me that's an obvious truism and will always be a part of human life and politics.
That said, reasonably decent people and their nations at least try to live by some rough and ready rules on how to use force. Such as the principles proposed by Thomas Aquinas and the Geneva/Hague conventions. One principle being that non-combatant civilians should be the directly intended targets of military actions. Which is why I dismiss blather about it being a "war crime" to attack bridges, power plants, munitions/drone factories, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: I think you missed a 'not' in the 2nd last sentence of your 2nd paragraph.
ReplyDeleteAs for your last sentence; I think I had seen targeting bridges & power plants being called a war crime. However, has anyone called targeting munitions factories a war crime?
To destroy ALL the power plants and ALL the bridges in a country would certainly be an attack on the entire population, not just on military targets, especially in a war of aggression. The stated purpose of this threatened attack was not to defeat an army but to destroy a civilization, an enormous crime.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Jim and Paul!
ReplyDeleteJim: Fiddlesticks and cusswords, you're right! I somehow missed typing that "not" in the sentence you pointed out to me. I hope readers will now mentally insert that "not."
It's my belief there has been so much crazed opposition to the US doing anything to bring the Ayatollahs to heel that even attacking munitions plants are being condemned.
Paul: Disagree, the object in a war is to force your enemy to do what you want him to do. Bridges and power plants have obvious military uses, and that makes them legitimate targets of attack. The Geneva/Hague conventions does not prohibit signatories from attacking such things.
I care nothing about overblown rhetoric when what matters is what targets are being struck. The vast advances in military tech since WW II, esp. in accurate precision attacks on legitimate targets shows the goal is not "to destroy a civilization."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteThe way to "bring the Ayatollahs to heel," if that is what you want to do, is not to attack a country. Opposition to that from the Pope and others is not crazed. Why did no one want to bring the Shah to heel? You are simply talking about enforcing US interests in that region regarding oil.
Not ALL bridges and power plants which is what Trump said. Imagine a population with ALL its power plants destroyed. How many young Muslims would then convert to anti-US jihadism? Israel also seems to think that it can literally destroy all its enemies which is why it is always at war and always creating new enemies. There has to be a way out of that cycle. There is a way. Oppose militaristic political systems that generate leaders like Trump, Netanyahu and Putin.
I also care nothing about overblown rhetoric. Trump said that a civilization would end - unless you and I see and hear different media?
Paul.
We usually do notice when someone has missed out a "not" etc.
ReplyDeleteEnforcing American interests is a perfectly legitimate use of government power... for the American government.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you get in the way, you're likely to die.
Always calculate the odds before getting into a fight.
If you don't, you're too stupid to live.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteDisagree. The Ayatollahs have been waging war on the US by all possible means since 1979. Using Muslim fanaticism and Shia millennialism as the theocratic/ideological justification for their acts. Also, since the Islamic Republic rules Iran, with all the political/administrative/military apparatus proper to a State, any State, the only to break the Ayatollahs is to attack the State they rule.
You still don't understand, not everything a Pope, any Pope, says is binding on Catholics. And that includes the merely personal and private opinions of Leo XIV. Catholics are free to disagree with any pope's personal views--and that also is standard Catholic teaching.
Btw, I was thinking of the crazed antics of US leftists, not of what Leo XIV said.
Yes, ALL bridges and power plants, if that is what it takes to break the will of the Ayatollahs. You are demanding a totally unrealistic standard that would have made it either impossible or enormously more costly to defeat National Socialist Germany or Japan in WW II.
Rejected, what you said about the Shah. Compared to the Ayatollahs he was a pussycat, never slaughtering people by the tens of thousands to stay in power in 1978-79.
Denied, what you said about Muslims. The problem is the brutal and theocratic nature of Islam. As long as far too many Muslims take seriously the savage teachings of Mohammed as divine revelations, Islam is going to be a danger.
We interpret facts differently. I believe my interpretation is more accurate and realistic than yours.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirlimng!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, what you said about the US having every right to defend its interests. I only wish the UK had a gov't with the backbone to do the same.
I think the Ayatollahs were hoping Trump would flinch and scuttle away as Obama and "Josip" had done.
I do think Pres. Trump could have planned the war a bit more carefully, such as pre-positioning more supplies/resources before hostilities started. And being more careful about the exact wording of many of his statements.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteDisagree.
The Ayatollahs came to power in 1979 because the Iranian people led by the oil workers overthrew the Shah who had been put in power by the US and Britain and had oppressed the people with notorious secret police and torture prisons. You only tell half the story!
