Harriman, the "Man Who Sold The Moon;"
Lazarus Long, who led the Howard Families Exodus from the Solar System
etc.
However, the body of the first half of the Future History is a number of stories about ordinary people living on the Moon. Heinlein "gave the future a daily life," someone said. The History becomes more public and political with the Second American Revolution at the beginning of its second half.
Poul Anderson reminds us that ordinary people will lead ordinary lives even in future periods:
"'There are humans who serve the Roidhunate...not every one has been bought or brainscrubbed; some families have lived on Merseian worlds for generations.'"
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), pp. 350-351.
I do not think that we had been told this any earlier in the Technic History? Imagine: you are born, live, work, maybe marry and have children, and eventually die in a human community on an extrasolar planet. However, this planet is not Avalon, Aeneas or Dennitza etc. Your rulers are Merseians and all your public institutions acknowledge His Supremacy the Roidhun, not His Majesty the Emperor. However, you are not involved in public affairs, except maybe to the extent that your local community has some sort of representative council? You do not know that the rulers of the Roidhunate have a long term plan to subjugate or exterminate humanity and you would not be able to do anything about it even if you did know. In any case, this plan is very long term and we, the readers, know, from the subsequent history, that it will not be achieved. Consequently, generations of human subjects of the Roidhun are able to live their entire lives without ever having to confront the question of species loyalty or the issue of Racial supremacism.
Flandry mentions human beings in the Roidhunate because it has just been pointed out to him that there are Merseians on the human planet, Dennitza. He replies:
"'Citizens of Merseian descent...Rather remote descent, I've heard.'" (p. 350)
If we said that my Norman descent was remote, we would mean that it had been mixed with a lot of other lines of descent by now but Flandry cannot mean that of the Dennitzan Merseians. They remain entirely Merseian by species but they have been on Dennitza for four hundred years and what matters is that they certainly do not welcome the idea of rule from Merseia, any more than Avalonian human beings want rule from Terra.
Dennitzan of Merseian descent are called "zmayi" in Serbic and "ychani" (seekers), in Eriau. In that sense, they are no longer Merseians just as human Dennitzans are no longer Terrans. Ychani work in industries like fishing on the Black Ocean and no more conspire to overthrow the Emperor than anyone else.
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I suggest, however, that most adult humans in the Roidhunate MUST know that the rulers of Merseia at least contemplate the possibility of exterminating the human race if that was what it took to be rid of the annoying obstacle to further Merseian expansion posed by the existence of the Empire. And these humans have to know that serving a Merseia preaching racial supremacy over all non Merseians was a far more serious and disgraceful matter than merely the humans of Avalon having a political disagreement with the Empire (and this disagreement did not lead to permanent enmity or bar reconciliation).
I also argue that the ideology of racial supremacy preached by the dominant Eriau speaking Merseian culture means all non Merseian races in the Roidhunate are placed in a lesser legal and social status than Merseians. And that this necessarily led to forms of discrimination against non Merseians which were, to a greater or lesser degree, repressive in nature. And this discrimination might well have been esp. harsh for humans in the roidhunate. For all practical purposes, my belief is that all non Merseians, ESP. humans, would have been excluded from rising to any posts or positions of real power and influence. Over time, I believe the anger and resentment such racially based discrimination would stimulate would lead to a smouldering background of unrest, even rebellion in the Roidhunate.
Sean
Sean,
Which would help to explain why the Roidhunate failed at about the same time as the Empire did. Good thinking.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Thanks! But I think you are jumping ahead too far! Chapter 22 of THE GAME OF EMPIRE shows Tachwyr the Dark conferring with his Grand Council about the latest defeat inflicted on Merseia by the stubborn old Empire. I a agree we see Tachwyr and his fellow Councillors at a moment of discouragement, but it ends with the Protector rallying and exhorting his colleagues not to give up. Which means Merseia's leaders were not yet willing to give up their fantastic dream of conquering the entire galaxy.
Likewise, it was too soon for you to write off the Empire as a failure. In Chapter 23 of GAME we see Flandry actually expressing a cautious bit of hope when he said, as regards the Zacharians and former supporters of Magnusson: "Pardons, amnesties, and limited penalties are going to be the order of the day. They must, if we want to shore up this social structure of ours so it might last another century or two." Iow, the Empire was again accepting there were limits to what it could wisely do even in punishing treason. And note how Flandry even dared to hope the Empire might last TWO more centuries.
Sean
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