The Clockwork Rocket discussion

Conscious of her biological time limit until reproduction, and in order to meet her goal for a civil state, Yalda cedes her leadership position to a male rival.
The supply of contraceptive holin is marginal.

It would be easy for the new leader to institute a traditional patriarchy, perhaps with the connivance of senior females, by restricting distribution of holin.

Will conserving the (presumably patriarchal) old sagas come back to haunt them?

It was her intention that the psychology of the act would be better served by giving over the title while she was still respected instead of having it taken from her because of a perceived inability to lead or by degradation of her status.
In the former case, her policies are still at least seen as beneficial, while in the latter case her policies and ideology would be easy to discard by the new leader.
I completely disagreed with her on preserving the old sagas; they may very easily be utilized by an ambitious soul in the next generation as the tools of social domination they appear to be.

The key element in her decision was that the effective dose of holin increased with age. Senior females, including herself, each needed enough holin to preserve the lives of several younger females.

Condemning several bright young females to division in order to hold onto the reins of power and guide the government in the direction that she wanted would have been contemptibly unethical. It was also a simple pragmatics, the best way to conserve a scarce resource. She made the right decision.

Victoria wrote: "Condemning several bright young females to division in order to hold onto the reins of power and guide the government in the direction that she wanted would have been contemptibly unethical. It was also a simple pragmatics, the best way to conserve a scarce resource. She made the right decision."

Agreed. She can't do good for her people by the means of sacrificing some of them (in fact, more and more of them, as time goes by) to keep herself alive. I should read the sequel to learn how well Yalda's people survive in the future. Yalda has provided the lesson that the use of holin is desirable, even though there are circumstances where it is not practical - which is quite different than the patriarchy's belief that it is always bad (or the lesson Yalda would have been giving if she had been unethical - namely that use of holin represented greed for life at the expense of others). The sequel (I hope) would show that lesson bearing fruit when the holin supply can be restored.

Andy wrote: (or the lesson Yalda would have been giving if she had been unethical - namely that use of holin represented greed for life at the expense of others).

Oh what a good point!

It is resonant with the attitude towards human contraception that is prevalent in some, particularly religious, circles: ie that it is about greed and selfishness, prioritizing selfish pleasures over unselfish procreation and parenting.

Victoria wrote: "Andy wrote: (or the lesson Yalda would have been giving if she had been unethical - namely that use of holin represented greed for life at the expense of others).

Oh what a good point!

It is res..."

Glad you liked it. By the way, though Egan is a very private person, I've gotten the impression from his writings that he's very familiar with conservative religious belief systems (he wrote one novella which features a debate between an alternate universe version of Alan Turing and an alertnate universe version of C. S. Lewis, called "Oracle" (available on Egan's website here http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net...))