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318 The barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars. Awthee OO 1940182 The interstellar empire once was one of the most common themes in science fiction. Alien empires were depicted either as potentially dangerous, like “Star Trek” ’s Klingons and Romulans, or as ruthlessly expansionist, like “Star Trek” ’s Borg. In one of the earliest visions, Olaf Stapledon painted a bleak picture: “By far the commonest type of galactic society was that in which many systems of worlds had developed independently, come into conflict, slaugh- tered one another, produced vast federations and empires, plunged again and again into social chaos, and struggled... haltingly toward galactic utopia.” Asimov gave us a more hopeful vision of human expansion and empire in his Foundation trilogy, which envisioned a humanized galaxy. As James Gunn observed, “the pride in being human, the responsibilities of human- ity, shone through Asimov’s fiction.”'“* Other intelligent species might be equally proud of their empires. Two Visions Groff Conklin, writing about science fiction in 1955, proposed that authors looked at planet Earth in two different ways. In the first, the Earth is a springboard from which to range over other worlds, a place of origin from which human explorations begin. In the second, the Earth is a place to be arrived at by others. This division may reflect two different human psychologies. “Active Man has always liked to consider his own adventures among the stars,” observed Conklin. “Contemplative Man is often entranced by the idea of alien star adventurers in our midst.”"* In one vision, humans act upon the universe; in the other, they wait to be acted upon. Asimov’s vision spurred the evolution of what science fiction editor Donald Wollheim called “the full cosmogony of science-fiction future history”: first, human voyages to the Moon and the planets of our solar system; second, interstellar flight and human colonies in other star systems; third, the rise of the human Galactic Empire; fourth, the Galactic Empire in full bloom; fifth, the decline and fall of the Galactic Empire; sixth, the Interregnum in which worlds revert to more barbaric conditions; seventh, the rise of a permanent galactic civilization; eighth, the Challenge to God, when Humankind’s descendants have undreamed-of knowledge and the power to experiment with Creation.'*° In more recent times, human interstellar empires have been portrayed in two very different ways: high minded like “Star Trek”’s Federation (a Assumptions: After Contact —Arthur C. Clarke, 1968'**