From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com   
      
   On 1/14/26 07:26, James Nicoll wrote:   
   > Side-Eyeing Science Fiction's Love of Empire   
   >   
   > ...Wait, we're supposed to believe that it's the rebels who are wrong?   
   >   
   > https://reactormag.com/side-eyeing-science-fictions-love-of-empire/   
      
   	Empires of various sorts and durations constitute a lot of human history   
   right back into prehistory.  Vast cultures arose in the Americas and   
   fell when   
   some changes to the ecology or simply a failure of rain to come on time   
   happened.   
   	The Chinese Empire was forged out of collection of warring states and   
   China of today is the result with ambitions to extend the Empire even   
   further under   
   the workers' controls of course(NOT).  From dominant warlords to Dominant   
   Political parties with control of the Red Army.   
      
   	Some republics are Empires as with the Continental USA and some are   
   unstable dictatorial regimes in the USSR, Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.   
   Japan in the same period.  The original Japanese Empire was forged before   
   the year 1000 CE and replaced by the Shogunate by 1200 CE. Weak shoguns   
   lead to about 400 years of Civil War with a strong set of leaders: Nobunaga,   
   Hideyoshi and Ieyasu beginning another 260 years of dictatorial unity.   
   	Western intervention eventually ended the Shogunate but the restoration   
   of the Empire was controlled by the magnates of the more advanced provinces.   
   They discarded the caste system where peasants were the most oppressed   
   but necessary class with the samurai warriors enforcing peace and having   
   the privilege of testing swords on any peasant who was the least bit   
   rude to them. They were replaced by a relatively modern army but with   
   the death of Meji's son and the ascendance of Hirohito aka Showa, the   
   military had control of the mind of the Emperor and once more the   
   imperial ambition to extend the Empire came into play and in the   
   1930s-1945 they ruined their nation.   
   	Now the USA has Trump who does not pay much attention to the   
   constitutional limits to his power and our empire may fall as a result.   
      
   	So when we talk about empires in SF we are merely using a historially   
   consistent form of political organization.  Sociopaths and psychopath keep   
   gaining power and attempting to extend that power create empires and   
   if they are republican empires that is better than military or charismatic   
   empires.   
      
   	bliss   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)