Introducing Magnusson

The Game of Empire.

""'...we can't do anything about it. Can we?'"

-CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 346.

"He drew a long breath. 'Come aside with me and let us talk,' he said."

-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, p. 347.

That was unusual: a question asked at the end of one chapter and answered at the beginning of the next. Usually, a chapter change is a change of scene although sometimes the end of one chapter prepares for the beginning of the next. Thus, in CHAPTER THREE, Targovi quizzes Diana about Olaf Magnusson. What does the public know? What does she know? How does she know it? Targovi has suspicions but wants to check them against the public image. It may be that that image has somehow been manufactured. Magnusson is a hero because he defeated the Merseians but what if the Merseians themselves had contrived to generate the impression of their defeat? Targovi does not voice any of this to Diana but he had been gathering the relevant evidence in CHAPTER TWO. In any case, after all this analysis of Magnusson, CHAPTER FOUR opens:

"The home of Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson lay in the desirable tract a hundred kilometers north of Aurea."

-CHAPTER FOUR, p. 249.

In other words, having heard several other characters, not just Targovi and Diana, discussing this public figure, Magnusson, we are now about to share the point of view of the guy himself - although it will be a while before Targovi's suspicions are confirmed.

See also Chapter Change. 

Retro-History

In Ensign Flandry, the Terran Emperor was Georgios. In subsequent volumes, his successors were:

Josip;
unnamed short-live Imperial relative (added, 17 June '14);
Hans;
Dietrich;
Gerhart -

- and Gerhart's heir will be Karl.

In The Game Of Empire, when Olaf Magnusson tries to depose Gerhart, we are given some retroactive history involving four already familiar names:

as Georgios was dying, Josip's favorites gained power;

when Josip succeeded, atrocities became routine in the outer Empire;

Captain Erik Magnusson of Kraken traded with Merseia;

some Merseians sensed Magnusson's disaffection from the Empire and referred his case to Brechdan Ironrede;

Brechdan and human subjects of the Roidhun converted Captain Magnusson;

Magnusson left his son Olaf to be educated on Merseia;

Aycharaych completed Olaf's conditioning.

The Game Of Empire also introduces the Zacharians whose retro-history goes back to the Polesotechnic League period and even further to the earliest interstellar travel of the twenty second century. There is always more to be learned about the past.

The Other Side Of A Coin

Having said all that, in the previous post, we cannot understand an individual unless we understand his or her social context and we cannot understand a society without some kind of theoretical framework. (Are social relationships based on ideas or on economic relationships?) Without first a decadent Terran Empire and second an aggressive Merseian Roidhunate, there would not be an Olaf Magnusson. An Olaf Magnusson clone born and brought up in a completely different society would not grow up to become the Admiral Magnusson that we know and - well, know. If there had not been Galilean missionaries on Woden, then Axor would not have converted to Jerusalem Catholicism and would have had no reason to travel through the galaxy looking for the Universal Incarnation.

I think that we tend to regard individuals and their motivations as givens but, like everything else, they have to have come from somewhere. (And an omnipotent creator could simply not create the conditions that had led to an Admiral Magnusson.) A man told me that he had a right to buy pornography but this entire question could arise only in a society where pornography already existed. The "right," if it is a right, to buy pornography would not have come into existence in a (much healthier) society where no one had ever thought of producing pornography.

A coin has two sides. People make history but not in circumstances of their own choosing.

Olaf Magnusson And Nicholas Ingolfsson

Erik Magnusson:

"...could not even declare openly his love for Merseia.
"But the time came when he gave Merseia his son.
"The boy Olaf accompanied him there and remained."
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), pp. 435-436.

Is the man Olaf Magnusson capable of questioning or rejecting his deeply embedded loyalty to Merseia?

"...the tiny wrinkled form ...quieted and peered around with mild, unfocused blue eyes. 'My own sweet Nicholas; I'm goin' call yo' Nikki, hear?'"
-SM Stirling, The Stone Dogs (New York, 1990), pp. 331-332.

