In this day and age, there aren't any foreign lands that could be effectively plundered, so Caesar is off the table.
Which goes to think, how will space colonization affect this cycle?
The Caesar figure is the first billionaire technocrat to decide to bite the bullet and fund the creation of space-based infrastructure. This gives them the following advantages:
- Essentially unlimited metal and rare earth ores from asteroid mining.
- Essentially unlimited electricity from powersats.
- The ability to back a currency off the value of said ores and electricity rather than fiat and still have essentially unlimited money since the money is backed by a hard value and they actually possess something equivalent to that value.
- A perfect shelter from attacks by their enemies/competitors.
- The ability to give their enemies the tunguska event treatment.
Or in other words, basically an automatic 'win everything' pass. In the age of nuclear MAD and societal norms preventing fighting guerilla insurgencies hiding among citizens in non-nuclear countries by means that work, the only form of empire that can work is the
resource monopoly, and that's what space offers if it can be monopolized. The Emperor sells electricity and ore, cheaper than any earthbound competitors since they have an essentially unlimited amount, and rents use of communication satellites, hence, the threat of a boycott lets them blackmail obedience from every industrial society on the planet. Any vassal nation that threatens the Imperial monopoly, at a minimum, gets all its resources cut off until its leaders are overthrow by enraged citizens upset about the effect this had upon their quality of life, if not having the palaces of its leaders and its launch facilities leveled by ortillery.
Of course in the extreme long term, the empire is doomed, since eventually, an incompetent, decadent Emperor or even just some bureaucrats will try to cut costs by making their space infrastructure colonies self-sustain by processing the resources they gather directly into what they need, rather than maintaining the expensive interdependency of having to ship raw materials to earth in exchange for processed finished goods. It'll be very profitable at the time, even if it screws the empire in the long run by making the colonies into rivals. Suddenly, earth isn't the only market for raw materials, there're scattered independent factions buying up supplies to expand their intended-to-be-temporary ships into self-sustaining o'neill cylinder city-states. Or an imperial dynasty gets overthrown when an ambitious colonist with the technologies for moving around asteroids drops one on the imperial palace and proclaims themselves the new Emperor, though life might not actually change that much for the average citizen.
Not this old myth again.
There are some extremists on the reform groups that argue for such ideas but the vast bulk of such suggestions come from the misinformation from the wealthy mega-corporations who wish to block technological change because it threatens their easy profits.
'Live in the pod, eat the bugs'. 'You will own nothing and be happy'. There might not be very many such extremists, but they have a disproportionate amount of power.
Its perfectly possible to end fossil fuel problems without impacting on lifestyles in the developed world IF we can overcome the instructional interests that seek to block the developments of alternatives. The technology is largely there. Its just that vested interests are desperately seeking to block its development.
Similarly its perfectly clear we can't continue the way we're been doing by expanding fossil fuel use. Let alone expand similar living standards to the many who lack basic economic security across the world. Without the latter there is a lasting problem of continued international tension and disruption.
Steve
Yes, theoretically, but as repeatedly noted, there isn't a proper 'build thorium reactors, powersats and asteroid mining infrastructure, now, anyone who disagrees isn't just a fool, they're actively your enemy, a corporatist who wants to use artificial scarcity to reduce you to a rent-serf' political party at all, let alone in power.
According to Reilly, there's a plague caused by Thing-esque bacteria from Europa. Then everything just goes to shit over time and genetically-engineered neo-barbarians rampage around doing Mad Max shenanigans while the Empire builds giant pointless megafactories until eventually it just withers away into nothing.
Who's Reilly and where's this coming from?
