We have watched Dominic Flandry selling his soul piece by piece to earn a reprieve for the doomed Terran Empire. Why were these sacrifices necessary? What did they accomplish? Answering these questions requires an historical survey of Technic civilization.
A thousand years before Flandry's time, the woeful twentieth century faded into the hopeful twenty-first. Widespread social upheaval triggered by war, famine, and other disasters had obliterated entire societies but the ultimate effect was to produce a freer international order. Rational solutions were found to old problems like energy and population. The emerging global society was firmly wedded to technology and largely -- but by no means exclusively -- Western in outlook. Although local tongues persisted, the universal language was Anglic, a simplified version of English enriched with many foreign loan words. The new cultural synthesis became known as Technic civilization, successor of Western as Western had been of Classical.
The prosperity of this new era provided the resources to explore and develop the Solar System. Colonies were placed in orbit and permanent bases were established on the Moon and planets. A less-than-successful attempt was made to terraform Venus. By 2100, these settlements were large enough to join Earth in establishing the Solar Commonwealth, an institution that was to endure for the next five centuries. At the same time, faster-than-light interstellar travel became possible. Exploration and then emigration proceeded with explosive vigor. ("Wings of Victory" and "The Problem of Pain" occur in this period.)
Colonies continued to be founded all during the Commonwealth age. Just like New World pioneers before them, colonists were drawn by the chance for adventure, profit, advancement, social and political experimentation, or the desire to preserve a unique cultural heritage. (The ethnic motive was paramount for the settlers of Russo-Mongol Altai, African Nyanza, and Slavic Dennitza, to name only a few examples.) This outflow of humanity to widely scattered independent worlds is known as the Breakup.
Furthermore, humans encountered numerous other intelligent races among the stars. Contact was generally peaceful and mutually beneficial. Mars was ceded to aliens suited to its environment, a precedent for the later cession of Jupiter to the Ymirites in Imperial times.) Many alien peoples could assimilate high technology and interact with men as equals. All had contributions to offer: arts, beliefs, information, goods, services, and so forth. These exotic stimuli sparked the creative energies of Technic civilization to new peaks of excellence because they broadened the range of options available to each individual.
Thus interstellar conditions in Commonwealth times approximated those of the European Age of Exploration during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Likewise, they bred the same boldness. Independent traders ranged across vast reaches of space discovering and exploiting new worlds. Daring merchant - adventurers amassed huge fortunes and enormous political power. Their resources surpassed those of whole planetary governments, enabling them to live as grandly and arrogantly as feudal princes.
In the twenty-third century, the merchants and other groups involved in trade formed the Polesotechnic League to foster their own interests. This "League of Selling Skill" was a voluntary, self-regulating mutual protection organization that sought to curb the worst excesses of unbridled capitalism and defend its members against outside foes such as governments. The League issued its own currency, conducted its own diplomacy, and, on occasion, raised its own armies. Overall, it resembled the Hanseatic League of mercantile cities which totally dominated northern European commerce and politics between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.
But the League made fateful decisions at a meeting called the Council of Hiawatha in 2400 which turned it into a set of feuding cartels and left it open to Commonwealth interference. The inability of the League to discipline itself and mainitain its independence doomed it in the same way as the Conciliarist Movement's failure to reform the Church had doomed medieval Catholicism a thousand years before.
Nevertheless, the League's sunset years were filled with glorious accomplishments as exemplified in the careers of flamboyant Nicholas van Rijn and his soberer protege, David Falkayn. Stories featuring these men (see accompanying chart) illustrate the positive effects of the League on human colonists and primitive aliens. The traders imparted useful knowledge, reconciled warring factions, thwarted outside aggressors, loosened internal repression, suppressed piracy, and brought new groups into interstellar society -- earning profits all the while. With van Rijn's consent, Falkayn helped underdeveloped planets acquire essential capital which proved to be their margin of survival later on. Together they exposed schemes of subversion and conquest that threatened Earth herself ("Satan's World" and "Mirkheim").
