This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Radhreni: Why is Lafiel's status spoiler-tagged? This doesn't seem like a spoiler at all, given the length of the series and how soon her title is revealed.
- Seems that people are simply too lazy to remove it.
Looney Toons: Haibane! For the love of god stop coredumping one-paragraph monster entries and go take a look at the Program Entry Template so you can see what you should be doing.
cmkus: Does "Casual Interstellar Travel" really belong here? Yes, the Abh spend ludicrous amounts of time in space and hyperspace travel is readily available to THEM , but the Abh have to conquer constantly and viciously maintain a monopoly on interstellar trade to maintain their empire. Within Abh space, interstellar travel isn't available to anyone without traveling on an Abh military or trade vessel, and this kind of travel is pretty much restricted to 'at need.' With the Abh deciding who has need. We don't see much of the remaining interstellar empires, but one has to assume that, however egalitarian they might be, they're locked into the same need for resources (or, since they're not completely spaceborne civilizations, they don't need to continuously build and fuel new ships at the same pace the Abh maintain.)
Khathi: No, it is NOT restricted. In fact, it's actively promoted: after all, the sole source of wealth for the Abh as a race are the fees they impose on interstellar trade. Which is actually pretty much bustling — the only catch is that within Empire all trade must be done using imperial vessels. It is, in fact, very similar to a Dune model, where there is one monopolistic transport company. which everybody must use, but then again, this company will do business with anyone. BTW, most of the crew on these ships are not Abh (who, by definition, are strictly officers) but common dirtsiders — the citizens of the Empire, as opposed to subjects, who live on planets. The same thing is for imperial bureaucracy. IIRC, even the current Prime Minister of the Abh Empire is a grounder.
Damien: in the anime and novel, the Delktou spaceport where Jinto meets Lafiel is huge and bustling, and barely an Abh in sight. And the economic basis of the Empire is monopolizing interstellar trade; Lafiel says the 3 stages of life are soldier, merchant, and parent. And yeah, the PM (whatever that means in their system) is a Lander Abh.
Kizor: Help me out here... are the Abh supposed to be sympathetic "good guys?"
The first episode opens with a peaceful, pleasant world that is invaded without provocation by the Abh, engineered übermensch who announce "SURRENDER OR DIE!" and come equipped for planet-wide genocide should that become necessary. After capturing the elected leader of the planet by trickery, they institute their rule but leave their subjects some autonomy because the Abh can't bring themselves to deal closely with such dirt.
I watched four episodes, but kept waiting for the ethnic cleansing to start. My cultural background emphasizes independence on a Honor Before Reason level, so is this supposed to be repulsive and/or excusable?
Malicious Illusion: To Ahb, the planets are less important than the space around them; they don't bother changing a planet at all once it's theirs, and only seem to bother them as far is as necessary to maintain a monopoly on space travel within the empire. There is no ethnic cleansing, no major change in the way the planet goes about it's business, nothing; you get an Ahb flag and the face on your coins change, that's it. In fact, an early episode dealt with a crazed half-Ahb nobleman with "ethnic purity" ideas by killing him dead and having all involved talk about what a whacko he was.
The series (Or at least what I've seen; I ain't finished yet) is sympathetic to the Ahb, but it doesn't make the other forces out to be evil, just in opposition. Everyone's got reasons to do what they do, nobody's got official policies of kicking puppies, nobody sane has ideas about themselves or others being forces of pure good/evil. There's just a territory war happening.
Kizor: Hey, thanks. That sounds like excusable territory, though I don't think I'll be able to like the series.
Khathi: They live in a strictly class society, that's right. But then, who isn't? Their empire has a plenty of opportunities for ambitious to move upward. You can go to the nearest imperial office and apply for the service. The moment you're hired you become a full citizen, even if your job is a janitor. If you'll move through the ranks high enough, you'll become an Abh automatically — the Abh aren't a race, they're simply a nobility, and they're a nobility that's actively hiring.
And about independence — there's a story of Samsonn, a major supporting character. He's a minor noble, so an Abh, but he got here through the ranks, being a grounder by birth (he's about 35, so it's not actually that difficult). He once told the main character that his planet was once a part of one of the other empires (it's implied that they were conquered by them as well), but they actively seeked Abh protection from their former masters, because said masters have found some of their customs and dietary habits offensive, and tried to weed them out rather... emphatically.
Abh couldn't care less about that stuff, so that planet joined the Abh Empire absolutely voluntarily and remained their loyal supporter ever since. So, the question: which society allows more independence — the supposedly democratic government that actively meddles with your age old customs, or some feudal empire that doesn't give a damn about what you do dirtside and requires only token acknowledgement of them as a masters? They don't even want taxes!
Kizor: That depends. Does the supposedly democratic government murder billions if they say no? I'm kind of stuck on that whole thing about Abh pointing planet-killers at peaceful civilians without provocation.
Khathi: Iraq? Sure, they haven't yet broken a first million, but the whole mess Americans started is simply delicious. True, Saddam was a brutal thug, but the civil war that started after he was ousted is much, much worse. And about planetkillers — I still haven't found a mention that they were ever really used. After all, Abh are traders, first and foremost, and no planet == no revenue.
Kizor: I'm not from America and don't get why you're bringing real-world politics into the issue... anyway, making a people who go around threatening others with planet-killers good because they never use them feels like a cop-out by my books. At least handwave it with a xenopsychological treatise on universal self-preservation or something. "Murders worlds" is an uncomfortably large character trait to leave hanging.
