"John Dalmas - The Three-Cornered War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

megawar weaponry.
For several years the refugees traveled in hyperspace, emerging from time to time to
explore some promising planetary system for a habitable world. Eventually they settled
on one they named Iryala.
Over the following millennia, the Iryalans colonized other planets in their sector of the
arm, always taking with them the Sacrament and its technicians. Their worlds and
progeny remained under the dominion of Iryala, which retained to itself the exclusive
manufacture of spacecraft, space drives, and space weaponry.
Despite new worlds, new conditions, new colonies, the Sacrament resulted in a
technologically and mentally stagnant culture which increasingly stressed the concept
of Standardness. And a shallow view of both past and future, without a great deal more
curiosity about history than about the principles of how the universe works.
Each confederated world had its own ingrown interests and focuses, and they were too
farflung to be closely ruled. What held them together was the Sacrament, and their
dependence on Iryala for technology. Many of the colony worlds never achieved a
central planetary authority, but developed autonomous states separated by rivalries and
grudges.
The Confederation of Human Worlds, in its various historical formats, had never
experienced space warfare. In fact, with one exception, all its wars had been surface
wars between states that shared a common world. And in the more distant past, revolts
against Iryalan authority.
It hadn't even made a show of force in space for over seven hundred years. Its naval
equipment was of inherited designs, modified long millennia earlier to serve police
functions rather than fight wars.
During the exodus, long forgotten now, two large groups of refugees had been purged
for refusing the Sacrament. They'd been put down on two planets so difficult, survival
seemed questionable and civilization impossible. As the Confederation expanded, those
two forgotten worlds had been rediscovered. For a long time their primitive peoples
were treated as anomalies, and not quite human. One of those planets was Tyss, also
known as "Oven." Tyss was so poor that for millennia its only export was superb
mercenary regiments, hired by states on worlds without a central planetary government,
to help fight their many small wars.

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John Dalmas - The Three-Cornered War


The T'swa—the people of Tyss—had evolved a culture that eventually caught the
interest of a small group of Iryalan aristocrats. Now the Tswa had a new export: ideas.
And those aristocrats formed the opening wedge in the stagnated culture of the
Sacrament. The Confederation began a planned and gradual change, heretical and
covert.
Meanwhile the ancient Home Sector had been terribly ravaged by the interstellar war
the refugees had fled. Some planets had been literally destroyed, physically disrupted.
Others were rendered uninhabitable for most lifeforms. On still others, the environment
was sufficiently degraded that the demoralized humans who survived the war did not
survive its aftermath.
Only three worlds retained human populations, and technology had died on them all.
Eventually one of them, Varatos, reevolved science, redeveloped space flight, and
discovered and subjugated the other two. On eight others, the ecology had adjusted