Twenty years hence, that peering new-born baby will have become an unreflecting Draka adult. This is the moment when a difference could be made - if that baby could now be rescued from Draka indoctrination, in fact from indoctrination. Throughout my upbringing and education, I was told what I believed and that it was wrong to question it whereas my daughter was told, by me, that, if she asked me what I thought, then I would tell her but she might disagree with me as she grew older. Now, she agrees with me on some issues but not on others. I think that her life is better as a result.

Brechdan Ironrede And Olaf Magnusson

Brechdan stands on the terrace of Castle Dhangodhan. Magnusson stands on the observation deck of his home in the desirable tract north of Aurea on Daedalus.

Brechdan has a scar that throbs on his forehead. Magnusson's left cheek has a battle scar which he has not had removed and which has become his trademark.

Brechdan persuaded Erik Magnusson to serve the God, the Roidhun and the Race and to give them his son, Olaf. The boy was trained in a secret school on Merseia and conditioned by Aycharayach. Thus, Brechdan and Aycharaych wrought long term harm. Tachwyr had succeeded Brechdan and Chereion had been destroyed before Olaf tried to seize the Terran Throne.

Erik Magnusson

For a second time, Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire summarizes a history that overlaps with what we already know but from a different perspective:

while Emperor Georgios was dying, Crown Prince Josip's favorites came to power;

under Emperor Josip, officials enriched themselves by committing atrocities on outlying planets;

Captain Erik Magnusson, trader from Kraken, who sometimes visited Merseia, foreswore the Terran Empire;

Merseians sensing his disaffection introduced him to Brechdan Ironrede, Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council;

Magnusson transferred his loyalty to the Roidhunate;

he left his son Olaf on Merseia, telling his family that Olaf was now an apprentice on a prospector ship;

Olaf was educated by Merseians and hypnotically conditioned by Aycharaych;

returning to Kraken, Olaf enlisted in the Imperial marines;

he fought barbarians, bandits, rebels and even Mersians at Syrax but was praised by a secret agent;

speaking three Merseian languages, he also negotiated with the Roidhunate;

Emperor Hans valued Olaf's aloof austerity;

now defending a border sector, Olaf defeated a Merseian attack;

then he proclaimed himself Emperor;

his controllers expect his successor to be guided by Merseians and his grandsons to be the first of the new humanity.

Georgios, Josip, Brechdan, Aycharaych, Syrax and Hans are all familiar names. In fact, Georgios was Emperor with Josip as Crown Prince in Ensign Flandry. Thus, the entire period of the Flandry series has just been re-summarized but this time from a Merseian point of view.

Children Of Empire II

Furthermore, the first Young Flandry novel, Ensign Flandry, mentions Emperor Georgios and introduces Crown Prince Josip. By the time of the third Young Flandry novel, The Rebel Worlds, Josip has succeeded. 

The Game Of Empire introduces the Merseian sleeper agent, Olaf Magnusson, and, in an explanatory chapter, informs us that Olaf's father, Erik, had become disaffected from the Terran Empire during the reigns of the well-meaning Georgios and the corrupt Josip. Brechdan Ironrede, who had appeared in Ensign Flandry, accepted Erik Magnusson's loyalty to the Merseian Roidhunate. Aycharaych, last seen in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, conditioned Olaf.

Skilful retcon (retroactive continuity) incorporates a new family, the Magnussons, into the established history. There is a third generation: Vida Lonwe-Magnusson's sons and daughter are with her when she publicly disowns her husband.

All

 

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER FOUR.

Olaf Magnusson was not:

"...rapt in the contemplation of the All that his Neosufic religion enjoined. He had striven to be, but his thoughts kept drifting elsewhere, until at last he accepted their object as the aspect of the Divine which was set before him tonight." (p. 250)

How can you contemplate the All? Can you strive to? Surely thought always drift elsewhere? In zazen, we contemplate the here and now which includes drifting thoughts. They are not to be suppressed but to be noticed and let go of. (To practice is to persevere, not always to succeed.)

