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Let's Read: The General (By David Drake)

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A new chapter, and it's a good one.

Drake is an interesting author, because he writes from the perspective of a soldier but he doesn't hide what that means in this context. I find myself remarkably unmoved by the dead and the wounded, as I remember exactly what these men did in Fatima's hometown.

Fatima is helping them now, despite what they almost did to her. Nation or even faith doesn't mean much to her; she was chattel under the Colony, and she has gained some degree of freedom and dignity under the Civil Government. She's part of a proper gang now, and they've earned her fealty.

This is not a happy planet.

The Skinners are impressive bastards. Their chief's murderous display is an impressive example of why the Civil Government tolerates everything else, though I have to wonder how reliable they are. If the Settler offered a better price, would they just flip sides? I suppose that it would make it more difficult to hire out in the future, but I wouldn't count on any given chief caring about long-term consequences.

The Colony is extraordinarily lucky to have Tewfik. If he wasn't a prince, he probably wouldn't gained his command so young. If he hadn't lost his eye, his siblings would probably be scheming to kill him, and even his father might be worried. The customs of the Colony mean that Tewfik can be a very successful general without posing a threat to his kin; only a man whole in body can become Settler.

The "meritocracy" of the Civil Government has backfired in this regard, because a nation where any general can become Governor is a nation where the Governor will be rightly terrified of every general. I like this recurring problem, because Barholm isn't a paranoid lunatic. Well, he is, but he's also not wrong. Governors who trust one general with control of an enormous army generally do not die in bed.

I've realized that I'm somewhat dependent on a moral element in stories, and that moral element is missing. Tewfik isn't doing anything that Raj wouldn't do. Burning crops and inciting famine is completely normal in this world, and Raj feels nothing but professional respect for Tewfik's strategy. The lives of farmers don't feature to him, except as an abstraction that has something to do with his angel-given mission. The wolves do not care for the welfare of the sheep.
 
There's definitely some moral dissonance here. on one hand, the author seems to want us to feel sympathy for some common people, like the peasant family Raj and the companions rescued (or did they just do that to get out of a tedious dinner?), while nonchalant or outright contemptuous of common people on the "wrong" side (slavery? gang rape? meh. fine). The attitude would make sense if this was Byzantium, but in a fairly "modern" context, it seems jarring. Especially when the Federation are the "western" equivalent; while war is still horrible, the attitude of "kill the men, rape the women, enslave the children" being common and accepted seems...anachronistic. It's not even a Hard Men making Hard Decisions; the only concern for our heroes is that loot, rape, and plunder only happen to acceptable targets.
 
Cobalt-60 said:
Especially when the Federation are the "western" equivalent;
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The Federation died thousands of years ago, and the Brigade are the 'white' men of the present setting, right down to the cowboys with revolvers aesthetic.

The Civil Government is implied to be primarily Latinex in it's core region demographics.
 
Cobalt-60 said:
There's definitely some moral dissonance here. on one hand, the author seems to want us to feel sympathy for some common people, like the peasant family Raj and the companions rescued (or did they just do that to get out of a tedious dinner?), while nonchalant or outright contemptuous of common people on the "wrong" side (slavery? gang rape? meh. fine). The attitude would make sense if this was Byzantium, but in a fairly "modern" context, it seems jarring. Especially when the Federation are the "western" equivalent; while war is still horrible, the attitude of "kill the men, rape the women, enslave the children" being common and accepted seems...anachronistic. It's not even a Hard Men making Hard Decisions; the only concern for our heroes is that loot, rape, and plunder only happen to acceptable targets.
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I trust Drake more than that.

He's in the odd position of being both sympathetic to soldiers and entirely aware of how awful soldiers can be. He also writes from a focused POV, and Raj's indifference is entirely IC.

I will not claim that Drake is perfect, but I will say that he understands just how horrible this is. He even emphasizes that the most monstrous part of all of this is just how normal it is to everyone on Bellevue.

Chloe Sullivan said:
The Federation died thousands of years ago, and the Brigade are the 'white' men of the present setting, right down to the cowboys with revolvers aesthetic.

The Civil Government is implied to be primarily Latinex in it's core region demographics.
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The Civil Government is coded as the (Eastern) Roman Empire, and they're moderately diverse. Mostly Spanish names, but "Whitehall" and "Barholm" indicate that it isn't exclusively descended from Latino (Latinex? I've heard both) cultures. Tzetzas is a Greek name.

Modern ethnicity isn't much of a guide here. The main divide is civilized/barbarian, with the Brigade and Squadron cast as barbarians. How exactly "barbarian" is defined is a complicated subject, but the narrative clearly establishes that the Brigade and Squadron are not truly civilized.

