The Third Worlds

“If you mean: Do I feel that, deep within my work, I’ve situated material that encourages the reader’s engagement with some of the political questions that the disenfranchised people in this country, victimized by oppression and an oppressive discourse based on the evil and valorized notion of nationhood and its hideous white-no other color-underbelly, imperialism, must face but cannot overcome without internalizing some of the power concepts and relationships inescapably entailed in the notion of “nation itself? Well if that’s what you mean, my answer is: Damned right I have!” -Samuel R. Delany(Black to the Future)

“If you mean: Do I feel that, deep within my work, I’ve situated material that encourages the reader’s engagement with some of the political questions that the disenfranchised people in this country, victimized by oppression and an oppressive discourse based on the evil and valorized notion of nationhood and its hideous white-no other color-underbelly, imperialism, must face but cannot overcome without internalizing some of the power concepts and relationships inescapably entailed in the notion of “nation itself? Well if that’s what you mean, my answer is: Damned right I have!” -Samuel R. Delany(Black to the Future)

In Samuel R. Delany’s Nova, the central antagonistic relationship between Prince Red and Lorq Von Ray contains a buried yet powerful criticism on nationalism. The space opera has strong resemblance to the Cold War and the Vietnam War, both which were occurring during writing. The Pleiades Federation, Draco, and the outer colonies could be alternatively called the First World, Second World, and Third World of the Cold War. These interstellar empires are divided between two powerful, white families. There are the Reds (the allusion to the Soviets is clear) of Draco and the Von Rays of the Pleiades (the independent colonies a.k.a. America). Both vie to dominate the entire known galaxy. In this, both attempt to annihilate the other using the Outer Colonies as a battle ground.

The personal feud between the two families is masked in nationalistic ideals. Each family claims that in order to protect the citizen’s of their respective empire, another empire must fall. “If the Pleiades Federation crashes when you crash, it is only so that Draco live[s]” (Nova 207). The future patriarchs (of course the families are male dominated) play with worlds as if it was a game with little regard for the billions lives that hang in the balance. “Still, perhaps it is a game... Worlds are tottering about us now, and still I only want to play” (Nova 171). Nationalism is used as an excuse for destruction. The powerful play with the lives of others as pawns on a chessboard. Prince Red and Lorq Von Ray are so consumed with personal rivalries that attempts to bridge peace between the two inevitably fail. Nationalism is used as an excuse for the conflict. Although the humanized Von Rays win in the end, there is no feeling of success, only that of transition. The sense of moral victory is nonexistent since the fact remains that working together all could have succeeded.

From the onset, the Outer Colonies are placed in a losing situation. Although holding the raw Illyrion that drives the galaxy, the Outer Colonies are too poor and powerless to benefit from the material wealth. Furthermore, both the Reds and the Von Rays exploit this Third World for personal gain while simultaneously pronouncing they are acting as the Outer Colonies protectors. The collateral damage of the conflict between Reds and Von Rays goes unconsidered. The Outer Colonies turn into commodities and when these commodities lose their value, they are abandoned in ruin.