Using military power to impose and support violent pro-US regimes in the oil-rich Middle East is not a form of "defense"! Of course such regimes are going to be opposed by means that you will neither like nor agree with.
I do understand. I do know Catholic teaching. I was educated in it although I challenge that word, "educated." I quote the Pope because I agree with him on this issue, not because I misunderstand the doctrine of infallibility as applying to everything he says. This is another massive red herring. Catholics are perfectly free to disagree with the Pope when he denounces war and destruction and calls for peace and justice through respect and negotiation.
There are no crazed antics of US leftists. There are Americans who disagree with you on these issues. Surely, however, some of Trump's performances count as "crazed antics"? He said that the Pope thinks that the Iranians should have nuclear weapons. The Pope has rightly denounced all nuclear weapons. But Trump just says whatever suits him.
ALL bridges and power plants? Would that constitute a just war? What would be the effect first on the whole Iranian population and secondly on renewed hatred of the US there and elsewhere? This is not comparable to WWII and I do not agree with everything that was done by the Allies then.
Rejected what you said about the Shah. "Compared with" arguments are no good when two regimes are bad and I am not defending the Ayatollahs. The Shah was nothing of the sort. You seem not to know about SAVAK or torture prisons. I emailed you information about them.
Denied what you said about Muslims. (Can we stop expressing ourselves like this?) The present problem is not the brutal and theocratic nature of Islam. It is the global economy destroying the environment and Trump resorting to violence because the US is losing its global dominance. Some Muslims ARE a danger to US hegemony. So are many others.
Of course you believe that your interpretation is accurate and realistic! Otherwise it would not be your interpretation! I proudly proclaim the same belief about my interpretation. Merely saying that gets us nowhere but that is or should be obvious.
Paul.
Please read information that I just emailed about the CIA and SAVAK.
ReplyDeleteI have also emailed about an Israeli news outlet's interviews with IDF soldiers who had been in Gaza.
ReplyDeletePaul: war means fighting, fighting means killing. QED.
ReplyDeleteWar doesn't have to mean what the IDF have been doing in Gaza.
ReplyDeleteAn end to the causes of war will mean an end to fighting and killing.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteIncorrect, the Ayatollahs were able to seize power in 1979 because they were leading a reaction against the Shah's efforts of the past 25 years to modernize Iran. Efforts, at first moderate and not too drastic, which became more drastic/harsh, which inevitably stirred up opposition, which Khomeini and his gang took advantage of.
The US doesn't even need Mid East oil, having plenty of oil of its own, plus access to oil from Canada/Venezuela. The UK, Europe, Asia depends far more on the Mid East. Breaking the grip of Iran benefits them as well as the US.
I disagree with Leo XIV because I believe him to be factually incorrect about the Iran war and ignoring the Geneva/Hague conventions.
Yes, all bridges, all power plants, any infrastructure allowing the Ayatollahs to cling to power and wage war. Destruction of which is permitted by Geneva/Hague.
Disagree, there are crazed American leftists.
Disagree, what you said about that vague "global economy." As long as no SERIOUS effort is being made to switch to nuclear power, fossil fuels are going to be used. Disagree, as well, about Islam, because I take seriously what the Koran/Hadiths/Sharia teaches, because convinced Muslims take them seriously.
If the Gazans don't like their fate, then they have to drive out Hamas. There can be no peace there, after 10/7, until that happens.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteDisagree with everything.
IF the Gazans don't like their fate?! You still do not know what the Israelis are doing there. I have forwarded you a lot of information. Hamas committed atrocities on 10/7. Israel commits repeated atrocities. Hamas resists.
The "global economy" is not vague. Don't pretend not to understand what you dislike or disagree with! I avoided the word, "capitalism," but it is capitalist pursuit of profit above all else that destroys the environment and will continue to do that whichever form of energy is used.
"...fossil fuels are going to be used..." - until they destroy us! How can you be complacent about that?
There are some very crazed American rightists including Trump who clearly thinks that all leftists are insane etc. Remember he said that the Pope has said that the Iranians should have a nuclear weapon. Trump is clearly not rational.
The US doesn't need Middle East oil? Please get out of the Middle East then. I don't want oil supplies to be secured by the military means used by Israel and the US.
You clearly have no concern for the Iranian people. Do the Conventions allow the destruction of every power plant in the country? Iranians were prepared to defend bridges and power plants with their bodies. Trump's attacks have strengthened the regime, all too predictably.