The aspect of the Divine that is set before Magnusson is:

"Strength. Strength unafraid, unhesitant, serving a will which was neither cruel nor kind but which cleanly trod the road to its destiny.... He could not hold the vision before him for very long at a time. It was too superb for mankind." (ibid.)

Indeed. The alert reader remembers Djana's visions on Talwin:

"Before her flashed the image of a Merseian Christ, armed and shining, neither compassionate nor cruel but the Messiah of a new day.... She hadn't heard of any such belief among them. Maybe they had no need of redemption; maybe they were God's chosen...."

-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 298.

Merseian conditioning had worked on Djana's Catholic upbringing. It went further:

"He on the throne: 'For that they have sinned beyond redemption, the sin that may not be forgiven, which is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, no more are they My people.

"'Behold, I cast them from Me; and I will raise against them a new people under a new sun; and their name shall be Strength.

"'Open now the book of the seven thunders."

-A Circus Of Hells, p. 304.

A Third Testament? Does Magnusson's religion come from Sufism or from the Roidhunate?

Finally, after Magnusson's vision of Strength:

"Into his awareness there kept jabbing mere facts, practicalities, things he must do, questions of how to do them - yes, crusades have logistic requirements too -" (ibid.)

Mere facts are what we have to attend to, Magnusson. A pity he mentioned his crusade...

Ulf Markham And Olaf Magnusson

Ulf Markham in the Man-Kzin Wars resembles Olaf Magnusson in the Technic History. However, there has been extensive blog coverage of both so maybe much more is not necessary?

If a multi-authored series is kept consistent, then anything introduced by one author cannot be contradicted by any other. Men win the First Man-Kzin War because they have the hyperdrive whereas the kzinti do not yet. However, the course of the Known Space History requires that the kzinti do acquire the hyperdrive and use it in subsequent Wars.

What Poul Anderson tells us in his first Man-Kzin Wars story is that it was Markham, a human traitor, who gave the kzinti the hyperdrive. That is a big contribution for a guest author to make to a future history series. However, given that Anderson's story was accepted into the series, no subsequent contribution can be allowed to contradict this explanation of kzinti acquisition of the hyperdrive although, of course, other authors might just not refer to it. They have considerable leeway to write completely different kinds of stories in a two-hundred year stretch of Larry Niven's future history. Do I want to follow rereading Anderson's Man-Kzin Wars stories by reading other stories in this sub-series?

Falkayn And Magnusson

If fictional history is to be authentic, then it must present characters who sometimes express diametrically opposed perceptions and interpretations of a single set of events. Thus, David Falkayn on Polesotechnic League aid to Merseia:

"'We want to save you, because you are sentient beings. But it'll be expensive, and a lot of the work will have to be done by outfits like mine, which exist to make a profit. So, besides a scientific base, we want a reasonable economic return.

"'Eventually, though, we'll depart. What you do then is your own affair. But you'll still have your civilization. You'll also have a great deal of new equipment and new knowledge. I think you're getting a bargain.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Day of Burning" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, March 2010), pp. 209-272 AT p. 221.

Centuries later, Olaf Magnusson on the same issue:

"'...the Terran rescue mission upset [the Merseian's] whole order of things and found ways to get rich off their tragedy-...'"

-The Game of Empire, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN, p. 397.

Thus, according to Magnusson, the Terrans provoked hostility and aggression from the Merseians! Maybe they should not have helped?

Magnusson also informs Flandry that:

"'...the Starkad incident caused relations to deteriorate entirely.'"

-ibid., p. 398.

Flandry and consecutive readers of Anderson's Technic History know what the Merseians attempted at Starkad - more than enough to cause a deterioration in relations. But we need more of this in future histories - not that I am keeping up with any current series, however.

