I
have wondered how S.M. Stirling was inspired to write his four Draka
books (MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA, UNDER THE YOKE, THE STONE DOGS, and
DRAKON). One source to investigate is what Stirling himself said, such
as the Introduction he wrote for DRAKAS! (a collection of short stories
featuring the Drakas he had consented to other authors writing). This
is what Stirling wrote on page 2 of DRAKAS! (Baen Books, 2000): "So a
thought came to me, suppose everything had turned out as badly as
possible, these last few centuries. Great change make possible great
good and great evil. The outpouring of the Europeans produced plenty of
both."
I agree that Mr. Stirling's Draka books are
dystopian alternate history science fiction, based on the premise of
everything turning out as badly as possible. BUT, what if, unbeknownst
to Stirling, he had also been influenced in shaping the basic premises
of the Draka stories by Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization stories?
Assume a small group of people with ideas similar to those of the Draka
had left a hostile Terra soon after a FTL drive was invented to settle a
planet deep in what became the dominions of Merseia in Anderson's
Technic stories.
There actually was a human ethnic
group within the Terran Empire whose ideas might have developed along
the lines taken by the Draka if circumstances had been different! I
refer to the Zacharians, whom we see in THE GAME OF EMPIRE. Matthew
Zachary and Yukiko Nomura, the founders of the Zacharians, lived around
the time when a FTL drive had been invented and mankind was beginning to
leave the Solar System. Their desire was to use genetic science to
create an improved form of humanity which would provide the leaders of
the human race. To quote Kukulkan Zachary, from Chapter 17 of THE GAME
OF EMPIRE: " ' Travel beyond the Solar System was just beginning.
Matthew Zachary saw what an unimaginably great challenge it cast at
humankind, peril as well as promise, hardihood required for hope,
adaptability essential but not at the cost of integrity. A geneticist,
he set himself the goal of creating a man that could cope with the
infinite strangeness it would find. Yes, machines were necessary, but
they were not sufficient. People must go into the deeps too, if the
whole human adventure was not to end in whimpering pointlessness. And
go they would. It was in the nature of the species. Matthew Zachary
wanted to provide them with the best possible leaders.' "
All
too predictably, the appearance of the genetically modified Zacharians
aroused suspicions of them wishing to become a master race tyrannizing
over mankind. It caused the Zacharians to be alternately shunned or
persecuted (with Kukulkan Zachary admitting the Zacharians MIGHT have
become such a caste in the right circumstances). It ended with the
Zacharians settling the island they called Zacharia, on the planet
Daedalus, orbiting the star named Patricius. By the time the Terran
Empire arose and restored order after the Time of Troubles, the
Zacharians had become merely one more ethnicity in an Empire containing
thousands of them. Their resentment at this eventually led them to
become traitors, co-conspiring with Merseia to place its agent Olaf
Magnusson on the throne as a puppet Emperor. Kukulkan Zachary tried to
justify this in Chapter 20 of THE GAME OF EMPIRE by saying: " ' We owe
the Terran Empire nothing. It dragooned our forebears into itself. It
has spurned our leadership, the vision that animated the Founders. It
will only allow us to remain ourselves on this single patch of land,
afar in its marches. Here we dwell like Plato's man in chains, seeing
only shadows on the wall of our cave, shadows cast by the living
universe. The Merseians have no cause to fear or shun us. Rather, they
will welcome us as their intermediaries with the human commonality.
They will grant us the same boundless freedom they desire for
themselves.' "
Oh, the irony! From aspiring to
becoming the leaders of mankind, leaders who MIGHT have become like the
Draka, the Zacharians eventually decided they would settle for becoming
Quislings governing mankind under Merseian supervision. And I disagree
with Kukulkan Zachary--nothing prevented Zacharians from either
enlisting in the Imperial armed forces or entering the Civil Service.
Being able and intelligent, many would rise to be among the leaders of
the Empire. But that would have meant adopting the preferred view of
the Empire taken by both the other humans and non-humans within its
domains, of becoming ASSIMILATED by the Empire, and renouncing the dream
of ZACHARIANS being the leaders of mankind.