Khathi: Well, you're welcome. But I just see it as a future equivalent of our own Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine. That ancient law scholars in Tang China summarized it quite beautifully: "Punishments are established but not applied" (without the compelling reason, that is), in other words, the punishments in criminal codes are not established to terrorize the populace, but to punish wrongdoers. See, we, now and here, have all the possibilities to make an Earth-Shattering Kaboom, but all that stuff (at least since late 60'es) was specifically created to not to be used. BTW, that's an answer to your question about bringing a real-world politics. Fiction is not created in vacuum, it reflects the Real Life, and such analogies gives an insight into its meaning. Ah, and another point. Abh empire isn't the only one around, just the biggest. United Mankind often gives Abh a run for their money, so some sort of strategic deterrent IS needed.
Damien: We haven't seen the Abh genocide anyone. They do threaten it rather casually; the first novel has a great line from the Admiral about how, luckily, all the people of Martine live in one city, so if needed they can destroy that without harming the rest of the biosphere... In Banner II, Lafiel offers to blow off part of the atmosphere of a planet, if that'll help pacify things. (That seems way out of line of her tiny fleet capabilities, but anyway.) OTOH, once you're in, yeah, they don't do much; the Abh noble of a planet can't even tax it. They just monopolize interstellar travel. For most of the worlds they've conquered, they were the ones introducing FTL in the first place, so it's more like "welcome to the galaxy and the economy thereof! just stay out of our turf." This is part greed, part Abh-safety, part keeping humans from having interstellar wars.
As for the other polities, they're all ostensibly democratic, which is a nice change from monarchist SF. (The Abh have an excuse. BTW, is there a trope about Good Kings?) OTOH, contra other comments, they — or at least the United Mankind — seem to be bigoted authoritarian bioconservatives. They claim the Abh aren't even human, just organic machines; they round up people for democratic education camps; an official promises to stomp out smoking and re-educate smokers; and yes, Samson's planet joined the Abh, apparently because they eat cats or something and the Abh don't care while the UM would have tried to stomp that out. And they totally ban genetic inspection of embryos, let alone tweaking, foregoing a twice-demonstrated ability to double the human lifespan. Also, they started the war. So while one can look askance at the Abh in parts, or wonder how much we see a romanticized view of Abh protagonists, the opposition isn't massively better; it's not the Draka here.
The Abh seem somewhat like the Assyrians or less sadistic Mongols; cultivating a reputation for ruthlessness to minimize fighting. No negotiating for hostages, elaborate revenge, threats of planetary genocide delivered in languid tones. But yeah, it's kind of left hanging. It's not like worlds like Martine can even meaningfully touch Abh fleets.
- Wraith: It's shown more explicitly in Banner III, which hasn't made it to the US. Martine revolts, and a group of ships are sent, under cover of a training mission, to regain control of the system. The ships split in two groups to first race to the system, and then the first group there has to defend it from the second. The group that makes it there first doesn't know the rebellion is real, and casually destroy Martine's defenses because they don't stop shooting after being "destroyed" by the practice weapons. They did no damage at all, but the Abh commander is impressed with how realistic the "mock rebellion" was, and advises they use in-spec training weapons next time...
- Damien: I'm still not sure if the Abh were actually that clueless, or constructing a way to materially suppress the rebellion without having to go all out, especially the way they cut Jinto out of the loop. Rebellion must be crushed like a bug, but if they can pretend there wasn't a rebellion, they can smack down, save face, and avoid killing people.
Lastly, is there a Trope like They'reAllAtheists or some such? Because the Abh are, also the empress laughs at notions of ethics, at least on policy levels. Abh usually seem like decent people if you pin them down (see Snark) but they care more about their honor than conventional morality, a lot of the time.
Damien again: oh wait, there is at least one documented 'genocide': destroying the people who'd made them as space exploration slaves in the first place. The Abh feel guilty about it — the fear of their makers was irrational, as the Abh had run away and grown more powerful.
Crasical: Kizor! My brother! A friend of mine is a HUGE fan of the series, and he always gave me weird looks when I mentioned that the Abh gave me discomfort in their politics. I felt like I was the only one. There was an unpleasant Can't Argue with Elves feeling about what little info I gleaned from scattered episodes. And yes I know that they don't all have pointy ears, but they do fit the space-elves trope. Personally. Blah.
Lynceus: Well, they are basically Space Elves, yes. But the thing is, you don't get a very good sense of how the Abh work from just a few episodes. They are extremely casual about causing destruction on a massive scale... because they know it works. It's basically an Abh social custom to act like an arrogant dick to intimidate someone, and their culture puts a lot of value on a finely-crafted insult, seemingly. I mean, we're not supposed to buy that they're perfect by any stretch—they are clearly an expansionist imperial power. But they play up their own negative aspects deliberately when dealing with opponents, because their society believes in the importance of image a lot. And it's not like they get off scott free either—Jinto doesn't find all aspects of Abh society agreeable. You're not supposed to just blindly accept everything. It would be a shallow series that asked that of you, and if there's one flaw you can't accuse Seikai of, I think shallowness would be a top contender. The series likes to portray the Abh as generally good, not inherently superior—and if you think about it, "generally good" is as good as it gets in politics.
I tried to spruce up the artical a bit. So thoughts, opinions, condemnations?
Khathi: Good work.