Some Clues About Magnusson

The Game of Empire, CHAPTER FOUR.

Olaf Magnusson contemplates:

"Strength. Strength unafraid, unhesitant, serving a will which was neither cruel nor kind but which cleanly trod the road to its destiny.... He could not hold the vision before him for very long at a time. It was too superb for mankind." (p. 250)

What race is the vision fit for? And where else have we read about strength neither cruel nor kind? - apart from in the Nietzschean superman?

"Before [Djana] flashed the image of a Merseian Christ, armed and shining, neither compassionate nor cruel but the Messiah of a new day..."

-Poul Anderson, A Circus of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 298.

"'...I will raise against them a new people under a new sun; and their name shall be Strength.'"

-ibid., p. 304.

But the truth about Magnusson hits us in the face when he tells Flandry:

"'...I now have one more proof that the God looks after His warriors.'"

-The Game of Empire, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN, p. 400.

What! Magnusson cannot be a disguised Merseian! No. But he can have been indoctrinated by Merseians...

Neosufism

Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson:

"Nor was he rapt in the contemplation of the All that his Neosufic religion enjoined."
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 250.

Sufism is Muslim mysticism. "Neo-" means "new" which, in practice, can mean almost anything. Traditions can change and even become their opposites.

Apart from this, there is no evidence that Magnusson is a Muslim. However, yogic and meditative practices can indeed be detached from their original contexts, e.g.:

hatha yoga, commonly called "yoga," can be practiced not for meditation but for health;
zazen, just sitting, can be practiced either for relaxation or for meditation but outside a specifically Buddhist context.

Maybe, when Magnusson realizes his oneness with the All, he exclaims, "All, ah!" Despite the humor of this remark, I respect my neighbors' Islam and myself subscribe to the view that each of us is one with the All although apparently separate.

There is a disorienting moment when Magnusson tells Flandry:

"'...I now have one more proof that the God looks after His warriors.'" (p. 400)

A man speaking like a Merseian! Impossible. He cannot be a Merseian disguised as a human being. No, but he was educated on Merseia and hypnotically indoctrinated by no less an agent of the Roidhunate than the cynical Aycharaych.

A single transcendent deity served by warriors - maybe there is some common ground between Muslims and Merseians?

More Complicated Politics

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Olaf Magnusson is the Admiral for an unnamed Imperial Sector that, like the Taurian Sector, is on the marches between the Terran Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate. Magnusson has rebelled and penetrated into Sector Aldebaran. He has the prestige of having defeated the Merseians in a border skirmish and promises to make peace with them when he is Emperor. (He is fluent in Eriau and two other Merseian languages.)

Meanwhile, the Merseians send a "mercy mission" to the Realm of Gorrazan on the opposite side of the Empire. The "mission" allows itself to be seen near Alpha Crucis, thus provoking a clash with Imperial forces. Further, the Merseian attack on Gorrazan does not overthrow the ruling Folkmoot but merely weakens it, thus prolonging the civil conflict between Folkmoot and Liberation Council.

Dominic Flandry analyses this Merseian action. It will cause massive confusion in the Empire. Some will want to watch Gorrazan, which could become a pro-Merseian power at the Empire's back, thus diverting resources from the conflict with Magnusson. Others will say that Merseia is well-intentioned because it supports the progressive Liberation Council. Thus, the Merseians have aided Magnusson's cause. Is more going on behind the scenes?

Gatto

Please spare a thought for Lieutenant General Cesare Gatto, Imperial Marine Corps. Not the most prominent character in Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History. Not a name that springs to the lips like van Rijn, Falkayn or Flandry. Nevertheless, Gatto has his role.

When Olaf Magnusson leads his fleet to conquer the Terran Empire, Gatto becomes "...the effective ruler of the Patrician System..." (Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 269). Because Diana Crowfeather had traveled with the suspect Targovi and because she is young and female, he personally interrogates Diana. He offers her protection in troubled times and also to take her sightseeing when he has the time. She declines but invests "...half an hour in being charming to the general." (p. 274) Later, bored in her hotel room, she begins to regret her refusal but then gets a better offer.

