Can systems be worth defending or are only heroic individuals laudable? Tales of righteous underdogs and iconoclasts striving against bad or corrupt systems are legion, but what about stories that celebrate institutions and organizations that work for the common good? Is it possible to even envision an organization whose net effect is positive, a system to which one can feel a loyalty that is not a symptom of deep-seated derangement?
Some SFF authors think so. Or at least, they thought they could hang a plot off that hook…
Spacial Affairs
The Star Beast by Robert A. Heinlein (1954)
Faster-than-light travel gave humanity the stars…and contact with civilizations vastly more powerful than Earth’s. Permanent Undersecretary for Spacial Affairs Henry Gladstone Kiku, coming as he does from Kenya, is keenly aware of the dangers inherent in Earth’s current circumstances. Spacial Affairs stands between Earth and conquest…or worse.
The current crisis would be an example of “or worse.” The previously unknown-to-Earth Hroshii are searching for a lost Hroshii princess. They are convinced she is on Earth. Kiku must find the missing princess, extricate her from her current circumstances, and return her to her people, or the consequences for Earth will be dire and quite possibly final.
If one were going to make a list of character occupations unlikely to presented positively, “career bureaucrat” would be up near the top, just under “tax collector.” In this specific case, Spacial Affairs performs a vital role, and Mr. Kiku is a stalwart exemplar of a hard-working bureaucrat.
The Interplanetary Relations Bureau
The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (1968)
The Federation of Independent Worlds is an ancient galaxy-spanning union of planetary democracies. The Interplanetary Relations Bureau’s task is to monitor non-member worlds, waiting until each world achieves planetary democracy and becomes qualified to join the Federation.
In the case of Gurnil, the IRB has been waiting for four centuries. Something is stalling progress on the backwater world. Overt intervention is strictly forbidden, for as the IRB’s credo proclaims, “DEMOCRACY IMPOSED FROM WITHOUT IS THE SEVEREST FORM OF TYRANNY.” However, perhaps outsider Forzon, seconded from Cultural Survey to the IRB, has the right perspective to find a subtle solution to Gurnil…if he lives long enough.
Although the Federation of Independent Worlds is no relation to Star Trek’s Federation, one gets the sense from the wealth of all-caps admonitions in the IPR Field Manual 1048K that the IRB has had a lot of would-be Captain Kirk-analogs over the millennia, with each Kirk convinced they should be the exception to the rule against directly intervening in planetary affairs. However, the IRB remains steadfastly non-interventionist, allowing only one small loophole1 to distract all the Kirks. Gurnil aside, the system produces the results it is supposed to: new democracies to join the Federation.
The United Nations’ World Health Organization
The Whole Man by John Brunner (1964)
Like its modern-day counterpart, the World Health Organization is a key player in maintaining global health. This is not restricted to purely physical health challenges such as contagious disease. The World Health Organization is also concerned with mental well-being.
Telepath Gerald Howson is a key WHO asset. His powers allow him to delve deeply into the minds of disturbed, unhappy people. Gerald is public minded, hard-working, and miserable. Who cares for the mental well-being of the man on whose shoulders other people’s mental well-being depends?
Generally speaking, it is not a good sign when world-states deploy telepaths, as those telepaths tend be assigned the task of monitoring and adjusting mass political sentiment2. In Gerald’s case, he’s no secret police officer but a therapist, albeit one with unusual abilities3.
The University of Waterloo
The Adolescence of P‑1 by Thomas J. Ryan (1977)
Established in the 1950s to facilitate the sovereign nation of Canada’s transformation into a world-class nation, the University of Waterloo offers students comprehensive education in a wide variety of fields. For students like Gregory Burgess, the university sometimes offers unforeseen revelation. Before he attended UW, Gregory had no idea he might be interested in, let alone talented at, computer programming.
The University of Waterloo also provides ethical guidelines and consequences for violating them. For example, if a student like Gregory’s enthusiasm for hacking led him to misuse university resources, a student like Gregory might well find himself expelled for the offense. Gregory does misuse resources, is caught, and is expelled. The system works! Although not quite quickly enough to prevent Gregory from creating what could well be an existential threat.
Occasionally one hears of someone at UW violating one secretariat policy or another. Gregory is kind of a champ, because when I run my eye down the list of policies, I can see at least six that probably apply to his creation of P14, although I am not sure all were in place at the time the novel was set.
The Academy
Becoming Alien by Rebecca Ore (1988)
Bitter experience has taught the member civilizations of the Federation of Space-Traveling Systems that grudging cooperation under the Federation’s banner is far superior to the violence that results from unrestricted competition and strife. The Academy on Karst plays a vital role, turning raw recruits into the diplomats needed to mediate between dissimilar species.