But the League had irreparably decayed by the end of van Rijn's lifetime because of its members' greed and ruthlessness and the overwhelming complexity of its operations. By then, the Commonwealth had become a weak but meddlesome bureaucracy whose fortunes were intertwined with the League's. Falkayn, who had married van Rijn's granddaughter, foresaw the end and eventually emigrated from Technic civilization's sphere. He founded the new colony of Avalon which was jointly populated by humans and the winged Ythrians and ruled by the Domain of Ythri. ("Wingless on Avalon" and "Rescue on Avalon" relate the early years of this important settlement)
Falkayn retreated; others built barricades against the coming storms. The next two centuries were the Time of Troubles. Technic civilization was swept by continual waves of war, revolution, economic collapse, and all their attendant evils. Violent convulsions shook every society -- some fatally. The nadir was the sack of Earth by the Baldic League, a pack of spacegoing barbarians who had acquired advanced weapons from irresponsible traders. Shortly afterwards, the alien Gorzuni began raiding Earth periodically for slaves to stock their budding empire. One of their captives, Manuel Argos, organized a successful slave revolt that began the liberation of Earth ("The Star Plunderer"). Argos was a charismatic -- and pragmatic -- leader of enormous energy. OOnce he had stabilized the ravaged Solar System, he proclaimed himself First Emperor of the Terran Empire. This was a symbolic title shrewdly calculated to appeal to exhausted beings' longing for order.
Stability was what the Empire promised; stability was what it delivered. Other systems and regions willingly united with Terra in order to enjoy her protection. The Empire's rule was mild and the benefits of security from attack, safe transportation, and easy communication were immense. Terra collected only modest taxes for the support of her excellent Navy and Civil Service and generally let member planets manage their internal affairs undisturbed.
This was the ideal which attracted the allegiance of sturdy old colonies like Dennitza. Although some worlds, such as Aeneas and Ansa, had to be annexed forcibly, their inhabitants soon recognized the value of provincial status. "Sargasso of Lost Starships" is an account filled with discrepancies, nevertheless it shows the early Empire defeudalizing stagnant Ansa to good effect.
The turning point in Terra's expansion was the costly war of aggression that she fought against the Domain of Ythri. "Rectification of borders" was the official excuse; the true motive was sheer territorial aggrandizement. Although some Ythrian planets were won, bicultural Avalon successfully resisted Terran conquest as related in "The People of the Wind". Eventually the Empire grew to encompass a sphere 400 light years in diameter, englobing four million stars and 100,000 inhabited planets. Now its only desire was to preserve that dominion unmolested.
Although both the Commonwealth and the Empire were created after periods of universal chaos, note that a century of redevelopment had preceded the formation of the Commonwealth whereas the Empire sprang directly from the ruins of previous institutions. This difference in origins produced considerable divergence in operation and attitudes. The Commonwealth as a political entity never extended beyond the Solar System, yet its era was a time of new accomplishments, broad horizons, and healthy cross-cultural influences. Man's attention was focused outward on other worlds, other races. Colonies were scattered broadcast and the Polesotechnic League harvested trade across incredible distances.
The Empire, on the other hand, was founded for renewal rather than development. Terra's task was to restore and preserve Technic civilization, hence her citizens were often cautious, incurious, and reluctant to try anything really new. There was even a lack of initiative in adapting to conditions on other worlds (Llynathawr, Freehold). Technology, especially for military purposes, did advance but basic scientific research lagged. The arts were likewise stagnant, chiefly repeating ancient models. Terrans were now less responsive to alien influences than formerly although colonials like the Dennitzans continued cultural interactions with their resident aliens. Overall, the Empire's outlook was parochial and protective whereas the League's had been ecumenical and expansionist.
After two centuries, these negative traits had become cracks fissuring the Empire's structure. But although Terra and her most imitative subjects were crumbling, the weaknesses in the foundation did not necessarily touch alien complexes within the Empire or colonies with strong, indigenous cultures of their own. (The cleavage between urban and rural Freeholders in "Outpost of Empire" is a case in point.) Nevertheless, the sound and unsound parts of the Empire were in jeopardy together.