Much later, Diana and her companions present Gatto with intelligence that makes him change his course. He has to arrest an entire local population that has been covertly supporting Magnusson's rebellion. He asks one of their representatives why they have committed mass treason. He himself has committed treason although not against his species. A week later, he must make a broadcast that ends the rebellion. Magnusson was a tool of the Merseians.

So we should not admire Gatto but should perhaps be glad that he did take decisive action when the damning evidence had been brought to his attention.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE, concluded

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

This chapter informs us that Olaf Magnusson fought Merseians at Syrax. That conflict happened during "Hunters of the Sky Cave," an instalment of the Captain Flandry series. Next, Magnusson performed well under Emperor Hans, who had come to power in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. He, Magnusson, was then put in charge of the defence of a critical Imperial sector facing the Roidhunate, although not Sector Taurus which is where Kossara Vymezal's home planet, Dennitza, is located. That brings events up to date with The Game Of Empire.

Thus, the kind of overall narrative perspective that we appreciate in The Earth book Of Storrmgate is to a lesser extent reproduced later in the Technic History.

A Small Change And A Big Difference

"'...every so often, a small change does make a big difference.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Game Of Empire IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 189-453 AT CHAPTER EiGHTEEN, p. 394.

Not for the first time, we find Time-Patrol-type talk in the Technic History. Flandry does hope that this informal, off-the-record conversation with Olaf Magnusson will make a big difference to the outcome of the current civil war but not in any way that he discloses to Magnusson. However, on this occasion, Flandry's efforts are stymied.

Meanwhile, however, another small event, Targovi's exploration of the island of Zacaharia, will make a very big difference by establishing proof of Magnusson's loyalty to Merseia. If there is any equivalent of the Time Patrol in the Technic History, then that organization will focus its efforts on ensuring Targovi's success.

Living in the Galaxy

After five thousand years of interstellar travel, mankind has thinly occupied parts of two or three spiral arms. Old Earth, still called Home, is a half remembered myth in another spiral arm. Daven Laure, from the Fireland mountains on New Vixen, has never seen Earth, has never met anyone who has seen Earth and has no family record of any ancestor who had seen Earth. As a Ranger of the Commonalty, he trained at Starborough near Irontower City on Aladir, travels in a ship with a consciousness level computer and encounters nonhuman sophonts. The Commonalty, a service organisation, not a government, has members on an estimated ten million planets but:

"We know that other branches of humanity have their distinctive ways, and hear rumors of yet stranger ones." (1) 

The colonised planet Serieve, poor in heavy metals, is close to the northern verge of its spiral arm with only the galactic halo of scattered ancient globular clusters and a very thin interstellar medium beyond it. The only concentration of gas and dust in the region, the Dragon's Head Nebula, is in transit. New colonists of an entire planet usually build low but the Serievans have built a high rise industrial city, Pelogard, on an arctic island where they can extract minerals from ocean currents. Flocks of blue, winged, bird-like organisms circle above trees with fronded silver leaves.

Several interlocking narratives of the Technic History conclude in the Commonalty period:

(i) Terrans colonised Aeneas;
Dominic Flandry of Terra exiled Aenean rebels;
the rebels colonised Kirkasant hidden in the "Cloud Universe" globular cluster;
a ship from Kirkasant made an epic journey to the colony planet Serieve.

(ii) Terrans colonised Hermes and Vixen;
David Falkayn of Hermes discovered the industrially valuable planet Mirkheim and initiated the Supermetals company to exploit it;
Henry Kittredge of Vixen was the Supermetals ground operations chief on Mirkheim;
the Vixenite share in Supermetals bought badly needed weather stations;
Flandry and Catherine Kittredge of the Vixenite weather engineering department successfully resisted alien invasion of Vixen, at one stage hiding in a weather station.