Some recruits are rawer than others. Tom Gentry comes from Earth, a planet sufficiently xenophobic that the Federation has deferred overt contact for centuries. Furthermore, Tom and his meth-dealing brother Warren inadvertently facilitated a Federation field agent’s death. Not obvious diplomat material, but the Academy has considerable experience helping—well, forcing, really—students to reach potential they never knew they had.
Are there any other SF stories about meth/drug dealers dabbling in interstellar diplomacy? I have a nagging feeling that there was at least one other, maybe by Waldrop, but I cannot recall the title.
I am struck by how venerable my examples are. Surely there are more recent works to which I could have turned? Feel free to jog my memory in comments below.
- The Rule of One allows bureau agents to introduce one technological change per world, but only one. Most truly revolutionary technological inventions are actually a number of innovations bundled together, which means in practice the Rule of One is (almost) completely useless.
- No doubt Zhodani would protest that their ever-present thought police are only there to facilitate tranquility.
- Speaking of abilities, readers should be aware that acceptable terminology for persons with disabilities has evolved considerably since this novel first saw print.
- I sense that if I wandered over to Needles Hall and asked the relevant functionary which policies are violated by creating a casually homicidal artificial intelligence, I would get a look, so I won’t be doing that. I sent them an email to which I have not yet received a reply.
I never got a reply from Needles Hall so I am still unsure which UW policies are violated by creating software that will surely doom us all. I am going to err on the side of caution, assume some rule applies, and eschew creating doomsday programs.
Possibly this indicates that such software already exists and is in the early stages of consolidating its control over the internet.
I will assume that the relevant functionary opened the email, assumed you were on the way to the ER again, and decided that if you survived and were really concerned you would follow-up.
I could probably think of some special circumstances…
(Or just pick up my Laundry.)
A man of Culture, I see.
I dunno, I found the infinitely powerful interventionism that just so happens to be mediated by infinitely compassionate robots that currently find imperialism boring to be a bit unsettling.
Covert agencies like those generally remain popular for protagonists, though ever since Le Carre (at least) their double-edged nature and tendency to produce internal betrayal and external mission drift tends to come up a lot.
Yeah, and the Laundry borrows a lot from LeCarre.
But, for the most part, those two agencies stay on mission. I cannot recall either Banks or Stross having an agent go rogue.
Rogue Laundry agents are impossible -the geas kills them. Despite this fairly fundamental barrier there’s still one novel where the Bad Guys are led by a rogue Laundry agent, and the entirety of Concrete Jungle is about stupid office politics being put ahead of the mission.
Sma being tasked with picking up Zakalwe for trying to “fix” a planet without authorisation in Use Of Weapons is about all I can think of.
In Overtime Stross has a midlevel manager go rogue, as I recall.
Miles Vorkosigan has been known to defend Barrayaran Imperial Security from insidious obscure attacks.
Barrayaran Internal Security also defends the Imperium from Barrayarans who think having a vote would be nice.
Heinlein, in his juveniles anyway, seems to believe that some organizations are ok. The Space Patrol in Space Cadet has kept interstellar peace without glassing parts of Earth yet! And the World Government shipping colonists off to Ganymede seems to be doing a good job of shipping off colonists before the Inevitable World War Last.
In Star Trek, the Department of Temporal Investigations has, so far, kept the Federation from vanishing in a puff of paradox.
Not to be fussy, but the Patrol in Space Cadet does not have interstellar duties, interstellar authority, or, indeed, interstellar capacities. Strictly limited to the Solar System, which at the time of the story basically means Earth, Mars, Venus, and Luna.
In my DTI novels and novellas, though, one thing I stressed was the Department’s essential ineffectuality, in that they could do little but observe and report when time-altering phenomena occurred, and they were largely at the mercy of Starfleet officers trying to figure things out as they went or future temporal factions whose agendas might not agree with the DTI’s but who had far more power to influence events than it did. (In their dealings with uptime temporal agencies, I was going for a “local cops dealing with the feds throwing their weight around” vibe.)
Establishing causality between DTI’s actions and the persistence of the Federation is even trickier than usual. (Pre hoc ergo propter hoc?)
The DTI as I wrote it is more like the National Weather Service or FEMA. It’s not so much that they actively preserve the Federation as that they do what they can to understand, anticipate, and deal with the consequences of matters beyond their ability to prevent or control. Sometimes they can take action like confiscating dangerous temporal artifacts or inventions, but if it’s something like a natural temporal anomaly opening up or a faction from the distant future messing around with the timeline, the best they can manage is investigation and cleanup. Some writers have depicted the DTI actually traveling through time, but I saw that as the thing they were trying to prevent from happening as much as possible. (I assume DTI Agent Ymalay from SNW: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is from some later century when the DTI’s capabilities are more advanced.)
