It's not just about economics

Weird parallels between the universes of David Drake and C.J. Cherryh

I’m coming to an end of a lengthy re-read of C.J. Cherryh’s Alliance/Union novels (with the exception of 40,000 In Gehenna and Cyteen/Regenesis, which aren’t pertinent to the period I’m really interested in) sparked by her latest novel in the series, Alliance Unbound. Like its predecessor, Alliance Rising, this novel concerns itself with the early days of the Merchanter Alliance, that collective of family-owned ships that along with Union puts an end to the Company Wars, and mostly takes place in the Hinder Stars, those stations that originally comprised the Great Circle Route in the days before FTL, and which were abandoned as uneconomical twice: first, when FTL ships became capable of the jump from Alpha Station to Pell, and again in the wake of the Company War after an attempt by the Alliance to restore them as somewhat of a counterweight to Union’s expansion and also as a sink for the troublesome population of Q Sector on Pell.

Now, this abandonment of the Hinder Stars puzzled me. True, they weren’t needed any more as rest & refueling stops on the way to Pell, but surely some use could be found for stations aside from that? The whole thing reminded me of the chapter in Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers, “The Bonding Authority”, in which a planetary civilization collapses when the Authority refuses to insure cargoes moving to a planet after that planet breaks its contract with a mercenary force and betrays it. Cut off from interstellar trade, the planet’s economy and government collapse, a useful object lesson for other governments that might think of defying the Authority.

The universe Hammer’s Slammers operate in is very different from the Alliance/Union universe in several ways: there is no shortage of habitable planets in the Hammerverse, whereas in the space plied by the Earth Company ships and then the Alliance, there are only a handful of planets habitable by man: in fact, for most of the arc described by Cherryh’s books, there are only three: Earth, Pell, and Cyteen. Aside from these planets, everyone lives on stations around various stars or aboard the ships of the Alliance, almost all of which are owned and operated by families - usually written as Families.

Another point of divergence is cultural: in the Alliance/Union books, there are really only four human cultures: Solar Syatem humanity, whether it’s on Earth, Mars, or the Belt; stationers, very risk-averse and cautious; the merchanter families, who might differ in ship-speak but otherwise share a matrilineal exogamous society; and Union, largely built on the backs of azi grown and raised in the birth-labs of Reseune on Cyteen. In contrast, Hammer’s troopers deal with a wide variety of cultures drawn from Earth’s many nations, and in fact many of the wars they fight stem from cultural conflicts between colonists from different ethnic groups.

Which brings me to the question: why are the Hinder Stars abandoned by the Alliance when they are so obviously a perfect place for Earth to exile its political dissidents and other cultural subgroups who want out from under the hideously corrupt and rather oppressive fusion of megacorporations and governments? Do Cherryh and Drake both believe that without frequent external trade, planets and stations will wither and die? Is there reason to assume that the Hinder Stars can’t survive and prosper by trading cultural artifacts unique to their transplanted cultures? We see in Tripoint and other books that books, entertainment programs and the like are bought and sold like any other commodity; would it not be possible, say, for Tamils transplanted to Thule Station to produce unique foods and spices along with Kollywood films and Carnatic music?

It makes me wonder if I’m not missing something obvious here. Perhaps the Alliance doesn’t want colonists who might have closer ties to Earth than to the Alliance that supports them with trade. Perhaps the stations aren’t truly self-sufficient in terms of raw materials and biostuffs, and can never be. I invite your suggestions in the comments.