(iii) Helen Kitteridge of Vixen, Terran Space Navy energy weapons controller, joined Olaf Magnusson's revolt;
intelligence gathered by Flandry's daughter brought down Magnusson.

(iv) Vixenites colonised New Vixen;
Daven Laure of New Vixen integrated Kirkasanters into interstellar civilisation after a ship from Kirkasant had reached Serieve.

These interlocking narratives touch on the histories of several planets and highlight eight individuals: three Vixenite Kittredges, three major figures - Falkayn, Flandry and Magnusson - and two others, Flandry's daughter and Daven Laure. As with the history of the Ythrians (see here), we would like to know more but this was all that Anderson had space to tell us.

Beyond the Dragon's Head is unexplored space. Directly behind this Nebula is the "Cloud Universe" globular cluster. A globular cluster comprises old, red, metal-poor stars in a nearly perfect vacuum. However, the Cloud Universe's eccentric orbit passes through dense clouds of gas and dust near the galactic centre. The cluster gravitationally gathers gas which makes it opaque and condenses into new stars. Periodic ingestion of new matter causes several supernovae per century for at least a million years. Stars are unstable and radiation levels prevent any life in the centre of the cluster. From within the Cloud Universe, space appears as neither dark nor empty but as bright and star-filled. Stars are light months apart.

A fleet fled from the Terran Empire. One ship fled as far as possible, a quarter way round the galaxy through two spiral arms, and hid as well as possible, on Kirkasant in the Cloud Universe. Such a long trip in an early vessel required frequent repair, resupply and refilling of nuclear converters. On arrival, the ship needed a rebuild but the Kirkasanters, as they now were, needed five millennia to build the industrial capacity for interplanetary travel. High radiation and a harsh environment speeded evolution. The first generation mined and forged metal. The second supported a literate class. When scientific method was rediscovered, relativity theory, based on observations from within the Cloud Universe, implied a universe two or three hundred light years across with space tightly curved by the concentrated mass. The Kirkasanters progressed from moon rockets to hyperdrive in a single lifetime. They knew it was possible and were guided by old texts and the hulk of the ancestral ship.

The first interstellar ships visited stars visible from home. The Makt crew went further, believing that they would be able to steer home by already charted stars. However, because of the haze and shine in the Cloud Universe, absolute magnitudes and therefore relative distances had not been calculated accurately. Bypassing home space, the ship became lost in the Cloud until it exited the cluster. Theory implied that they had made a dimensional crossing into another universe, even though each universe was visible from the other. Legendary references to space as dark suggested that the ancestors had come from here. When they had re-entered the cluster three times to no avail, telescopes revealed a distant black cloud (the Dragon's Head). Reasoning that the ancestors, fleeing an enemy, might have passed through such a cloud, the Makt crew approached and traversed the Nebula. Then they used neutrino detectors to find the nuclear power plants of an advanced civilisation and, nearly out of fuel, reached Serieve.

Entering the Cloud Universe, Jaccavrie (Laure's ship) and Makt could not find Kirkasant and were in danger from radiation, hidden bodies and unpredictable stellar processes. Laure explored several planets both to confirm that they were rich in heavy metals and to establish a claim of ownership for himself and the Makt crew. When miners swarm into the cluster, the Kirkasanters will be rich and the miners' beacons will enable them to map the cluster and find their planet: a neat solution to a technical problem.

That the Kirkasanters were descended from the Aeneans is a reasonable inference given that Anderson did not write anything further to contradict it. It is certainly unlikely that any other human group fled that far that early.

Thus, Anderson constructed an sf story about:

vast interstellar distances albeit traversed by hyperdrive;
unusual celestial bodies and processes;
human communities isolated for millennia in different environments, thus becoming distinct species;
no nonhuman intelligences in this story although they are mentioned once;
no interstellar empires although they had existed earlier in this fictitious history;
a new form of interstellar organisation meriting further discussion.

Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, The Long Night, New York, 1983, pp. 242-310, AT p. 248.

Multiverse: A Candle

Raymond E Feist, "A Candle" IN Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois, Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds (Burton, MI, 2014), pp. 287-303.

Raymond E Feist's Flandry story goes more than one generation into the future. Maybe I should stop posting spoilers? Here are some questions instead of statements:

Is there a second Emperor Josip in Flandry's lifetime?
Was Aycharaych not the last Chereionite?
Did some of the others survive the bombardment of their planet?
Enough of them to make a difference?
Is this story set in a divergent timeline in which the Long Night is averted?
Thus, instead of Roan Tom, Allied Planets and Commonalty, will there be a Terran Empire that recedes but does not collapse and even re-expands?

These are not rhetorical questions. I am genuinely puzzled by some of them, like does the reference to Josip imply a divergence at an earlier date? But here is something that I do agree with:

"'...since Olaf Magnusson's betrayal...The Roidhun of Merseia suffered by that failure. His power was almost god-like before, but after...'" (p. 302)

And again:

"'The Merseians are just as hamstrung as we are since the Magnusson fiasco. Their race pride got the best of them and their clients are pulling away.'" (p. 303)

I had already deduced that their agent Magnusson's failure to seize the Terran throne by force was the demoralizing blow that started the Merseians' decline.

I have read CJ Cherryh's story of a second Flandry generation but not all at one go and maybe need to reread it. So far, it strikes me as covering not the issues but characters talking about the issues. And I do not think that a human being and a Schothian would be able to interbreed.

Legitimacy Lost

During Dominic Flandry's lifetime, four men plan or attempt to seize the Imperial Throne by force:

Hugh McCormac;
Hans Molitor;
Edwin Cairncross;
Olaf Magnusson.

They are not all defeated by Flandry and this is not just a good guys-bad guys routine. In fact, McCormac is a good guy, especially when contrasted with the Emperor Josip -  and his sidekick, Snelund, who is the real villain of the piece. However, Flandry defends the principle of legitimacy in government. Of course, he not only defeats the McCormac Rebellion but also knows how to dispose of Snelund.

There are some bad guys in the list. Cairncross is self-serving and Magnusson is a Merseian sleeper. Flandry defeats McCormac and Cairncross. Flandry's daughter, Diana Crowfeather, defeats Magnusson. Molitor succeeds. Flandry winds up working for a usurper. This statement might shock blog readers not familiar with the Flandry series but Poul Anderson explores every possibility.

We should add that legitimate succession had been lost and the civil wars had begun before Molitor contended for power. Nevertheless, he founds a new dynasty by force alone - or is that how they all begin?

Addendum: See Comments. Sean refers to his articles which can be found here.

How The Terran Empire Might Go Wrong

See The Imperial Gardener and The Widow Of Georgios by Sean M. Brooks.

"'Does Molitor imagine we'll never get another Olaf or Josip on the throne?' the Gospodar rumbled. 'A clown or a cancer...and, once more, Policy Board, Admiralty, civil service bypassed, or tyrannized, or corrupted. If we rely on the Navy for our whole defense, what defense will we have against future foolishness or tyranny? Let the foolishness go too far, and we'll have no defense at all.'
"'Doesn't he speak about preventing any more civil wars?' Kossara ventured.
"Bodin spat an oath. 'How much of a unified command is possible, in practical fact, on an interstellar scale? Every fleet admiral is a potential warlord. Shall we keep nothing to stand against him?' He stopped. His fist thudded on a rail."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 408.

They nearly do have another Olaf on the throne because, later, Olaf Magnusson tries to overthrow Gerhart! But we gather that there was an Emperor Olaf - and that he was a clown?

A bad Emperor can bypass, tyrannize or corrupt the Policy Board, the Admiralty and the civil service; a fleet admiral can become a warlord. The Pax is precarious.