I wish to
examine what we know of the ideology of racial supremacy which dominated
Merseia in the days of the Terran Empire, to see how closely it
resembled the beliefs of the Draka. A few quotes from Chapter XIV of A
CIRCUS OF HELLS will help: "They [the Merseians] didn't want war with
Terra, they only saw the Empire as a bloated sick monstrosity which had
long outlived its usefulness but with senile cunning contrived to hinder
and threaten THEM..." And: "No, they did not dream of conquering the
galaxy, that was absurd on the face of it, they simply wanted freedom to
range and rule without bound, and "rule" did not mean tyranny over
others, it meant just that others should not stand in the way of the
full outfolding of that spirit which lay in the Race..."
I
did not believe a word of this! As the Merseians expanded into the
galaxy they contacted other intelligent races with as much right to
exist as theirs. Yet their reaction was to scorn them as beings
inferior to them, and to dominate them because they were not Merseians.
In
Chapter XIII of A CIRCUS OF HELLS we see some of Dominic Flandry's
reflections about the Merseians and the beliefs driving them: "You gatortails get a lot of dynamism out of taking for granted you're the natural future lords of the galaxy," the man thought, "but
your attitude has its disadvantages. Not that you deliberately
antagonize any other races, provided they give you no trouble. But you
don't use their talents as fully as you might. Ydwr seems to understand
this. He mentioned that I would be valuable as a non-Merseian--which
suggests he'd like to have team members from among the Roidhunate's
client species--but I imagine he had woes enough pushing his project
through a reluctant government, without bucking attitudes so ingrained
that the typical Merseian isn't even conscious of them."
The
points I wish to stress about this otherwise out of context quote are
these: Merseian belief in their superiority and destiny as rulers of the
galaxy, their at best condescending attitude toward non-Merseians, a
hint of how ruthless the Merseians could be to any who opposed them,
etc.
The human ruled Terran Empire was Merseia's
greatest and most powerful rival among oxygen breathing races. How did
at least some Merseian leaders regard humans and how would they treat
humans? An answer to these questions can be found in Chapter 10 of
ENSIGN FLANDRY. Brechdan Ironrede, Protector of the Roidhun's Grand
Council, said of the human race: " ' They were magnificent once. They
could be again. I would love to see them our willing subjects.' His
scarred features drooped a little. ' Unlikely, of course. They're not
that kind of species. We may be forced to exterminate.' " Note the
casually chilling acceptance of the idea of exterminating an entire
intelligent race. And, by extension, all other non-Merseian races who
dared to resist Merseian domination.
In ENSIGN FLANDRY
we see one Merseian who did not believe in the evil ideology of racial
supremacy and felt betrayed by his own leaders. As Dwyr the Hook said
in Chapter 12: " ' What was the conquest of Janair to me? They spoke of
the glory of the race. I saw nothing except that other race, crushed,
burned, enslaved as we advanced. I would have fought for my liberty as
they did for theirs.' " Dwyr concluded; " ' Do not misunderstand. I
stayed loyal to my Roidhun and my people. It was they who betrayed me.'
" Dwyr thought like that because he had discovered how badly his own
superiors had lied to him as regards being healed of severe war
injuries.
To see how humans inside the Empire reacted
to Merseians claiming their race was superior to all others I'll quote
from Chapter XII of A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS what Bodin
Miyatovich, Gospodar of Dennitza and governor of the Taurian sector
said: " ' The Empire would have to get so bad that chaos was better,
before I'd willingly break it. Terra, the Troubles, or the tyranny of
Merseia--and those racists wouldn't just subject us, they'd tame us--I
don't believe we have a fourth choice, and I'll pick Terra.' " Here we
see Merseian rule considered so harsh it amounted to treating
non-Merseians as mere animals.
