Terrestrial Kingdom

“ For more than a century now, planet time, they had been fighting their queer, twisted war among the stars. Terrans hunted worlds for colonization, the old hunger for land of their own driving men from the over-populated worlds, out of Sol's system to the far stars. And those worlds barren of intelligent native life, open to settlers, were none too many and widely scattered. Perhaps half a dozen were found in a quarter century, and of that six maybe only one was suitable for human life without any costly and lengthy adaption of man or world. ”

“ Interstellar travel begins, Solar System terraforming ceases. 2128 -- President Chang, with cooperation of Solar Federation Congress, proclaims Terran Empire and assumes Throne (22 Jan, Empire Day) , forms Rangers, directs regularization of English. 2130 -- Imperial Palace built in Antarctica. Shapers leave Terra, begin creating Sandeman race. ”

“ Declare the polar caps and surrounding polar areas, including the continent of Antartica but not areas which are traditionally a part of particular nations, to be world territory owned by the Federation of Earth as the common heritage of humanity, and subject to control and management by the World Government. ”

“ And household articles of wood and animal and vegetable fibres, and that archaic costume there—They were barbarians, all right. But no tribe that he knew about.
That wasn't too surprising, since the Terrestrial Empire and the half-dozen other civilized states in the known Galaxy ruled over several thousands of intelligent races and had some contact with nobody knew how many thousands more. Many of the others were, of course, still planet-bound, but quite a few tribes along the Imperial borders had mastered a lot of human technology without changing their fundamental outlook on things. ”

“ Is not that territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the world? With the finest soil, the most delightful climate, whose staple productions none of those great countries can grow, we have three thousand miles of continental shore line, so indented with bays and crowded with islands, that, when their shore lines are added, we have twelve thousand miles. ”

“ As old as Terra's history. Ship for ship and man for man the Terran Forces were better than the Martian. Terrans shot faster and straighter. Terran ships flew farther and faster. And Terra, for all its failings, was a free world fighting for a free space. ”

“ To the other end of the Empire, to [9] the other end of the galaxy—anywhere, so long as I need not wear my past like a medallion around my neck, or blazoned and branded on what was left of my ruined face.
CHAPTER TWO
The Terran Empire has set its blazon on four hundred planets circling more than three hundred suns. But no matter what the color of the sun, the number of moons overhead, or the geography of the planet, once you step inside a Headquarters building, you are on Earth. ”

“ No nation or alliance of nations can be said to have won them, but the wars had a most profound effect upon Terra. More than anything else, they made men reach to the stars, if only to escape the deadly conflicts of Terra. ”

“ Territorial expansion is always preceded by an extension of the circle of influence which a people exerts through its traders, its deep-sea fishermen, its picturesque marauders and more respectable missionaries, and earlier still by a widening of its mere geographical horizon through fortuitous or systematic exploration. ”

“ In the remoter West, the restless, rushing wave of settlement has broken with a shock against the arid plains. The free lands are gone, the continent is crossed, and all this push and energy is turning into channels of agitation. ”

“ And then came the great Pan-American Federation which linked the Western Hemisphere from pole to pole under a single flag, which joined the navies of the New World into the mightiest fighting force that ever sailed the seven seas—the greatest argument for peace the world had ever known. ”

“ It is easy, then, to picture successive hordes of dusky wanderers pouring over from the old, old East upon the virgin soil of what was then emphatically a new world, since no human beings roamed its vast plains or traversed its stately forests. ”

“ In the geological structure of this continent, Nature seems to have prepared it for the occupation of a single people. I cannot doubt, then, that continental unity is the great, the supreme law of our public life. ”

“ The onus upon those who wish to make changes is tremendous. The harmony of the Empire as it stands to-day is one of the miracles of human experience. We think it wonderful that majestic bodies in the heavens should revolve round the central sun. Well, that is not more marvellous than the orderly orbits in the political heavens of the various constellations of our Imperial system. The law of gravitation of the solar system is a great mystery and so are the marvellous peace and order which prevail right over this Empire. ”

“ We of the Overseas Dominions realise as much as you realise, that the pathways of the seas are the veins and arteries of this Empire through which its lifeblood must flow. If these are once stopped or interfered with in any way the Empire cannot continue to exist. We are as conscious as you are conscious of the wonderful vigil in the North Sea and of the patience, endurance, and fortitude of officers and men. ”

“ I'm Viceroy of one of the hundred Sectors of the Empire. I rule over a total of a hundred Satrapies; these average about a hundred Provinces each. Provinces consist, in general, of about a hundred Clusters apiece, and every Cluster has an average of a hundred inhabited solar systems. There are more inhabited planets in the Galaxy than there are people on your single world. I, personally, rule three hundred trillion people, half of them of my own race. And yet I tell you that it would be an equal partnership. ”

“ Our nation has been favored with the one [Pg 70] great block of territory in the North Temperate Zone, capable of vast development and with almost infinite variety of soil and climate, remote from other powers. ”

“ It is precisely when the land is thinly populated, and when therefore the population is in a fluid condition, that collisions will and must occur. Given a continent like Europe at the present day, the geography of which is accurately known, the resources of whose soil in every part have been fully gauged, and whose surface has been for many generations parcelled out in effective occupation, one province to one race, another to another; then, when the peoples are crystallized in their respective moulds, war is not inevitable ”

“ So, as our stars multiply, and the nation overcometh its adversaries, persuading all to its declared principles, everywhere on the continent, it will become a pillar in the temple, and the name of the continent itself will be needed to declare alike its unity and its power. ”

