xtisme: you may be recalling David Feintuch’s Fisherman series; it’s been a long time since I have read them, but IIRC, the main char. was Nick Seafort.
The name at least rang a bell.
As far as other monarchies in Weber’s Universe: I don’t actually recall any of them being mentioned by name; it may have been in passing, which is why it didn’t stick in my mind.
And I can kind of agree with Eternal in that a semi-Feudal system being a better way to go. The “greater nobility,” usually with familial/blood ties to the dynasty, have a vested interest in advancing the dynasty’s interests.
The lesser nobility have an interest in protecting the dynasty and system as well: their fortune’s are tied up directly in it’s health and well being.
This lets a monarch/emperor know that weeks and months of travel away, they have a “player” of their own, of like mind and disposition, to represent their interest, as opposed to a mere bureaucrat.
ExTank: The Fisherman…thats it. Its been years and I couldn’t remember anything except the general outline of the series and the name of the main character (Nick Seafort). Thanks.
As to the rest: Again, the conditions remind me of the early days just after the revolution in America, where communications and travel could take days or even weeks. Think about how communications would go from, say Phily or DC to some of the southern colonies for instance. How did THEY work the system? The states themselves were more a collection of semi-soveriegn entities tied together under a loose federal systems (UNITED States, if you will :)). I think such a system is far superior to a monarchy…or else, why aren’t monarchies still about? The only ones I’m aware of are pretty much either cerimonial (like the British) or functional despots like in the Middle East (Saudi et al).
Its certainly an argueable point, and I conceed it could happen…I was mostly responding to **Eternal[\B]'s comment: “I can’t imagine a far-flung space empire being run any other way than through a feudal system”. I certainly can imagine several alternate systems that, IMO, would work better. But then, I’m prejudiced towards democracy.
I generally ascribe monarchies in space travelling societies to be the product of a failure of imagination. Most of the SF I like comes from more carefully thought out and constructed socieities: Vinge’s libertarian future, Banks’ Culture novels, Anderson’s Polesotechnic League, Asimov’s Foundation and Empire – as a general rule, the better writers imagine futuristic socieites to go with their futuristic technology and the hacks … go medieval.
And in Asimov’s Foundation series (loved it btw) the government started out a democracy, then went thru a dark age period reverting to empire and kingdom at various places (if I remember correctly)…even a brief stage where the Mule was sole ruler.
Its been years since I read the series, so I may be misremembering. Personally, the best hard core SciFi I’ve read lately was from John Ringo…I loved the A Hymn Before Battle series. I hope he writes more.
My understanding of the trilogy was that the Foundation had developed an understanding of sociology that was so deep that they became the defacto rulers of the galazy, without anyone actually realizing it. The Mule was a genetic sport who upset their equations briefly but who amounted to very little over the long haul. They knew exactly what to do to shorten the Galactic interregnum, not just broad things like preserving technical knowledge, but what specific events they needed to affect. I’d say it was a fairly radical vision of government, in which the form of government was made pretty much superficial by the scientists’ understanding.
Thats pretty close to how I remember it too, Evil. Was a great series, but its been years since I read it. However, during the dark days, there were various kingdoms, monarchys, and dictatorships. But they DID have a plan to cut down the time of the dark ages and bring about a new republic.
lol, now you got me thinking about it…I’ll have to find and dust off my copies.
RE: Foundation, it was the Second Foundation that developed a deep understanding of “psychohistory” (mathematics+psychology+history+sociology) that controlled the Foundation from behind the scenes. Although the First Foundation was initially a democracy and maintained that tradition after the initial trilogy (al, after the Mule the Second Foundation was pretty much in control.
One thing about the Second Foundation is that their mentalism allowed them to communicate instantaneously. That would take a lot of the effort out of imperialism. The nature of their “psionics” also made their government a meritocracy/ aristocracy, which is really the ideal form.
The Seldon Plan NEVER intended the new empire to be a republic in any real way.
Then again I’ve only read the Trilogy and the next book, who knows how things changed later on. Maybe robots invaded the universe or something.
IIRC, the later books posited that psychohistory was a fraud! That the myth that some people had a perfect, infallible way of predicting history was used like astrology or divination to influence leaders’ decisions.