The Colony is defined as truly civilized, along with the almost identically evil Civil Government. I would very much like to see the classification system by which Center sorts cultures into "civilized" and "barbarian".
 
dptullos said:
The Colony is defined as truly civilized, along with the almost identically evil Civil Government. I would very much like to see the classification system by which Center sorts cultures into "civilized" and "barbarian".
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Well, this isn't so much of a "barbarism" and "civilized" as much as it is a religious divide. Center would've been perfectly willing to use Tewfik as its cats-paw to unify the planet if it had been based in Al Kebir instead of East Residence.
 
silentorphan said:
Well, this isn't so much of a "barbarism" and "civilized" as much as it is a religious divide. Center would've been perfectly willing to use Tewfik as its cats-paw to unify the planet if it had been based in Al Kebir instead of East Residence.
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I'm sorry, I'm confused. The Civil Government and the Colony have different religions, but Center considers both of them "civilized". The Brigade and the Squadron also have a different religion from the Civil Government, but Center considers them "barbarians". I'm not sure how what objective measure there is to divide civilized from barbarian. Bigger cities? A better civil service?

I did enjoy the scene where Raj contemplates the likely outcome of Center being located under Al Kebir. Tewfik is a dangerous man, though I wonder if his faith in Allah would have kept him from following Center. He doesn't belong to a religion that considers computers to be angels. Maybe Center would have framed everything in a Muslim context?
 
dptullos said:
I'm sorry, I'm confused. The Civil Government and the Colony have different religions, but Center considers both of them "civilized". The Brigade and the Squadron also have a different religion from the Civil Government, but Center considers them "barbarians". I'm not sure how what objective measure there is to divide civilized from barbarian. Bigger cities? A better civil service?
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Maybe it's the civil service part? Maybe Center judged that neither the Brigade nor Squadron could hope to retain hold of a united Bellevue in the face of weak leadership and/or other crises and fracture into a dozen different squabbling city-states, whereas the Civil Government and the Colony could still remain whole through the sheer inertia of its bureaucracy/military/culture. (Okay, that last "culture" bit has me hesitating a lot, but still...)
 
I always thought the Civilized vs Barbarian framing was one that came from Raj. I didn't realize that Center was in on that.

It is very much suspect to call the Brigaderos "barbarian" - I suspect this is just a straight up adaptation from old Roman attitudes where anything beyond the frontier was "barbarian" - and notably, this was something that seems to have worn thin by the time of the ERE that the CG is based on. By that time the "barbarian" polities to the west had very much developed into states.

Though of course, Center could be commenting on the fact that the Brigade, Squadron, and Guard are all descended from Federation military units. Ones that (from a federation legal standpoint, inasmuch as you can argue that still holds) ought to be obeying Federation civil authority, and are instead in open and armed rebellion against such.

But honestly as much as Center focuses on the federation, even ne seems totally recognize that nir actions are aimed at restoring something that fell. So really, arguing that Federation law still applies and that just because the Military Governments still claim legitimacy based on their ancestry -descended from Federation Military Units- they are beholden to Federation law… is highly questionable.
 
dptullos said:
I'm sorry, I'm confused. The Civil Government and the Colony have different religions, but Center considers both of them "civilized". The Brigade and the Squadron also have a different religion from the Civil Government, but Center considers them "barbarians". I'm not sure how what objective measure there is to divide civilized from barbarian. Bigger cities? A better civil service?
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I think the latter is at least some of it. The Brigade have more of a civil service than the Squadron do, if admittedly out of self-interest (as the Brigadero Colonel Boyce remarks in The Anvil, "Civilisation is a lot more pleasant than sitting in draughty log halls eating bad food and listening to worse poetry"), but it's very much something that they inherited from the Civil Government when they overran the territories around Old Residence; not something that they can do much more than maintain. It's not something systematised for them, or at least not the way it is with the Civil Government and Colony.
 
The Squadron and the Brigade both originate from mercenaries. They both run their territories under a feudal order; peasants to do the work, and nobles to spend the proceeds. The Squadron are more barbaric due to their having been there longer. Meanwhile, the Brigade has a sort of middle manager class in the Old Residence admins, who keep the rabble down in exchange for a cut of the spoils. At one point, Raj refers to the brigade leader as "having gone from barbarism to decadence." The Colony has a civil service and in many respects a more stable government, but they're stereotypical Orientals, so they can't bring civilization back.
 
Cobalt-60 said:
The Squadron and the Brigade both originate from mercenaries. They both run their territories under a feudal order; peasants to do the work, and nobles to spend the proceeds. The Squadron are more barbaric due to their having been there longer. Meanwhile, the Brigade has a sort of middle manager class in the Old Residence admins, who keep the rabble down in exchange for a cut of the spoils. At one point, Raj refers to the brigade leader as "having gone from barbarism to decadence." The Colony has a civil service and in many respects a more stable government, but they're stereotypical Orientals, so they can't bring civilization back.
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The text explicitly says that if Center was located under Al Kebir, Tewfik would be the Sword of the Spirit of the Stars. Or whatever the Muslim framing of that title would be.

The Colony is "stereotypically Oriental". So is the Civil Government. Center needs an empire with the ability to conquer and govern Bellevue, not a collection of decent human beings.
 
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Yeah, the thing Center is talking about is much more about centralization. There are a number of issues with how everything is framed, but especially one the level of institutions the Colony and CG are basically treated as equivalent.
 
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