I have reviewed Merseian
ideas of racial superiority and how both humans and non-humans reacted
to them. What was the political form desired for giving Merseian
ambitions a practical shape? In Chapter 9 of ENSIGN FLANDRY Lord
Hauksberg remarked that the electors from the landed clans chose the
Roidhun from the landless Vach, the Urdiolch, dismissing that, however,
as an unimportant detail. Commander Max Abrams disagreed, saying: " '
It's not a detail. It reflects their whole concept of society. What
they have in mind for their far future is a set of autonomous Merseian
ruled regions. The race, not the nation, counts with them. Which makes
them a hell of a lot more dangerous than simple imperialists like us,
who only want to be top dogs and admit other species have an equal right
to exist. Anyway, so I think on the basis of what information is
available. While on Merseia I hope to read a lot of their philosophers.'
"
That last bit, about Merseian philosophers, reminded
me of what S.M. Stirling's character, William Dreiser, had done on page
64 of MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA (Baen Books: 1988): "He had done his
homework thoroughly: histories, geographies, statistics. And the Draka
basics, Carlyle's PHILOSOPHY OF MASTERY, Nietzsche's THE WILL TO POWER,
Fitzhugh's IMPERIAL DESTINY, even Gobineau's turgid INEQUALITY OF HUMAN
RACES, and the eerie and chilling MEDITATIONS OF ELVIRA NALDORSSEN."
It's disturbing to think there might be Merseian analogs of Draka
philosophers like Naldorssen. I can think of one possibly modifying
factor: the Merseians belief in "the God" MIGHT soften the ruthless
logic of their racist ideology.
To give a more adequate
idea of what the Draka and their ambitions were like I'll quote from
Stirling's fictional Draka philosopher Elvira Naldorssen's MEDITATIONS:
COLDER THAN THE MOON (possibly the same invented book as the one
mentioned in the previous paragraph), from page 230 of Stirling's
MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA: "The Draka will conquer the world for two
reasons: because we must, and because we can. Yet of the two forces, the
second is the greater; we do this because we choose to do it. By the
sovereign Will and force of arms the Draka will rule the earth, and in
so doing remake themselves. We shall conquer: we shall beat the nations
into dust and re-forge them in our self-wrought image: the Final
Society, a new humanity without weakness or mercy, hard and pure. Our
descendants will walk the hillsides of that future, innocent beneath the
stars, with no more between them and their naked will than a wolf has.
Then there will be Gods in the earth."
In conclusion it will help if I listed the ways Merseia resembled the Domination of the Draka:
1. Racial superiority of Merseians over all non-Meseians.
2. Inferior status, within the Roidhunate, of all non-Merseian races.
3. Willingness to exterminate entire races.
4. Enslaving of conquered non-Merseians.
In
Poul Anderson's Terran Empire stories the focus was on the decline of
the Empire and the urgent need to defend it, to prevent civilization
from falling, not primarily on Merseia (except as the enemy of the
Empire). Still, I believe I have collected enough evidence to show that
the Roidhunate was a nasty place for non-Merseians. I regret how Poul
Anderson never thought of writing a few stories set entirely inside the
Roidhunate, showing us the views of both Merseians and non-Merseians.
If he had, and if based on the evidence I collected, Merseia would
strongly resemble a non-human Domination of the Draka, on an
interstellar scale.
S.M. Stirling is a known fan and
admirer of the works of Poul Anderson. I think it was at least possible
that, besides experimenting with writing dystopian science fiction,
unconscious reflection on Merseia's racism and its consequences was a
factor shaping how Stirling developed the Draka. To say, nothing, of
course, of how the Zacharians might have contributed to this process.
Because of the recent discussion I had with SpeakNoEvil, I thought it only right to warn readers finding this essay of mine that the version seen HERE is no longer the complete text. Anyone who looks up "Was The Domination Inspired By Merseia?" in the Poul Anderson Appreciation section of Dr. Shackley's blog under the same date of September 26, 2015 will see it has two extra paragraphs not found here.
ReplyDeleteSean M. Brooks
Very well written and sensible! Have you asked S.M. Stirling if this were the case?
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Keith