Re: Why Space Empires?

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:36:28 -0800 (PST),
<CharlesRCaplan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:58222642-f081-45f1-9564-d8d9d2e0e1dc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in rec.arts.sf.composition:

On Jan 31, 12:26 am, "Brian M. Scott"
<b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(By the way, the term 'feudalism' is almost useless as a
descriptor: it's been used, even by serious historians, to
mean so many different things that it no longer means much
of anything. And many of those meanings have no necessary
connection with monarchy.)

I use the term with what I understand to be its generally
(though by no means universally) accepted definition.

It has no generally accepted definition, especially among
medieval historians. Elizabeth A. R. Brown really got the
ball rolling in 1974 with 'The Tyranny of a Construct:
Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe', and there's
much more in Susan Reynolds, _Fiefs and Vassals: The
Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted_, OUP, 1994. Hm;
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal> actually has a pretty
decent discussion.

[...]

Which brings me back to the original question.

Your original question was why monarchies are so popular in
far-future SF; my answer is that while popular, they aren't
as popular as you make them out to be. But I grant that it
was a lead-in for this:

Are the forms and trappings of Royalty and Courtiers a
crutch that the writer leans on in order to write a
story, or is it a conscious decision based on a weighing
of pros and cons in regards to the background world?

I don't think that these are the only possibilities.
Perhaps the forms and trappings of royalty and courtiers
simply came with the story when it presented itself, for
instance. Or their use may be the result of conscious
auctorial decision about something other than how the polity
would hold itself together: what best suits the story, say,
or even what's most likely to appeal to potential readers.

It really seems to me that it is a crutch to far too many
writers, and almost never a conscious decision about how
such a large polity would hold itself together.

That's something that's often ignored irrespective of the
nature of the polity, because it's 'just' background to the
'real' story. It's quite possible that it's ignored a bit
more often when the background society is a monarchy or some
other very familiar type, however.

Maybe it's a holdover from when SF used to mean
Speculative Fiction, not to imply that Fantasy writers
are lazy of course. =)

In my experience you have that backwards: I've been reading
science fiction and fantasy for over 50 years, and I
understood SF as short for 'science fiction' long before I
encountered the 'speculative fiction' interpretation.

Brian
.