"This galaxy alone is too big for any power to control." (p. 97)
Then why do some sf villains want to conquer it? And, specifically, why, in a later future history series, do Poul Anderson's Merseians want to conquer it? Anderson can answer that. His Merseians started out as standard pulp space opera villains with green skins out to conquer the galaxy but it emerges that their aim is a network of autonomous realms, not a single galactic government. What matters to them is the race, not any particular regime. And, by "them," we mean the dominant culture on Merseia during a particular historical period, not the species as a whole. On the human colony planet, Dennitza, the minority of beings of Merseian descent are loyal to the Terran Emperor, not to the Merseian Roidhun. The Technic History mirrors real history in complexity.
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