proposition than it had ever been in the Sol system. (As one human wag had remarked, it was as though Mars and Venus had traded orbits.) Furthermore, the secondary star had a “hot Jupiter”—a gas giant planet that had formed and then migrated inward to take up a very close orbit. This phenomenon, which even the Lokaron hadn’t entirely accounted for, occurred with unfortunate frequency in planetary systems—unfortunate because in the course of its inward spiral, the gas giant destroyed any planets that might have formed in the star’s liquid-water zone. But in the case of Kogurche B this was no loss, as a red-dwarf star was unlikely to have had a life-bearing planet. And the result was a wide region of orbiting planetary rubble almost as dense and resource-rich as Sol’s asteroid belt had once been imagined to be.
All of this had made spaceflight a more attractive proposition for the Kogurin—compact bipeds averaging four and a half feet tall, an advantage when coping with the dismal mass ratios of chemical rockets—than it had ever been for humans. They had first ventured into orbit when their overall technological level had approximated that of Earth in the 1930s, and by the time it had reached the equivalent of the late twentieth century (which had taken them longer, as they had lacked the driving force of hot and cold ideological wars), they had a bustling interplanetary commerce, powered by a variety of fission rockets, ion drives, Orion drives, and other forms of nuclear propulsion from which, for various reasons, they had not flinched as late twentieth-century humanity had. They had even established a very slow but self-sustaining importation of raw materials from Kogurche B.
At the same time, their society had gradually been overtaken by toxic sociological byproducts analogous to those that had produced the dominance of the Earth First Party. The Kogurin equivalent of the EFP hadn’t been able to abandon space travel, which had become basic to the economy. But it could and did freeze technology before the computer revolution could take place, resulting in something which, to human eyes, bore an uncanny resemblance to “yesterday’s tomorrow”: interplanetary travel as it had been visualized by Robert Heinlein and Chesley Bonestell, and computers on a 1960 level at best. It also fossilized society under a self-perpetuating class of political careerists that had eventually devolved into the one-person rule of the “Implementer of Correct Social Organization,” as humans translated the title.
Thus the Rogovon discoverers of Kogurche had found a wealthy, intensely industrialized system stagnating under what was at its best a kind of Confucian statism. And it had been stagnating for a long time. That last part made the discovery even more unsettling to the Lokaron than Earth had been, for they had to ask themselves what they would have found (or, perhaps, been found by) if Korgurche had continued developing instead of locking itself into an artificial stasis.
Nevertheless, the commercial possibilities were obvious, once the Rogovon had forced the system open by means similar to those used by the Tizathon on EFP-controlled Earth (but rather less subtle, as was the Rogovon way). Not many non-Rogovon interests among the Lokaron had become involved at first, for it was too far from their normal areas of operation. It was, however, in precisely the region where humans, newly released from the dead hand of the EFP, were beginning to expand. Rivalry would have been inevitable even if a legacy of poisonous hate hadn’t already existed.
Then, in the midst of complex negotiations for concessions, the reigning Implementer had been assassinated, throwing the Kogurche society—already dissolving in a flood of new technology—into chaos. In such a setting, the human-Rogovon rivalry had grown increasingly cutthroat. In retrospect, the only surprise was that the conflict had festered for nine more years before
All of this had made spaceflight a more attractive proposition for the Kogurin—compact bipeds averaging four and a half feet tall, an advantage when coping with the dismal mass ratios of chemical rockets—than it had ever been for humans. They had first ventured into orbit when their overall technological level had approximated that of Earth in the 1930s, and by the time it had reached the equivalent of the late twentieth century (which had taken them longer, as they had lacked the driving force of hot and cold ideological wars), they had a bustling interplanetary commerce, powered by a variety of fission rockets, ion drives, Orion drives, and other forms of nuclear propulsion from which, for various reasons, they had not flinched as late twentieth-century humanity had. They had even established a very slow but self-sustaining importation of raw materials from Kogurche B.
At the same time, their society had gradually been overtaken by toxic sociological byproducts analogous to those that had produced the dominance of the Earth First Party. The Kogurin equivalent of the EFP hadn’t been able to abandon space travel, which had become basic to the economy. But it could and did freeze technology before the computer revolution could take place, resulting in something which, to human eyes, bore an uncanny resemblance to “yesterday’s tomorrow”: interplanetary travel as it had been visualized by Robert Heinlein and Chesley Bonestell, and computers on a 1960 level at best. It also fossilized society under a self-perpetuating class of political careerists that had eventually devolved into the one-person rule of the “Implementer of Correct Social Organization,” as humans translated the title.
Thus the Rogovon discoverers of Kogurche had found a wealthy, intensely industrialized system stagnating under what was at its best a kind of Confucian statism. And it had been stagnating for a long time. That last part made the discovery even more unsettling to the Lokaron than Earth had been, for they had to ask themselves what they would have found (or, perhaps, been found by) if Korgurche had continued developing instead of locking itself into an artificial stasis.
Nevertheless, the commercial possibilities were obvious, once the Rogovon had forced the system open by means similar to those used by the Tizathon on EFP-controlled Earth (but rather less subtle, as was the Rogovon way). Not many non-Rogovon interests among the Lokaron had become involved at first, for it was too far from their normal areas of operation. It was, however, in precisely the region where humans, newly released from the dead hand of the EFP, were beginning to expand. Rivalry would have been inevitable even if a legacy of poisonous hate hadn’t already existed.
Then, in the midst of complex negotiations for concessions, the reigning Implementer had been assassinated, throwing the Kogurche society—already dissolving in a flood of new technology—into chaos. In such a setting, the human-Rogovon rivalry had grown increasingly cutthroat. In retrospect, the only surprise was that the conflict had festered for nine more years before
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