Imperial Phases: Terra

 

Technic civilization was first a republic (the Solar Commonwealth), then an empire (the Terran Empire).

Our main sources are two conversations of Dominic Flandry:

With Chunderban Desai

Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 239-426 AT III, pp. 271-276.

With Miriam Abrams

Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VI, pp. 70-76.

Flandry tells Miriam that the "'...earlier order...,'" (p. 73) i.e., the Commonwealth, had committed suicide, bringing on chaos:

"'So again, as before, came Caesar.'" (ibid.)

However, in the case of Rome, the Republic, although maybe (?) heading towards suicide, had not committed it yet. Julius Caesar did not restore order after the Republic but instead accumulated power during that period and his successor, Octavius, continued this process, gradually transforming the Republic with a princeps senatus into a Principate with a princeps.

If the Principate was the continued appearance of republican government, then how could there have been a Principate under Manuel I who merely imposed his own imperial rule directly onto the chaos of the post-Commonwealth Troubles?

Desai tells Flandry that the Terran Empire is:

"'...well into our anarchic phase... Or our interregnum, or whatever you wish to call it.'" (p. 273)

Interregnum between what? Flandry spells out to Miriam that she and he:

"'...happen to be living in a critical stage of the Empire's decline, the interregnum between its principate and dominate phases.'" (p. 74)

Again, how can there have been a principate? And surely they are already well into the dominate phase? - since Flandry also tells Miriam that:

"'Now nobody can claim power by right - only by strength.'" (p. 75)

Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization seems to place the Dominate phase much later.