Another Literary Reference

SM Stirling, Ed., Drakas! (New York, 2000).

(See image. "INGSOC" is Newspeak for "English Socialism.")

And here is another literary reference, on the second page of "The Last Word" by Harry Turtledove in Drakas!:

"What had that Englishman called the Snakes? A boot in the face of mankind forever - something like that, anyhow." (p. 250)

And that is how O'Brien of the Thought Police describes the future to Winston Smith in George Orwell's 1984:

He is entirely honest about the brutal cynicism of the Party; the Party does not seek power to do anything good, but simply to revel in that power: "Always, Winston, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face — forever."
-copied from here.

Very appropriate for the Draka: Orwell would have said it of them in their timeline.

In HG Wells' The Time Machine, bourgeoisie and proletarians devolve into different species. In Orwell's 1984, a Party makes a revolution, then freezes society into a new dictatorship forever. Turtledove's MacDonald refers to Orwell as "...that Englishman..." and Poul Anderson's Caleb Wallis refers to Wells as "'...a young Englishman in the '90's...'"
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), p. 73.

Human, Post-Human And Artificial Intelligences

If human beings create artificial intelligences, how will organic and post-organic consciousnesses interact? In the Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy and Genesis, Poul Anderson imagines individual human consciousnesses surviving physical death by their incorporation into self-maintaining and self-replicating AI systems whereas, in Drakon, SM Stirling instead imagines a later human species with indefinitely prolonged lifespans and implanted links to the AI Web.

I have discussed the two works by Anderson previously on this blog. Stirling's Homo drakensis are the immediate descendants of his "Draka" who had imposed a brutal dictatorship on the rest of humanity. Home drakensis seem to have transcended brutality but only by genetically engineering Homo servus to be permanently subservient - plus which their surviving human enemies are currently at an unattainable interstellar distance. Individual drakensis remain armed and lethal.

A drakensis stranded in the twentieth century of an alternative timeline and wanting to summon an invasion fleet wins a Greenpeace supporter to her cause by showing him pictures of the ecologically paradisal Earth of her era. Also controlled by her pheromones, he easily accepts that her society must be hierarchical if it is to be stable but he has not been told the historical origins of that society and can easily be manipulated to accept any killing that she deems necessary, starting with the murder of an employee who would have spoken to the press.

I will reread the passages about the Draka Final Society to compare its dystopian and apparently utopian elements. 1984 is an unrelieved dystopia. Brave New World is a dystopia disguised as a utopia. Drakon seems to be another of the latter.

Outlaws

In Poul Anderson's The Snows Of Ganymede, Planetary Engineers investigating Ganymede deduce that the colony leaders could eradicate the Outlaws but do not want to. An external enemy is too useful for controlling their own population. A book that I received as a Christmas present argues that some existing regimes find it expedient to practice surveillance of external enemies because this gives them a means to control their own populations. Thus, there is a parallel between two texts, only one of them fictional.

This could be a controversial discussion! Imagine an argument between two Ganymedeans. One, supporting the colonial regime, believes that the Outlaws are simply a threat that must be eradicated. The other replies that:

some of the Outlaws oppose injustices within the regime;

the regime does not want to eradicate the Outlaws because vilification of them helps to unite the population and maintain the regime.

Now transfer that argument to an existing situation.

Meanwhile, back in an earlier sf novel, 1984, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are permanently at war in mutually agreed battle zones but never attack each others' home territories although the prole populations are continually propagandized with the threat that invasion is imminent. This deception maintains social order, hence the Party slogan: "War is Peace."

America Versus The Draka

"'...[the Americans]'re a society oriented to dynamism while we're committed to stasis...'"
-SM Stirling, Under the Yoke (New York, 1989), p. 115.

A static society should stagnate and be defeated by a dynamic one. The 1984 regimes do not have a dynamic opponent so they will surely stagnate quicker or collapse as soon as an energy source runs out. The Draka counteract their disadvantage by alertness and long term planning:

"Living on the edge, being conscious of having no margin for error, at least made you less likely to fall into complacency." (pp. 115-116)

The Americans are technologically ahead in:

nuclear physics;
quantum mechanics;
rare alloys;
ultra-precision engineering;
electronics -

- where the Draka are weak but the US might be persuaded to sell "'...their technology for profit.'" (p. 116) No, blockade the Draka!

There is a nuclear standoff but why not smuggle a nuke into Archona before the Draka pull the same stunt the other way? Better still, assassinate all the snake brass simultaneously:

"' - leadership's a scarce resource fo' us, so we make better use of it.'" (p. 116)

"'System as centralized as ours is more vulnerable to atomics than theirs.'" (p. 115)

The Draka plan to maintain military tension in order to force the Alliance for Democracy to tax, regulate, step up security and secretiveness, waste resources - all the areas where the Draka are more effective. The Americans must maintain general standards of living whereas the Draka aim to keep their serfs impoverished!

A very unpleasant war but the democracies must fight to win and the serious danger is that they will not.

World Conquest Or Competitive Sports

"War and repression are the raison d'etre of the Domination's state machinery; the Draka exist in a state of either war or serious preparation for same."
-SM Stirling, Marching Through Georgia (New York, 1991), p. 394.

Poul Anderson shows us wars and militarized societies but Stirling goes all the way with this idea. No one has ever conquered the entire Earth before but, if the Draka do succeed, so that their raison d'etre becomes not war but only repression, then surely they will stagnate? Or they might pull the 1984 stunt of dividing the world into nominally hostile powers and maintaining permanent limited wars in undeveloped areas far away from the centers of civilization?

Here is one Draka's response to the prospect of battle:

"'Brothers an' Sisters of the Race!' he cried in mock ecstasy. 'These are great times. Do yo' realize what this means?' He paused for effect. 'For once - just like we always dreamed in Basic - just this one time in our young nearly-maggot-recruit, lives, bros, we gets a chance to kill the sumbitch donkeyfuckahs that're roustin' us out of bed in the middle of the night!'" (p. 254)

This draws laughter and cheers and even a stifled smile from Centurion Eric von Shrakenberg who, we know, is capable of aspirations beyond the Draka dead end. But the "...gangling, freckled young man..." (ibid.) making this rousing speech is simply naive. He really does not know any better. Such enthusiasm and group loyalty should be channeled into football, not into world conquest.