Not the Ayatollahs but the oil workers (workers of course ignored and forgotten) overthrew the Shah because of SAVAK and torture. I have sent you information on this.
You make a bogeyman out of Islam. Your system needs external bogeymen to distract from its own internal causes of conflict.
(This whole argument is awful.)
Paul.
Bombing a country back to the Stone Age and destroying an ancient civilization in hours (Trump's words, not my rhetoric) is not a legitimate military aim.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteWhat happening in Gaza is a WAR, people fight and die in wars. QED
I stand by "vague," because people who think as you do have no practical ideas what to. Capitalism works, nothing else has ever worked.
Fossil fuels? Then talk to China and India about that, they pollute more than all the rest of the world put together.
I don't much care about Trump's rhetoric--I go by what he actually does, which is often far less "insane" than you say.
Impossible, what you said about the US and the Mid East. It's a matter of crucial importance to the US not to let it fall under the domination of powers hostile to America. You would not like it if Maoist China seized control there.
I wish well of the Iranian people, but they are not my people, and my country comes first. Yes, the laws of war by which the US abides allows the destruction of everything militarily useful to an enemy. Any Iranians trying to defend bridges/power plants will die, their deaths are on them.
I don't care who or what triggered the downfall of the Shah, Khomeini and his gang still ended up on top.
Everything I've learned about Islam makes me regard it icily. Wherever Islam has become dominant all we have ever seen from it is despotism. And persecution/oppression of all non-Muslims. Except, partly, in Malaysia, and even there non-Muslims face irksome restrictions. To say nothing of how Christians are being massacred by the thousands at Muslim hands in Africa.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteWhat is happening in Gaza is serious atrocities and deliberate starvation. Read the reports I have emailed. QED.
I reject vague. We have practical ideas. Cooperation for need, not competition for profit. Capitalism kills. I have replied to "nothing else has ever worked."
We who oppose fossil fuels do talk to India and China, for heaven's sake!
You don't care about a threat to starve a population and destroy a civilization? Trump's incitement of a riot in which people were killed was sane?
Circular argument. Powers are hostile to the US because it has dominated the world. I have replied about Maoist China before. Two wrongs do not make a right.
The people of the world come first. You just don't get it.
I am being cut off but this is appalling.
Paul.
Sean,
ReplyDeleteContinuing where I had to break off with apologies for abruptness.
Issues like these cannot be resolved in sound bites like these. There is no "QED." Both of us should be able to anticipate replies and counterreplies.
Their deaths are on them - for defending power plants? Civilians? For their families and children? What sort of morality is that?
You don't care about much. Of course the Ayatollahs came to power and of course that is bad. The workers who overthrew the Shah can overthrow all those regimes.
You need to meet Muslims. All despotisms have to be opposed including those that support the US.
There is something very wrong about the entire tone of these exchanges. It is backs to the wall, tooth and nail. You respond as if under attack and I am drawn into replying in kind although that is not what I set out to do.
We neither persuade each other nor learn anything and I always ask is there any point? The point is to correct my errors? (I am quoting an earlier comment.) But you do not succeed in changing my views. And I do not have errors. You do. (Of course I do not usually express myself like that but I am replying in kind.)
I think that you have a problem with the fact that someone out here thinks differently. But that is what the world is like, harshly and realistically.
Paul.
Please read emails about Gaza.
ReplyDeleteAs long as there is a discussion about Trump's war on Iran, I think this is worth adding to the discussion.
ReplyDeletehttps://robertbryce.substack.com/p/dont
I consider our war on Germany and Japan during WW2 to be a model.
ReplyDeleteDresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki - no.
ReplyDeleteYes, because we won. If we'd held back applying our power, we'd have lost. So effectively, you're saying Nazis should rule the world, in effect.
DeleteKaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteNo, what is happening in Gaza is a war, and people die in wars. The atrocities of 10/7 forever condemn its perpetrators. You are supporting an evil cause.
I don't believe in your preferred economics. We cannot even know what goods and services unless demand and supply provide the necessary data. I dismiss the hopeless socialist fantasy.
I don't think China/India cares one-bit what people like you say--just stringing you along.
I don't care about Trump's rhetoric about Iran--only on what he does.
Somebody is going to dominate the world. Far better that's the US and Western civilization. The only other alternatives are either Maoist China or jihadist Islam, both of which would be horrible.
Disagree, my country/civilization comes first. Maoists, jihadists, and barbarians/tyrants never.