The once-efficient system of Emperor and executive Policy Board acting through Sector Governors and planetary Residents was breaking down under the weight of personal corruption and folly. The Imperial yoke grew heavier without any offsetting increases in benefits, making the provinces resentful. More and more often, Terra's rulers were either too short-sighted to recognize threats to the public welfare or too stingy to meet them. One contemporary civil servant said of the Empire: "'Its competent people become untrustworthy from their very competence; anyone who can make a decision may make one the Imperium does not like. Incompetence grows with the growing suspiciousness and centralization. Defense and civil functions alike begin to disintegrate. What can that provoke except rebellion?'" ("A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows").
Unlike the working aristocrats on colonial worlds such as Aeneas, the Terran upper classes were largely composed of selfish parasites exploiting their position for private gain. Titles of nobility ceased to be rewards for excellence as society hardened into castes. Options dwindled for the lower classes. Slavery was revived as punishment for crime. Indifference to aliens cost opportunities for wonder and sometimes masked a casual racism. The position of women declined in practice if not in theory. Vigorous colonial women and female aliens continued the Commonwealth-era tradition of full participation in society but too many Terran women were simply menials, consorts, entertainers, or whores; (Compare with the difference in feminine roles in nineteenth century frontier America and contemporary Second Empire France [i.e., of the same period].)
Detachment, boredom, apathy, despair were the prevailing moods of the era. Terrans lost their confidence, their morale, their energy. As one observer remarked: "'We've given up seeking perfection and glory; we've learned that they're chimerical -- but that knowledge is a kind of death within us,'" ("Honorable Enemies"). The world-weary sought consolation in vice or spiritual obsessions. Few even thought of resisting the Empire's inevitable fall. A nineteenth century historian's verdict on Byzantium is equally applicable to the Terran Empire: "It is a tale of what had reached its zenith, of what was past its best strength, a tale of decadence postponed with skill and energy, and yet only postponed."
Matters were far otherwise with Terra's fierce young rival, the Roidhunate of Merseia. This newer imperium would never have come into existence except for David Falkayn's intervention when Merseia was threatened by the effects of a nearby supernova ("Day of Burning"). But the League's high-handed relief tactics outraged the haughty Merseians so thoroughly, they were spurred to achieve global union. In due course, they entered space and emerged from the Time of Troubles ruling an interstellar empire composed of many peoples, including humans. However, since this was the Merseians' first turn on the wheel of galactic history, they were as energetic and ambitious as Earthmen of the early Commonwealth period had been.
Merseia's collision with Terra was another example of that old adage: "Two tough, smart races want the same real estate." Despite their green reptilian skins, Merseians were enough like humans to eat the same food and enjoy the same jokes. However, they were more ferocious than humans and could tolerate no equals whatsoever. To them, the Covenant of Alfzar they signed with Terra was no treaty of detente but an invitation to continue their struggle by covert means.
A Merseian conceived of life as a great hunt and found the meaning of his existence in the strength of the foes he overcame. The bellicose Merseians relished interspecies struggle but would not have hesitated to exterminate vanquished opponents afterwards. They were proud and severe by nature but the Roidhunate's acute xenophobia was a feature of the dominant, Eriau-speaking culture, not necessarily of their entire people. Merseian allegiance was primarily to the race, not to the Roidhunate as such. Their ultimate goal was nothing less than a Merseian-owned galaxy. Their governing Grand Council of Vachs (clan chiefs) headed by a landless, hereditary head of state (the Roidhun) had no direct aspirations to direct galactic rule but rather envisioned interlocking sets of autonomous Merseian realms. They believed their great vision justified any policy, however ruthless.
Although the warfare between Terra and Merseia resembles innumerable matches between weary old empires and brash new ones, the closest historical analogy is to the Eastern Roman Empire's duel with Sassanid Persia between the third and seventh centuries A.D. Both pairings were instances of disastrous, mutually exhausting struggles between enemies who regarded each other as their sole worthy opponent. The Eastern Empire was as preservationist, inward-turning, callous, and sophisticated as the Terran. It was perennially on the defensive against waves of enemies both civilized and barbarous. Key factors in its survival were devious intelligence agents and military officers who were hedonists in the capital but heroes in the marches. The Sassanids, on the other hand, were an aggressive, chauvinistic dynasty supremely confident of Persian cultural superiority. The intolerant state religion they ardently patronized justified their pretentions. Their obsession with hunting and their fiercely romantic masculinity were uncannily Merseian in flavor.
