Conflicting Histories And Corrupted Bureaucracies

Poul Anderson presents fictional futures with or without nuclear wars. See Our Chaos. There can also be alternative histories of how nuclear weapons have been used. I have just reread Grant Morrison's Zenith in which the Allies nuked not Japan but Berlin, thus obliterating the Nazi superhero, Masterman, just as he was killing the English superhero, Maximan. Nothing original there, just a new combination of - can we call them "ficts" (fictional facts)?

But it is time for us to return to Poul Anderson's Orbit Unlimited which has given me a new insight into the potential depth of state corruption. Jan Svoboda dislikes what a state school is teaching his son so he goes and beats up his son's teacher, Mr. Tse, and is arrested. When Svoboda's fellow philosophical dissident, Theron Wolfe, intervenes, a respectful policeman not only apologizes for the mistake of arresting the son of a Federation Commissioner but also asks Wolfe, a civilian:

"'Do you wish to file any charges against the Tse person?... We'll take care of him, sir.'" (p. 31)

Tse, beaten up for doing his job, might now be "taken care of" by the police! Fortunately, Wolfe wants his friend out of police custody but not to perpetrate any further injustice. But just think of the attitude of that policeman! And then think about how often such an attitude is reproduced on Earth Real.

Svoboda, Wolfe and their fellow Constitutionalists leave Sol.