The late emperors contemporary to Selden wanted to use psychohistory that way, and Selden didn’t really disagree with that, but it didn’t work too well. It might have delayed the Fall by a couple of years, but not much more than that.
And of course it should be noted that before the Foundation Interregnum, the galactic govermnent was a heriditary monarchy, and quite a succcessful one at that (didn’t it last something like twenty thousand years?).
Some people seem to have the opinion that, now that republics have been invented, there is no good reason to ever again have a monarchy.
I have a problem with this view, because what a given society wants from its form of government can vary over time, and the form of government may very well change to accomodate this.
For example, if our history books can be trusted, Americans once wanted, for the most part, a government which would leave them the heck alone!
American culture was adventurous and independent, and got a government that acted as a useful tool for certain functions that were a nuisance for regular people to handle.
Today, Americans are frightened children who are terrified that we might screw up and inadvertently do something that might sting a little. Our government now functions as our Mommy and Daddy, doing our thinking for us and keeping the Bad Things away.
If a society can change that much in only a century or so, why is it any problem to accept that another society, faced with very different challenges (i.e., expansion into space), might settle on a very different role for its government? And couldn’t a drastic difference in role possibly encourage a significant difference in form?
There is no reason to believe that our descendants of the year 2203 (or 2703, or 4503…) HAVE to live in a constitutional republic. They might very well have an all-powerful king who is held to be the worldly incarnation of their Supreme Deity… and be glad of it!
For example, you could have a future in which artificial intelligences have evolved to the point where they have ceased to be humanly comprehensible, and are virtually omnipotent and infallible by human standards. So one or more might effectively run the galaxy, using a human “king” or “emperor” as their interface/ tool/ puppet.
I favour taking the counter-case - that of Margaret Weis’s Star of the Guardians series, which is at heart a fine riff on the Star Wars story. In these books, two different methods of governing a galaxy are spelled out: a feudal system where planetary leaders are raised and trained to sort out their differences with a monarch as a final court, and a republic where the galaxy is divided up into sectors, each of which sends representatives to the House.
The problem with a galactic republic is that the galaxy is simply too big to divide up in this manner. If you make the sectors too large, only the richest systems will be represented; too small, and the representatives don’t have enough influence in the House. In both cases, the needs of all but the elite will not be met.
In the case of the feudal system, each planetary leader has absolute power and is bred for the responsibility of possessing such. In the event that he abuses his power, his people can take it to the monarch. If his wishes come into conflict with those of another planetary leader, there is someone outranking them both to force an arbitration. Things get done because there is someone at every level who can decide what to do and do it - and that’s what you need to kep a big galaxy ticking.
Speak for yourself, Vlad. Americans have also been accused of wanting a chicken in every pot, and a good five cent ceegar, and these platitudes are about as deep and penetratingly thoughtful as your projections.
The problem with feudalism, and the reason that nobody intelligent wants it back, is that it’s just despotism writ small – or large and small. It suck for regular folk, big time. You need an ignorant base – much more ignorant even than your average American – for despotism to succeed. Once you’ve got a populace educated enough to drive a modern industrial society, they get restive under a despot. Um, did you miss the stuff that made Marxism and other forms of socialism look so good a century a so back in England, and even more recently in Russia?
Actually, I wouldn’t consider human authority being superceded by superhuman AIs to be so much a change in government. More a change in status for the human race. Vernon Vinge and Greg Benford have covered various scenarios along these lines very well.
I concur with Evil Captor. Feudalism works okay when the majority of your population is in the agricultural sector, and there is only a minority of non-food producing people in the population sucking up the resources provided by the peasants. It sure as hell wouldn’t work in a modern capitalistic society where only a minority work in agriculture and the vast majority do things that aren’t related to food at all, and therefore need an incredibly productive agricultural base (the kind that doesn’t exist in a feudal society).
It spends quite a bit of time looking at the fluctuations of galactic government over the course of the series, as well as regime change on a particular planet. (granted it also delves into time travel and telepathy, but that’s part of the charm.)
Its been years and I couldn’t remember anything except the general outline of the series and the name of the main character (Nick Seafort). Thanks.