Terran-Merseian rivalry had smoldered for about a century when Dominic Flandry was born in the year 3000. He was the bastard son of a scholarly minor nobleman and an opera singer. Flandry had a keen mind in an agile body, a gift for languages, a ready wit, a flair for showmanship, and dazzling personal charm. He was part cynic, part idealist, self-indulgent and dedicated by turns, a refined voluptuary forever trying to explain away his good deeds. His sanguine melancholic personality made him resilient, adventurous, and romantic to the point of sentimentality. Although descended from many racial stocks (a black ancestor appears in The People of the Wind), Flandry best fit the "Gallic" ethnic stereotype. He characterized himself as a "spoiled gentleman," explaining: "'Personally I enjoy decadence; but somebody has to hold off the Long Night for my own lifetime, and it looks as though I'm elected, ("Hunters of the Sky Cave").
But Flandry's predominant fault, the one that caused the most grief for himself and others, was his total inability to understand women. He called them "the aliens among us" and no matter how passionately or how frivolously he pursued them, he never grasped their nature. The women who loved him -- and there were many -- suffered cruelly on his account. This is a common enough pattern for a rake who had been neglected by his mother, but in Flandry's case it had grave historical consequences.
Brilliant feats of improvisation marked Flandry's career as a Naval Intelligence officer. Of course not all his accomplishments have been chronicled, but the following were significant. (See the chart for detailed chronology.) He saved the two intelligent native races of Starkad and the Terran Navy from destruction in "Ensign Flandry". But in order to achieve this, he callously exploited a courtesan's devotion and thus sowed the seed of future personal tragedy. ("Flandry knew in full what it meant to make an implement of a sentient being.") His first espionage venture cost him the freshness of his youth.
In "A Circus of Hells", Flandry uncovered a Merseian spy network and foiled its plot to detach an entire Sector from the Empire. Through his efforts the planet Talwin became a neutral scientific base jointly operated by Merseia and Terra. Once more he reached his objective over a woman's body, this time with even less awareness of wrong-doing than in "Ensign Flandry". But this outraged mistress, a poor prostitute, was psychically gifted. She cursed him never to possess the woman he loved most.
Within a few years he met and lost his great love in "The Rebel Worlds". She was Kathryn McCormac, the wife of an admiral driven into revolt against the Empire by an Imperial Governor's brutal exactions. With Flandry's help she killed the Governor, thus preventing him from becoming the future evil power behind the Imperial throne. But she permitted her husband's rebellion to fail and followed him into exile rather than commit adultery with Flandry, whose disappointment became an excuse for libertine living.
Although this threat to the Empire's integrity was successfully countered, the ominous precedent of military revolt had been set. In the future it would be copied by other Navy officers hopeful of becoming "barracks emperors." Aeneas, focal point of the rebellion, was subsequently pacified and reconstructed despite Merseian attempts to reopen the wound ("The Day of Their Return").
Later Flandry singlehandedly ruined the invasion plans of the barbarian Scothani and brought them under Imperial rule after seducing and manipulating their young queen ("Tiger by the Tail"). For this victory he was knighted. In "Honorable Enemies," he preserved the neutrality of Betelgeuse by deceiving Merseia's top intelligence agent, the phenomenal non-Merseian telepath Aycharaych. Simultaneously, Flandry rejected the love of a Terran noblewoman without recognizing the unselfishness of her attitudes. This episode opened years of a bitter -- and bitterly regretted -- vendetta between Flandry and Aycharaych. Two years later in "The Game of Glory" Flandry detected and killed a Merseian secret agent on the water world Nyanza. This time he rebuffed the attention of a beautiful woman for motives that approached chivalry.
On the steppes of Altai Flandry frustrated Merseian plans to annex that planet. This adventure ("A Message in Secret") was mercifully free from psychological torment. Then on the way home, Flandry liberated the hermit world of Unan Besar from a fiendish, biochemically based tyranny but afterwards deserted the loyal whore who had made his success possible ("A Plague of Masters").
