Originally published on Poul Anderson Appreciation, 24 August 2012.
Proserpina,
a ferrous spheroid two thousand kilometers across, is on an eccentric
two million year orbit that takes it between the Kuiper Belt and the
Oort Cloud. Cometary impacts have deposited frozen water, organics and
metal.
Lunarians, adapted to live and breed in lunar
gravity, have inhabited Proserpina, now prosperous and populous, for
centuries, covering its surface with domes, roofs, towers, masts, roads,
rails and spacefields where ships come and go like fireflies. It is
surrounded by satellites, habitats, factories, entrepots, supplementary
harbours, naval bases, research centres and antimatter production
facilities. A majority of Proserpinans are in lesser colonies on smaller
bodies or in mining bases on comets.
Related families
and their retainers form phratries. Related phratries form phyles to
act cooperatively. Seigneurs, holding the balance of wealth and power,
have strong bonds with their subordinate "companions." "Courai," either
owned by seigneurial families or drawing their members from a single
phratry, conduct most major enterprises. Because population is
concentrated on Proserpina, its phratries elect a Council of
Forerunners which, by electronic consultation, sets policies, enacts
safety regulations and organizes public undertakings, paid for by levies
on their beneficiaries. The Council chooses a Convener. The Consultancy
of seigneurs leading the phyles can review and veto the Council's acts.
Here is yet another of Anderson's carefully detailed future environments and societies.
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