What do you mean, bemoaning the deaths of enemies defending power plants/bridges? It's not a war crime to attack counter missile batteries or drone sites which might be there. MILITARY personnel. Nor is it likely the families of soldiers and technicians at these legitimate targets of war will be there.
Those workers you keep mysticizing were the very ones to put Khmeini and his gang in power.
It's not the "nice" Muslims which is the problem. The problem being the vast number who take ALL of Mohammed's teachings seriously.
I do not expect to "convert" you, but I feel obliged to protest what I believe to be erroneous views.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteI do not support the 10/7 atrocities and am not supporting an evil cause. I have shown clear, documented evidence of evil now being perpetrated in Gaza.
I know you don't believe in my preferred economics! We can democratically plan what to produce.
China and India don't care and neither do you!
Somebody is not going to dominate the world. They will always be resisted. And temporary partial dominators rise and fall.
Disagree. All human beings come first. Entire populations cannot be written off as Maoists, jihadists, barbarians and tyrants.
What do I mean bemoaning the deaths of citizens defending their power plants and bridges? That is clear enough. It is a war crime to attack power plants. Missiles and drones MIGHT be there?
I also care very much about what Trump is doing! And threatens to do. Is it right to intimidate populations by threatening rhetorically?
I do not keep mysticizing workers. By withdrawing their labour, then taking control of the means of production and producing for need, not profit, workers have the power to change the world.
The problem is not Islam but the competitive global economy destroying the environment and causing wars for resources like oil.
We each think that the other believes error. Saying that gets nowhere. Nor does repeating it.
Paul.
gets us nowhere
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the fire bombing of Dresden was necessary.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was necessary to keep the Germans in a submissive frame of mind, and to warn off the Soviets, who were going to push relentlessly everywhere unless deterred.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeletePaul: No, we cannot "...democratically plan what to produce." This nonsense always boils down to what we actually see every time socialism is tried: an autocratic, one party, bureaucratic dictatorship clumsily and incompetently trying to run an economy from the top down. With secret-police being needed to enforce the decrees of the "planners."
Socialism always fail because no planners, no politicians, no committees, no congresses or parliaments can possibly make all the millions of decisions, small or large, that gets made in a real economy by uncounted millions of people.
At its most extreme a "successful" totalitarian socialist regime might even end with mankind becoming a race of mindless, ant-like hive creatures, which was the idea Anderson used for "The High Ones." As one character said in that story, socialism ends with "A place for everyone and everyone in his place. The holy society, whose very stasis was holy. Specialized breeds for the different jobs. Some crude attempts at it have been made on Earth. Egypt didn't change for thousands of years after the pyramids were built. Diocletian, the Roman emperor, made every occupation hereditary. The Hindus had their caste system. China, Korea, Japan tried to cut themselves off from the outside world, from any challenge or alteration. And isn't communism supposed, by definition, to be perfect, so that new ideas must be heretical?"
I was so interested by "The High Ones" that a wrote a letter to Anderson asking, among other things, if he believed a Marxist ruled Earth would end with mankind becoming like the mindless Zolotoyans of that story. Anderson replied he did not think it would end like that, rather such a socialist regime would fail bloodily, so bloodily the human race might not survive. He took the mindless hive creatures idea from Seidenberg's book POST-HISTORIC MAN.
That is why I dismiss the socialist fantasy: it doesn't work, has never worked, never will work.
Exactly, China/India cares nothing about woke leftist virtue signaling. But I strongly suspect the hard men in Peking take far more seriously the views of men like Stirling and I, because we have no illusions about them.
Somebody is going to dominate the world--that has been the historical pattern thru out mankind's history, and I see zero reason to expect that to chang. I would far rather it was Western civilization which did the dominating. Meaning my country (including the UK), our civilization, comes first.
It is not a war crime to attack the bridges/power plants of an enemy in times of war. Prove it, cite the Geneva/Hague conventions.
I don't believe that nonsense about "workers," who can be just as weak, foolish, corruptible, and bad as anyone else.
Refused, the problem is how most Muslims believe in all the barbaric teachings of Mohammed/Islam. With all the bad things coming from that.
Mr. Stirling: Even if the US/UK couldn't stop the Soviets from grabbing much of Eastern Europe as WW II ended, did it have to be so much? I still think one or two countries could have been saved from Stalin's fangs, such as Bulgaria. A few hundred US or UK troops sent there in 1945 might have been enough to make Stalin back off.
Ad astra! Sean
Disagree. We have said it all before.
ReplyDelete