“ It is now the question whether this state of things is a permanent arrangement—whether we of the north side are always to have the advantage of extent of territory, of fertile lands and healthful homes in middle latitudes, in short, of all that makes the rivalry of nations, and civilization a necessity. ”

“ Can the actual state of the earth be considered as definitive? The revolutions which have fashioned its surface, and produced the Alps in Europe, Mount Ararat in Asia, the Cordilleras in the New World—are they to be the last? In a word, will the terrestrial sphere for ever preserve the form under which we know it—as it has been, so to speak, impressed on our memories by the maps of the geographers? ”

“ From their seats in the temperate zones the militant commercial nations proceed to the exploitation of the tropics, and for the possession of these they rush to war hot-footed. Like wolves at the end of a gorge, they wrangle over the fragments. There are no more planets, no more fragments, and they are yet hungry. ”

“ The territory is ample; it includes every variety of climate, in the changing seasons, every variety of physical conformation, every kind of production suited to the wants, almost everything desired in the imagination, of man. It comes nearer than any empire in history to being self-sufficient, physically independent of the rest of the globe. That is to say, if it were shut off from the rest of the world, it has in itself the material for great comfort and civilization. ”

“ On the other hand, out of a restricted geographical base, with its power to concentrate and intensify the national forces, grew Rome and Greece, England and Japan, ancient Peru and the Thirteen Colonies of America. ”

“ All explorations into outer space, both within and beyond the solar system in which Planet Earth is located, shall be under the exclusive direction and control of the World Government, and shall be conducted in such manner as shall be determined by the World Parliament. ”

“ Neither rivers, deserts, nor mountains far higher than those in Europe, arrested her people. They built grand cities, they drew their fleets, as in a twinkling of the eye, from the very forests. A handful of men conquered empires. ”

“ In a space as large as four continents, the polyps, strengthened by the lukewarm water, are building up thousands of atolls, ring-shaped islands, reefs and submarine pillars that, when united together by the work of a thousand years, are going to create a new land, an exchange continent in case the human species should lose its present base in some cataclysm of Nature. ”

“ And well it may be, for nearly all of the inlets are flanked by notched and peaked mountains, shooting into the sky with shoulders and necks wrapped in eternal frosts. When our great Republic shall have its boundary lines marked only by oceans and seas, then these bold highlands should be set apart as a continental park for the free people of the Western hemisphere. ”

“ Such mountain regions attain independent historical importance when their population increases enough to form the nucleus of a state, and to acquire additional territory about the highland base either by conquest or voluntary union, while they utilize their naturally protected location and their power to grant safe transit to their allies, as means to secure their political autonomy. ”

“ Modern territorial divisions, more especially if they are independent of the natural physical conditions of the land, such as mountain ranges, great rivers and the like, have but little value in considering the race problems of remote ages. ”

“ Geography should assume that frontiers are the lines at which peoples meet rather than part; and history should lay stress upon the forces that have made for human unity rather than for national power. ”

“ When they consider the numerous proofs of reiterated catastrophes to which the region was subject, they may, perhaps, commiserate the unhappy fate of beings condemned to inhabit a planet during its nascent and chaotic state, and feel grateful that their favored race has escaped such scenes of anarchy and misrule. ”

“ The control of these waters was the object of prolonged and memorable struggles, for on it—as the result showed—depended the empire of the world. From very remote times the consolidation and expansion, from within outwards, of great continental states have had serious consequences for mankind when they were accompanied by the acquisition of a coast-line and the absorption of a maritime population. ”

“ The land is wide, oh mighty king, this land of thine, and a fair land with food enough and space aplenty for many tribes. Bethink thee of thine enemies who dwell to the north and west of thee who envy thy corn fields and thy hunting grounds. Will it not advantage thee when we, to whom thou wilt present, or perchance if it please thee better, sell a little island and a few fields on the mainland, shall join with thee and thy braves on the warpath against thy foes, and when we destroy them for thee with our guns? Let us be friends and allies, oh Powhatan. ”

“ Heretofore, the nearest approach to a universal state has been an empire like that of Egypt or Rome built by conquest and maintained by military authority exercised by the imperial nucleus over its associated and subordinated territories. The universal state described above would be an association of sovereign states, each delegating a sufficient measure of its sovereignty to enable the World Federation to act as a responsible planet-wide government. ”

“ Like the first colony in the new world, then on the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Titan, and Ganymede, and hundreds of outposts in the asteroid belt, these Earthmen were braving new dangers and hardships, leaving the comfort of their homes to establish the first star colony. ”

“ From the circumstances of their situation, these populations have in all ages been shepherds, mounted on horseback, roaming through trackless spaces, easily incited to war, easily formed into masses, easily dissolved again into their component parts, suddenly sweeping across continents, suddenly descending on the south or west, suddenly extinguishing the civilization of ages, suddenly forming empires, suddenly vanishing, no one knows how, into their native north. ”

“ Territorial expansion was the foundation of American power and greatness. From the beginning of history to the present time, no country ever exerted a controlling power over the world until it had acquired a wide extent of territory. ”

“ But in those great tropical territories, where autonomy was not yet advisable or possible, we have endeavoured—and with success—to govern by and through and with the sentiments and customs of the inhabitants. ”

“ The progress of the earth in its daily rotation upon its own axis and also in its orbital movement around the sun is toward the east. This is believed to explain the order maintained by the course of empire. Motion being in the direction of the least resistance, the general tendency of the surface influence of the earth must be west. Counter side influences have at times caused deviations from straight lines, but this only makes the general proposition still more forcible. Therefore, as a general proposition, the course of empire and of civilization and population has always been westward. ”