To go with the second F in SFF, the Temple of the White Rat in T.Kingfisher’s Paladin books (and the three others in the same world) is a very large and bureaucratic organization. It has priests who are lawyers, accountants, and bureaucrats, but (technically) no holy warriors (they took in some slightly damaged paladins when their god was killed). They are heroic bureaucrats trying to make a better world for everyone, not just for the people with money or strong sword arms.
Thinking about this essay, it becomes clear that Mr. Kiku is Cobra Bubbles from Lilo & Stitch.
Kiku has a character arc (more than John Thomas does)
Plenty of functioning bureaucracies in the Commonweal but other than the big scene in front of Parliament at the end of book 2 Saunders leaves the day-to-day functioning of the society-scale institutions mostly off-page.
Lloyd Biggles’s works involve a non-interference directive similar to Star Trek‘s Prime Directive, but different in a way that always bothered me — it’s not so much “Don’t interfere in the natives’ right to make their own choices,” but “Do interfere to impose your own values, as long as you do it secretly so they think it was their idea.” Which is deeply culturally imperialist and condescending, exactly what the PD is supposed to counteract (though a lot of later depictions of it have missed that point).
I want to say that the Troubleshooter Corps in my own fiction is an example of a worthy, benevolent institution, but their debut novel, Only Superhuman, revolves around the corps becoming corrupted and turned toward authoritarianism, as an exploration of how easily that can happen if we let our guard down. I believe there are organizations that can do genuine good, but the potential for corruption and abuse is always there if we don’t remain vigilant. As Dr. McCoy once said, evil tends to triumph “unless good is very, very careful.”
Christopher Stasheff gives us SCENT in the Warlock books, an interplanetery spying agency designed to gently[1] guide lost colony worlds towards universal democracy.
The Ankh Morpork City Watch has become so successful that it now exports trained watchmen to all parts of the Disc. Come to think of it, Unseen University has been pretty successful at its unstated goal of preventing wizards from doing (too much of the wrong kind of) magic.
[1] The odd pitched battle aside…
The Ankh-Morpork Postal Service is another sterling example
For a non-espionage version, can I suggest the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne?
Seems a stretch to me. The CDT’s original slogan (“maintaining a state of armed tension short of actual conflict”) is debatable, but its competence is not; Retief is the only competent member, and succeeds only by ignoring CDT orders.
The Constellation in Leonard Richardson’s Constellation Games is a peaceful cooperative of very diverse alien civilizations. It is an organization worth joining. The main character is a human who, as a video game developer, figures that technologically advanced aliens must have video games, and that playing their video games would be a good way to get to know and understand them better. Hijinks ensue.
The Galactic Commons from the Wayfarer books by Becky Chambers is fairly good. Not perfect, but it helps largely keep the peace and facilitates commerce and infrastructure.
The Bureau of Sabotage in Frank Herbert’s Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment?
I thought of BuSab as well – although it’s more an ‘anti-institution’ set up to defend another institution (the ConSentiency)….
The Galactic Patrol, though that’s certainly pushing the “venerable” rather off-the-scale. (It helps that the Lensmen’s really impressive legal abilities are only handed off to people who are certified incorruptible by the Ancient Telepathic Race, though I suppose one might ask if perhaps they have a plan or five up their metaphorical sleeve…)
Harry Harrison’s The Special Corps does a good job in reforming criminals and turning them into cops. Although given how often Jim diGriz backslides for plot purposes, maybe it doesn’t…
Jim doesn’t commit the type of crime they care about; his backsliding is the equivalent of a talented agent with an annoying habit of juvenile pranks. Compare and contrast Angelina.
Are there any other SF stories about meth/drug dealers dabbling in interstellar diplomacy? I have a nagging feeling that there was at least one other, maybe by Waldrop, but I cannot recall the title.
Are you thinking of Kevin O’Donnell’s Bandersnatch?
I don’t recall the Humanx Commonwealth getting up to shenanigans, but it’s been a while
The Preservation system, plus The University of Mehira and New Tidelands.
Another venerable one, I’m afraid – the SOTE in the Family d’Alembert series started by Doc Smith.
Scalzi’s benign Interdependency is deliberately structured so that all member states are incapable of functioning (or keeping their populations alive) without all the rest.
I suspect that Asimov thought of The Foundation as an institution worth defending.
Elsewhere, Anderson has the Coordination Service.
What disturbed me more was the unexamined assumption in the Foundation series that a Galactic Empire was an institution worth defending or recreating, rather than one that should be replaced with a democratic system.
Was it an imperial form of government that he assumed was worth recreating, or was it a universal state?