In "Hunters of the Sky Cave" Flandry tore apart another of Aycharaych's webs by helping expel alien invaders, the wolf-like Ardazirho, from the human colony Vixen; Once the aggressors were turned into allies, the Empire used their fleet to crush the Merseians at the Battle of Syrax. The poignance of this episode was not so much in Flandry's sentimental dalliance with a Vixenite girl but in his warmer rapport with aliens than Imperials.
The Syrax victory not only averted military peril, it made such a hero of participating Terran Admiral Hans Molitor that his troops soon proclaimed him Emperor after the reigning Josip died childless. This dynastic crisis took three years to settle. Meanwhile, Flandry gained fame by rescuing the favorite granddaughter of one elderly interim Emperor from the harem of a treacherous Duke with Imperial ambitions of his own in "The Warriors from Nowhere." Later, Flandry worked closely with Molitor during the consolidation of his reign and thus became a trusted personal advisor to him and his dynasty.
All the strands of Flandry's past knotted together in "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows". He foiled simultaneous plots to fan racial tensions and to goad the valuable planet Dennitza into rebellion against the Empire. Flandry was about to marry Kossara, a Dennitzan aristocrat who resembled his lost Kathryn, but the fruit of his youthful sins destroyed his last chance for happiness. His own son by his first mistress turned traitor, brought about his fiancee's death, and was killed at his order afterwards. Behind all the shadows stood Flandry's old antagonist Aycharaych. Flandry discovered and destroyed Aycharaych's home world, a vacant storehouse of ancient wisdom. This revenged Kossara and cost the Merseian Intelligence Service a priceless resource.
Drained but still effective, Flandry eventually achieved a peace of exhaustion in his private life by settling down with Miriam Abrams, daughter of the officer who had originally led him into intelligence work. He and Miriam destroyed a would-be Hitler of Argolid descent on Hermes ("A Stone in Heaven"). Flandry ended his days as the gray eminence behind Hans Molitor's grandson.
Besides extending the lifespan of the Empire by at least a century, Flandry's deeds had important longer range consequences. The natives of Starkad, Talwin and Ramnu survived to pursue their own promising destinies. The Scothani and Ardazirho were brought into the orbit of Technic civilization and tamed somewhat. New opportunities were opened for humans on Altai and Unan Besar. Some of the McCormac rebels may have become the ancestors of the intrepid Kirkasanters in "Starfog." Vixen developed itself well enough to found a daughter colony, New Vixen, that later became a major center of civilization. Aeneas and Dennitza remained so strong they outlived the Empire and helped re-establish order in their Sectors. Most importantly, every one of the myriad lives Flandry saved was another ripple in the pool of time.
But Flandry was only manning the pump on a sinking ship. The Empire could stay afloat a while longer but it was no longer able to repair -- much less rebuild -- itself. Destructive trends continued in Terran society despite the sacrifices of Flandry and others like him: "Too many mutually alien races; too many forces clashing in space, and so desperately few who comprehended the situation and tried their feeble best to help -- naked hands battering at an avalanche as it ground down on them," ("Honorable Enemies").
Creativity never revived in the arts and sciences. Social barriers grew higher and the gaps between classes wider. Slaves increased in numbers while the conditions of their servitude worsened. Terra's fear of colonial disloyalty grew after McCormac's Revolt but her countermeasures, like forbidding Navy men to serve in their home systems, only weakened loyalty further. Colonies such as Freehold, Aeneas, and Dennitza began to plan for their post-Imperial futures. Despairing of Technic civilization, ripe for new religions and crazes, people withdrew from Terran society psychologically if not physically.
Thus it was with the Terran Empire as it had been with the Roman nearly 3,000 years before. Not enough is known about the Terran Emperor Georgios to compare him directly with the Roman Marcus Aurelius but at least he was an acceptable ruler. His son Josip, however, was every bit as degenerate as Marcus Aurelius' son Commodus and his impact on the Empire every bit as disastrous. The disorders that followed Josip's death tossed up Hans Molitor who was an exact counterpart to Septimus Severus, similarly provided with two incompetent sons, and likewise destined to die on an unruly frontier. After another round of civil wars, Flandry became the key advisor to a sound, Aurelian-like Emperor.
