Re: Planetary Charters, was Re: [TML] Amount of self-government on member worlds Kelly St. Clair 14 Jul 2016 11:59 UTC
On 7/14/2016 2:01 AM, Tim wrote: > On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 05:37:00PM +0200, Abu Dhabi wrote: >> I actually wouldn't be all that surprised that pureblood Terrans >> exist in significant numbers. Endogamy is a thing. > > Not with an absolutely perfect record over more than three thousand > years of being embedded within a highly mobile non-pureblood society, > it isn't. (snip) > By the time of the Third Imperium, there are no longer any truly > pureblood Terrans. There are just those who might like to claim such > a thing. First, full disclosure - I have the usual(?) "Crazy Eddie" distrust of absolute pronouncements like "never" and "impossible." Second, it seems to me that there will be elements of the minority society which are /not/ embedded within the society surrounding them, and which may actively work to maintain that separation, with all the tools available to them. I can certainly imagine xenophobic enclaves surviving, with TL 9+ medicine to mitigate the consequences of extensive inbreeding and other TL 9+ methods to maintain social control. They may not be large, they may not be relevant on the Imperial stage, but I submit that you can no more declare with certainty that they would not and could not exist than you can assert that no free trader named Russell ever set a tea service adrift in Sol's outer system. -- --------------- Kelly St. Clair xxxxxx@efn.org