Write Everday Project #17, The Roman Empire...in SPACE

I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired of seeing the Roman Empire in space.  I can understand the instinct, since to those of us from the Western traditions see the Roman Empire as one of the high points of our culture, but the implementation is often so shoddy as to make me cringe.

Star Trek did it with the Romulans and then, since that was too subtle, did it again in "Bread and Circuses,"  Romans in space!  Then there's the Marian Hegemony from Battletech, Romans in mechs in space!  The Telnarian Histories, of course, for Romans with sex slaves in space!  Asimov did it in the first book and a half of Foundation, which was a re-do of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire....in space.  (To his credit, he got bored and threw in the Mule to blow it all up, but everything through the first half of Foundation and Empire is spot-on Romans in space.)  You've got Star Wars and the fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire.  Even the Centauri from Babylon 5 are an example of Rome in decline.

But the worst example of the idea that I'm aware of is in the Tour of the Merrimack books by R.M. Meluch.  In this four book series, with at least two more on the way, the idea is that the Romans went underground.  They survived as a parasitical secret society in America and then, when the time was right, fled to the stars and re-established the Roman Empire.  In space.

What's worse, is that they re-established it exactly as it was in 1 AD.  They use the same political structure, with an Emperor and a Senate.  They use the same military structure, with legions and all the old Roman ranks. They even use high tech versions of ancient Roman armor, and yes, use swords in modern combat.  Granted they also use giant war robots to do all their fighting for them, but even so it all seems to miss the point.

You see, what bugs me about the various interpretations of "Rome in Space," especially the one presented in Tour of the Merrimack is that it ignores what actually made Rome great in favor of the surface details.  Rome wasn't great because they wore armor with skirts on them and marched in formation.  Rome was great because that was the state of the art in warfare at the time, and by the gods, Rome was going to stay ahead of the curve!  The Roman Republic and Empire were guided by people who were relentlessly driven to out-do their ancestors.  That meant learning new ways to build, to make money, and to fight with every generation, because you literally had the the eyes of your ancestors on you!

Which is why going ahead and re-instituting a political and military structure that was two and a half thousand years old is one of the most anti-Roman things you could do!  Being Roman meant adapting to conditions to become stronger.  Relying on ancient methods is the opposite of that.

So what you get is Space RiNOs.  Romans in Name Only.  And I'm sick of it.