Allen Steele
Coyote Rising

A while ago, generally interested in the hypothetical colonization of the planet Mars and among the many dedicated enthusiast sites covering every possible aspect regarding this process, I came across a particular page debating which system of government the colonists should adopt, if necessary.

The discussion addressed a purely theoretical situation that is not even the subject of simulations today, because these would involve a small number of colonists, a true outpost, while here the discussion was about forms of government.

I must say the article was interesting; I would have linked it if I had found it again. It concluded that the best possible system would be to apply government systems similar to those adopted in the Western world. A clearly biased view, but it justified this with its thesis which—in case—can also be discussed: that this system, unlike others, and it clearly referred to Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union, has been formed over the centuries in parallel with the development of society and its members individually and as a community, and this constituted a valid reason for its superiority compared to other models that were imposed abruptly by force or the outbreak of a revolution.

All these considerations, in my opinion, a topic of interesting discussion in itself and regardless of space colonization, inevitably came back to me while reading this 2004 novel by the American writer born in 1958, Allen Steele, recently published by Urania Mondadori.

The novel is the second chapter of a trilogy, but it can very well be read on its own for its content and is set on Coyote, the largest moon of the planet Bear, system 47 Ursae Majoris, which has become half a refuge for 'anarchists, libertarians, collectivists, and their opposites: military personnel, conspirators, hierarchs'.

The novel is titled 'Coyote Rising' and is divided into seven parts (preceded by a prologue) in which the first events following the arrival of the first colonists are recounted and how soon a clash will emerge between a stronger faction defining itself as the official representation of the Union, the Earth government, and based on its own rules and methods including the strict application of 'collectivism', a system applied both on Earth and by the colonial governor, the Matriarch Luisa Hernandez, in an authoritarian and despotic manner; and a faction of rebels, the Midland colonists, led by Commander Robert E. Lee, a direct descendant of Robert Edward Lee, commander of the Confederate forces during the Civil War, and the resistance leader Carlos Montero aka Rigil Kent.

The novel, which as mentioned is part of a trilogy and a long series of works set on Coyote by the author who concentrated a good part of his literary production here, consequently focuses on the clash between the two forces in what appears to be a reenactment of the Civil War in a wild context and on a planet that is still largely unexplored.

In this work, consequently, Allan Steele, a modern writer with a dry style reminiscent of classic genre authors, who tells the story without convoluted wording and complex theoretical propositions of a scientific nature, represents the events from different perspectives and in particular from the perspective of the rebels for whom he somewhat openly cheers.

However, he does not fail to describe the different social realities that have emerged in Coyote and which are at the root of the discontent and clashes, nor will he fail to recount adventures and chronicles of great battles. But in all this, Steele does not forget the purely more science-fictional aspect and at a certain point, he places Coyote directly at the center of the story instead of the protagonists and adds strange small monkey-like beings native to the planet, religious sects led by a fanatical mutant prophet of the 'church of universal transformation' and cyborgs with eternal life called 'savant'. All elements that in the end will fit into what, after all, as with all colonization stories, are often at the same time stories of great violence but told with the emphasis typical of great enterprises and great epics of human history.

A novel certainly adventurous and full of charm that in regard to the considerations made at the opening neither resolves nor can resolve because the time of space colonization is still far to come and here on Earth we evidently still have too many open games to play. The previous experiences of the colonies have certainly been events full of violence and have seen the supremacy of only one part of human history and the other part succumb: it is assumed that when we are ready to propose ourselves on the space stage, we will be a more aware world, but this is probably utopia rather than science fiction.