Which is better- democracy or monarchy?
Our work depends less on the structure of government adopted by the worlds under our control and more on the frustrated ambition, the desperation, the love and the self-deception of individuals. No race- no government- is immune to influence as long as one knows what and who to exploit. I have closed my hands around the throats of democrats, oligarchs, dictators and kings.
The Centauri speak of their ancient emperors with the naïve reverence of a people long shielded from their history. In their texts, their early kings are heroic figures empowered by the gods themselves to defend and unify the people, forging them into a mighty and glorious race. The narrative is a delusion.
The progenitor of my clan served the Shadows on this world centuries ago when the Xon were in ascendance and the Centauri were a beaten people. Daily, the air reeked of fire and blood. Nightly, it echoed with cries of grief. The Centauri were ragged, fragmented and weak. The Shadows made them strong. The Shadows provided them with the means to obliterate their enemies once and for all. The Shadows taught them of evolution- of desire- and they learned.
In time, the Centauri forgot the identity and origins of their saviors. And the servants of those gods disappeared into legend and folktale. Yet the Shadows’ legacy remained. Emperor Mollari- and the monarchy over which he only symbolically presides- is the embodiment of that legacy. And it is true that our burden is eased by this memory of Shadows that has whispered through the halls of the palace for millennia and still now, through force of monarchial tradition, continues to do so.
But there is an equally useful, though different, vulnerability to the Humans and their democracy. Their style of governance often fosters idealism and complacency- a creeping fog of security that obscures the enemy and robs those in its thrall of their ability to fight. Decades ago, I bore witness to the final words and the death rattle of a human who called himself Frederick Lantz. Architect of the non-aggression treaty signed by the Earth Alliance and the Centauri Republic, he died in ignominy in a cell, a prisoner of the Clark regime. To his last breath, he expressed only dismay that his efforts had not brought the peace he had so confidently promised. He was democracy’s fool, accustomed to a universe in which discussion and civility and rationality reigned, and he was instrumental in our work.
The Centauri speak of their ancient emperors with the naïve reverence of a people long shielded from their history. In their texts, their early kings are heroic figures empowered by the gods themselves to defend and unify the people, forging them into a mighty and glorious race. The narrative is a delusion.
The progenitor of my clan served the Shadows on this world centuries ago when the Xon were in ascendance and the Centauri were a beaten people. Daily, the air reeked of fire and blood. Nightly, it echoed with cries of grief. The Centauri were ragged, fragmented and weak. The Shadows made them strong. The Shadows provided them with the means to obliterate their enemies once and for all. The Shadows taught them of evolution- of desire- and they learned.
In time, the Centauri forgot the identity and origins of their saviors. And the servants of those gods disappeared into legend and folktale. Yet the Shadows’ legacy remained. Emperor Mollari- and the monarchy over which he only symbolically presides- is the embodiment of that legacy. And it is true that our burden is eased by this memory of Shadows that has whispered through the halls of the palace for millennia and still now, through force of monarchial tradition, continues to do so.
But there is an equally useful, though different, vulnerability to the Humans and their democracy. Their style of governance often fosters idealism and complacency- a creeping fog of security that obscures the enemy and robs those in its thrall of their ability to fight. Decades ago, I bore witness to the final words and the death rattle of a human who called himself Frederick Lantz. Architect of the non-aggression treaty signed by the Earth Alliance and the Centauri Republic, he died in ignominy in a cell, a prisoner of the Clark regime. To his last breath, he expressed only dismay that his efforts had not brought the peace he had so confidently promised. He was democracy’s fool, accustomed to a universe in which discussion and civility and rationality reigned, and he was instrumental in our work.