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Ninefox Gambit Q2: The calendar-ruled universe
The notion of calendar, how it enables exotic technology, and calendrical heresies, are all central to the story. The notion of a universe controlled by numbers is, I think, important to Korean Neo-Confucian thought. What did you think of this concept? Did you think it (sufficiently) believable? How does it compare to Western equivalents like "harmony of the music of the spheres" or "alignment of crystal elemental energies"
Comments
It took me a long time to figure out what he was calling 'calender' was really shorthand for 'shared world-view", something we no longer have in the west.
I'm with Clash here - I kept wondering what on earth dating systems and festivals had to do with weaponry and transportation technology. And how in what (with @BarnerCobblewood 's help) I eventually worked out was a multi-solar-system hegemony, a single calendar made any kind of sense. I guess I'm too much of a relativist to think that you could even begin to impose something like that. So it just felt like technobabble words that didn't convey anything. Again, there wasn't (for my taste) anywhere near enough expository explanation of why an imposed calendar might be important and why others might rebel. If anything, my sympathies were with the rebels just wanting to date things their own way. I never did understand how the weapons fitted in to all this, despite their cool-sounding names.
I also couldn't figure out what the 'calendar' had to do with anything. I did clue into the idea that a multi-world hegemony like this would probably have worlds of different calendars, but it still didn't make sense with respect to what all the fuss was about. It's a time-keeping device. How did you get this far into a hegemony without having solved this?
Later, I decided (that like so much in this impressionist setting) 'calendar' probably stood for something else that had little to do with a literal calendar, but was something much more important (like a programming language, or some kind of code). But I never did figure out what this other thing was that the word 'calendar' was meant to represent. Clash's idea of 'shared world view' makes sense.
My take on this is that it's a neo-Confucian thing, where the workings of the universe follow a predictable pattern, and many rituals and events must happen, both because the universe compels them and because the universe will fail if they're not done. It's similar-ish to the Chinese "mandate of heaven" idea, where the ruler has to perform the rituals in order to be a good ruler.
In this book, I took the calendar to be the Hexarchate (population and rulers) imposing a particular order/pattern on the universe, and that's what allows the technology to function.
Perhaps I've watched too much historic k-drama...
That's what I meant by "shared world view"
I haven't read the book, but I think this is a little bit incorrect. As I understand it the Emperor performed rituals to demonstrate that he held and maintained the mandate of heaven, which granted him authority to rule. People opposed to the current emperor would argue that he had lost the mandate of heaven, and as such no longer had authority to rule. With enough social support, change of ruler.
The idea of being a "good ruler" is tangential to this - not irrelevant, but tangential.
The universe doesn't fail, rather heaven no longer supports the state, and so beings can do as they please because order is not, and can no longer be, enforced because the powers of heaven no longer support the ruler. The result is bad for humans, because some violence is seen as (unfortunately) necessary for order, and the ruler provides that.
There's a really interesting dynamic between the transcendent and immanent in these systems. Of course it is common for those who hold the mandate of heaven claim that it is a natural order, as opposed to an immanent order, which is one of the critiques of these kind of systems: Because the claim is extended to being natural, the system is too rigid, change cannot be incorporated, and it collapses.
Taoism is often seen as opposed to this, but I think this cosmology of Heaven is generally accepted by Taoists as well. It seems to me that the Taoist human (sage) is a long way from ordinary people, but the claim is they radiate goodness which affects nature without doing. The question is about the role of and relation of doing and nature in human affairs.
Of course the reality of this is crazy complex, I'm reading it from here and now etc., so take all this with a grain of salt.