"Richard Allen Stotts - Empire 1 - Midshipman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stotts Richard Allen)

one Empire. The same could be said of the races, in the
end and by mutual choice it was simply easier all around for
whites to live on white planets, blacks on black planets,
Asians on Asian planets. No racial discrimination exists
where there are no different races to discriminate against.
A black person could quite legally live on a white planet if
they chose to, likewise a white person could live on a black
planet, in practice it rarely occurred. The one co-mingling of
the races occurred in the Imperial Navy, a shipтАЩs
commander might be black or white or anything in between,
itтАЩs crew always mixed, all were loyal to the one Emperor.
And the race of the Emperor varied with time also.
There was no Magna Carta decreeing that not even the
Emperor was above the law, the Emperor was the law.




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 The Imperial Throne was not a birthright, it was not
passed from father to son, that was forbidden. The new
Emperor was always chosen by the old Emperor for a
demonstrated ability to lead, for personal courage. It was
an odd sort of royalty, there were no lords and ladies, no
baronтАЩs, not even an Empress. If you had a claim to royal
blood it was because one of your ancestors was an
emperor, you had no title to go with the claim. The
designated heir to the throne was named a Prince of The
Empire until succession occurred. There were often more
than one heir-designates, a sealed document written in the
EmperorтАЩs hand held the order of preference. Only with the
death of the Emperor was the document of succession
unsealed, any remaining Prince(s) then lost their titles and
privileges, often with great relief. Emperor was a job most
sane persons would shun if given the choice, it held terrible
responsibilities and loneliness.


Mankind was by no means alone in the universe.
Intelligent life was fairly rare, most races tended to go
extinct as soon as they developed atomic power, humanity
had been very lucky. The current thorn in the side of the
New Empire were the тАШSnakesтАЩ. The Snakes were actually




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almost human in general size and form, their skin gave
them their name, snake skin. The human vocal apparatus