Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, Thurs 4 July 2013.
I
recall seeing speculation by fans of Poul Anderson who wondered how
much "territory" was covered by a sector governor's "province" in
Anderson's Terran Empire tales. And while recently rereading THE REBEL
WORLDS I came across a few texts which gives us some information on that
point.
Poul Anderson likes to give readers some idea
of the over all size of the Terran Empire in many of his stories.
Because he believed it gives us some idea of the sheer vastness of the
background setting before he focuses on "smaller" scenes. THE DAY OF
THEIR RETURN was no exception and this is what I found in Chapter 3:
"The vaguely defined, roughly spherical volume over which Terra claimed
suzerainty had a diameter of some 400 light-years; it held an estimated
four million stars, whereof half were believed to have been visited at
least once; approximately 100,000 planets had formalized relations with
the Imperium, but for most of them it amounted to no more than
acknowledgment of subordination and modest taxes, or merely the
obligation to make labor and resources available should the Empire ever
have need."
A sector governor ruled regions of the
Empire analogous to the jurisdictions held by the viceroys and governor
generals of the former Spanish and British Empires on Earth. On an
interstellar scale, the territory over which he held authority was
almost inconceivably vast, as this quote from the opening paragraph of
Chapter III of THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN indicates: "A sector governor
oversaw such vastness that to him it became a set of abstractions." And
I found a rare indication of how large a sector was in THE REBEL
WORLDS, Chapter I: "...a sector governor, viceroy for His Majesty
throughout some 50,000 cubic light years surrounding Alpha Crucis." I
am sure this is the only text in the stories where a specific figure was
given indicating the SIZE of a sector.
As we already
know, there were 100,000 planets owning formal allegiance to the
Imperium. These planets included both worlds colonized by humans and
planets inhabited by non human rational beings. It is my guess that, on
average, a sector had 1000 of these planets. The evidence on which I
based this is the following quote from Chapter II of THE REBEL WORLDS,
from the passages describing Admiralty Center: "Crowds moved by and
overflowed the offices. Their members ranged from junior technicians to
admirals on whose heads might rest the security of a thousand
worlds.." I understood this to mean that the military defense of the
border sectors of the Empire entrusted to these admirals averaged a
thousand worlds. And it is reasonable to think the sectors of the inner
Empire also averaged a thousand planets. Therefore, I argue the Empire
was divided into 100 sectors for administrative purposes.
How
important were sector governorships? Important enough that the persons
chosen for them were matters of intense interest to the Throne and the
Policy Board. Here's a bit from Admiral Kheraskov's briefing of Dominic
Flandry in Chapter II of THE REBEL WORLDS: "Elevation [of Aaron
Snelund] to a higher rank would have kicked up a storm, but viscounts
are a millo a thousand. However, it's sufficient for a major
governorship. Many sectors would be too rich, powerful, close to home,
or otherwise important. The Policy Board would not tolerate a man in
charge of them who couldn't be trusted."
Moreover, to
do their jobs, sector governors HAD to have wide powers, despite this
also allowing the risk of abuse of those powers occurring. As Flandry
said in Chapter III of THE REBEL WORLDS: "We have *got *to give our
proconsuls wide discretion. We've *got *to let them recruit
auxiliaries, and hope those auxiliaries will know the local scene better
than Imperial regulars." THE REBEL WORLDS takes its plot from a bad
governor's abuse of his office and powers.
In his
Terran Empire stories Poul Anderson named the sectors not after planets
but for either astronomically prominent stars or stars orbited by
politically influential planets. Examples being Sector Aldebaran,
Sector Alpha Crucis, Sector Pacis, Sector Spica, etc.
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