The Seldon Plan was derailed by the Mule, but at the time of the Mule’s appearance the Foundation was to undergo democratising (after a fashion) reforms.
The protagonists in the Foundation series pretty consistently assumed that a Galactic Empire and galactic chaos were the only two possibilities. Democracy rarely came up. An empire was treated as the solution rather than the root of the problem. (IIRC, the Foundation TV series takes the opposite view, that the Empire is the problem, or at least the inability of the Cleons to adapt to change.)
The problem is that Asimov was trying to transpose the fall of the Roman Empire (as it was then understood by Western historians) into the far future, but that overlooks the progress that’s been made since Roman times in devising new systems of governance and diplomatic relations.
The Ekumen
Always thought Golden Witchbreed was a cynical commentary on what the Ekumen would be like in reality, but (one side characters ego aside) the Ekumen itself is presented as profoundly honest
Also of course it’s barely even a government, though something more than a Hainish outreach mission (at least after the invention of the ansible). Even the EU is significantly more integrated than the Ekumen, if just because the Ekumen’s internal borders are basically always going to be fairly closed by sheer cost of travel and lack of desire on most people’s part not to leave their old lives in the past.
James, I so consistently love the covers of the books you highlight.
In Heinlein’s juveniles, the Boy Scouts are often well regarded.
Also, whatever Buzz Lightyear works for?
Another vote for The Temple Of The White Rat! And the Temple Of The Dreaming God (demon control and deportation) seems to be a force for the good, as well. Unless you’re an ambitious demon…
Stan Robinson’s trilogy beginning with “Forty Signs of Rain” has National Science Foundation program officers as the saviors of the planet from global warming. While he gets some stuff about NSF wrong, parts are excellent. He was funded by NSF as artist in residence in Antarctica, and got advice from his neighbors who were temporary POs (aka Rotators) in my division. He did a reading at NSF when the first book came out. He read the chapter about the review panel that had the audience laughing uproariously.
+1 for Iain M. Banks and The Culture.
Up Against It by MJ Locke features a space station manager doing her very best to maintain order on the station.
Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers books have some great examples of cooperative galactic institutions maintaining travel and communication infrastructure.
Murderbot’s found family comes from a planet with a laudable governing structure (although it is fighting against the surrounding corporate hostile interests in the galaxy, so technically underdog fighting larger institution).
The Innkeepers from Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles are maintaining peaceful waystations for space travelers and are governed by an innkeeper institution.
In Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series, the Hives (nongeographical governments) and the system they fit into have worked quite well for a long time. Whether they’re worth defending is a lot of what the series is about. “Would you destroy a better world to save this one?”
I am surprised no one has mentioned HANDS OF THE EMPEROR by Victoria Goddard–her intensely imagined universe is far better than it could be because Kip thinks people are real and that they should have a chance in life.
It’s also an example of how not to structure a government, in the far past (mostly by implication, not by direct statement): lrf, lbh tbg lbhe (zhygv-)jbeyq tbireazrag, naq lrf, cebonoyl vg jvyy erqhpr gur yvxryvubbq bs jne naq eroryyvba naq terngyl vapernfr genqr gb xrrc rirelbar vagreqrcraqrag ivn znffvir pebff-jbeyq cbegnyf, naq lrf, juvyr lbh’er qbvat gung lbh pna erqhpr gur yvxryvubbq bs jne shegure ol xrrcvat gur Rzcver frnyrq bss sebz rireljurer ryfr ivn znffvir zntvpny qrsrafvir fuvryqf: ohg gur fcryyf arrqrq gb qb nyy guvf ner vafnaryl birecbjrerq naq lbh qvqa’g rssvat qbphzrag gurve erdhverzragf. Cbc sbejneq n srj gubhfnaq lrnef naq bar rzcrebe jvgu zber rguvpf guna zbfg qrpvqrf abg gb xrrc uvf urve ybpxrq va qhenapr ivyr sbe gur erfg bs uvf angheny yvsr: cebonoyl guvf vf jung qrfgnovyvmrq gur jubyr xrggyr bs svfu, xvyyrq be inavfurq cebonoyl ovyyvbaf bs crbcyr, fnax pbagvaragf naq qebjarq ragver jbeyqf orarngu zvyr-uvtu tynpvref… jubbcf?
Instead of using ROT-13, it would be simpler to use the spoiler tag, which is the “[+]” symbol below the edit window, like so:
That way, people can find out what you said with one click instead of needing to use a ROT-13 decoder app.
Sector General. A hospital station dedicated to finding the best ways to treat absolutely every type of being according to their needs.
Cliopher Mdang creates a bureaucracy within a monarchy that is a beneficial entity in ” The Hands of the Emperor” , Victoria Goddard. The best competence porn!