"Scott Westerfeld - Succession 2 - Killing Of Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

A Note on Imperial Measures One of the many advantages of life under the
Imperial Apparatus is the easy imposition of consistent standards of infostructure,
communication, and law. For fifteen hundred years, the measures of the Eighty Worlds
have followed an enviably straightforward scheme.




• There are 100 seconds in each minute, 100 minutes in an hour, and ten hours in a
day.

• One second is defined as 1/100,000 of a solar day on Home.

• One meter is defined as 1/300,000,000 of a light-second.

• One gravity is defined as 10 meters per second squared acceleration.




The Emperor has decreed that the speed of light shall remain as nature has
provided.




FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO

The Imperial Civil War —compiled by the Academy of Material Detail




Two thousand years ago, it is believed, the population of diasporic humanity
surpassed one hundred trillion, including various more-or-less human types in addition
to the main germlines. This was a very rough count, and given the scale of the galaxy
and the unattainability of translight travel, informed estimates can no longer be made.
Certainly, no census is possible. But it is obvious that humanity is a vast object of
study, even when matters of merely local concern are engaged.

The Risen Empire, with its eighty worlds, its trillions, and its core-ward
position—dense with neighbors such as the Rix, the Feshtun, and Laxu—is huge enough
to seem unaffected by the actions of individuals. Historians speak of social pressures
as if they were physical laws, of "unstoppable" forces of change, of destiny. But for
the men and women who walked the historical stage, these forces were often invisible,
hidden by their sheer scale and the rank propaganda of the times. Social pressures
built invisibly over lifetimes, not across the pages of a history text. And destiny only
became apparent after the dice had been thrown. For those who experienced them
directly, historical events were ruled by the fortunes of war, the whims of lovers, and
dumb luck. Fate arises out of such humble parts as these.