The Terran Empire was completing its Principate phase and beginning its Interregnum in Flandry's day. After his death, it became a Dominate, a static, repressive state with all the harshness of Diocletian's Rome. All the negative tendencies of the previous era persisted unchecked. Not even a resort to divine kingship could save the Empire. The Fall, so slow, so long expected, was complete by the middle of the fourth millennium. Technic civilization was extinct. The Long Night had arrived.
Information about the Empire's Fall is inexact and largely speculative but the Byzantine-Persian historical model described earlier can usefully supplement the Roman one. It appears that Terra and Merseia wore each other out in fruitless wars of attrition, leaving each other too weak to resist other foes. Internal rebellions triggered by poverty, tyranny, and insecurity left both imperia even more vulnerable.
There may have been some new crusading movement comparable to Islam which attracted subject peoples on both sides. (Aycharaych had tried to kindle such on Aeneas and Diomedes.) Perhaps the Betelgeusans, a race noted for long range planning, had decided to end their centuries of neutrality and prosper at their larger neighbors' expense just as the.medieval Georgians had. Possibly the fierce Gorrazani (descendants of the Gorzuni) erupted in conquest like the Turks. Or else the precedents of the Scothani and Ardazirho inspired other barbarians to harry Terra and Merseia as border savages had raided Byzantine and Persian territory. Undoubtedly, these were the kinds of factors that ruined Terra and Merseia. It is not certain if either capital world was destroyed. But shorn of her possessions, heavily populated Terra had insufficient resources left to rebuild her might. Merseia would have suffered catastrophic culture shock when her glorious dream failed.
A few incidents recorded during the Long Night show old Imperial colonies trying to retain or regain lost knowledge ("A Tragedy of Errors"). It was hunger for knowledge more than for goods that stimulated civilization's revival. Leading planets in the reconstruction period like Nuevoamerica and Kraken had never been part of the Empire. They explored far beyond its old borders ("The Night Face" and "The Sharing of Flesh"): Eventually, an entirely new approach to interstellar relations evolved. This was the Commonalty, a galactic service organization that provided quasi-governmental services without itself actually being a government ("Starfog"). Hopefully, the Commonalty will avoid some of the weaknesses inherent in empires but eventually it is sure to develop special problems of its own. Meanwhile, a new and brilliant cycle of history has begun.
What does the pageant of Technic civilization just summarized prove? (If indeed history can be said to prove anything.) First, its rise and fall demonstrates that governments operate under the social equivalent of Darwinian pressure: they must function within their environments or be replaced. Any kind of system that provides its citizens with an acceptable balance of opportunity and security is good. Pragmatic results count for more than political dogma. Initially the League emphasized opportunity and the Commonwealth security but finally neither could give either and so they perished. The best justification for the early Empire was that it spread a military umbrella over 100,000 unique cultural experiments. Once its ability to stimulate and defend its subjects faltered, its days were numbered.
Furthermore, these extant accounts of Technic civilization show history as a record of interlocking ironies arising from individual choices. For instance, if Falkayn had not aided Merseia, it would not have survived to menace the Empire. Yet if he had not also founded Avalon and his descendants not resisted Imperial conquest, no free Avalonian would have been available to save the Empire from a subtle Merseian plot in "The Day of Their Return". If Flandry had treated his first two mistresses with greater consideration, he would not have lost his last chance for happiness. If Kathryn had not rebuffed Flandry's advances, neither the Empire nor her own descendants would have long survived. Each irresistible historic trend is actually the net product of separate acts which had not necessarily appeared significant at the time they occurred. Each key event "'is the flower on a plant whose seed went into the ground long before ... and whose roots reach widely, and will send up fresh growths,'" ("A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows").
Finally, this temporal drama reminds us that everything in the universe is mortal. All things, institutions as well as persons, are born only to die. The lifespan of a galaxy or an empire is as limited as that of a man. The only proper response, in the face of entropy's inevitable triumph is to struggle as well and bravely as possible. As Flandry said in "A Handful of Stars", "'I don't want to die so fast I can't feel it. I want to see death coming, and make the stupid thing fight for every centimeter of me.'" Existence is a pattern with no ultimate transcendent goal, no purpose other than to be itself, a doomed but lovely candle in the darkness.
Last updated April 27, 2003