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Did Sterling ever go into detail about the kind of government the Draka have? I know there's an Archon, who'se some sort of leader, but is he a dictator or is there a council or something he has to share power with? Are their any constraints or checks and balances on what he can do, or does he have Palpatine-style UNLIMITED POWER!111? I hear that he's elected, is it a genuine election or is it more like the Iraqi election where Sadaam Hussein got 98% of the vote? Generally, what's their govt. system like.

Also, does anyone know what became of Gwen (Drakon)?

This site: The Draka Appendices has the background information from the four books. Number 10 deals with the government of the Draka during the 20th century. I just flipped through Drakon and didn't see anything that would indicate major changes since then.

As for as Gwen goes, she dies at the end of Drakon but the clone she created as a back-up in case she died and the bio-bomb failed was still alive. It was still a baby but it had an implant transducer to slowly give it all the knowledge and experience that Gwen had.

Hope this helps.

OK, so the Archon is a limited dictator with a set term of twenty years and there's a bicameral legislature of a House of Assembly (parliament) and a Senate (appointed by corporate bodies). The Archon has been gradually getting more powerful over time as the constraints on his power are being gradually chipped away (probably only a matter of time before one of them pulls a Palpatine/Jack Chambers-not that it'll matter as their slave-owning asses are going to be riddled with Borg implants in a few years at most ). There are elections but the Dominate is sort of like the UFP: everybody is so thoroughly brainwashed it's basically meaningless who exactly happens to be in power, as they candidates would agree on virtually everything anyway. Does that sound about right?

Pretty much. The high level meeting(s) shown in Drakon were discussions about resource allocation, not policy. The Draka probably haven't had a debate about policy since they were gene-engineered into the Final Society.

Incidently, that brings one the one major flaw I found in your fanfic. The Drakon armed forces wouldn't have any servus members after the formation of the Final Society. Servus are simply un-able to function as combat troops. Ground troops, if needed, would be made up of ghouloons or other gene-engineered races, with Drakon officers. Starship crews would most likely be made up of completly Drakon personal. Plus, on any worlds that had intelligent native life, the first thing the Draka would do after taking over would be to breed the natives into new forms of servus[/i]

Sabastian Tombs wrote:Incidently, that brings one the one major flaw I found in your fanfic. The Drakon armed forces wouldn't have any servus members after the formation of the Final Society. Servus are simply un-able to function as combat troops.

Actually if you read the fanfic they don't function as frontline troops. They're either combat support or high-level officers who don't actually engage in fighting. The enlisted and low-level officers are all hellhounds, and the middle-level officers tend to be conscripts from Draka extrasolar conquests.
BTW where did you get the part about them being unable to function as combat troops? Is that from the book? My impression was that they were pretty autonomous: the place where the molehole research was being conducted was staffed entirely by Servus, a Drak would just visit from time to time to see how things were progressing.

Ground troops, if needed, would be made up of ghouloons or other gene-engineered races, with Drakon officers.

See above, hellhounds, ghouloons were long obsolete in Drakon. And considering the extremely low numbers of Draka and how highly they probably value their long, long lives I imagine for the most part even lower officers would be some form of Janissary conscripts.

Starship crews would most likely be made up of completly Drakon personal.

It wasn't that way in their seafaring navies, and sure as fuck won't be that way now that they've got their oh-so-long lifespans (remember, creatures with longer lifespans will likely be more afraid of dying, because they loose much more living time if they're killed young).

Plus, on any worlds that had intelligent native life, the first thing the Draka would do after taking over would be to breed the natives into new forms of servus[/i]

That takes time. At least a generation for the genetic alterations to manifest themselves in the young, I would think.

Junghalli wrote:BTW where did you get the part about them being unable to function as combat troops? Is that from the book? My impression was that they were pretty autonomous: the place where the molehole research was being conducted was staffed entirely by Servus, a Drak would just visit from time to time to see how things were progressing.

The impression I got from reading Drakon was that the servus are psychologically unsuited for combat, because they're engineered to be passive, "soft" if you will, and sort of like the Aldenata-verse Indowy, simply aren't psychologically capable of fighting. I'll have a look through it to see if I can find a definite statement if you want.

Black Admiral wrote:The impression I got from reading Drakon was that the servus are psychologically unsuited for combat, because they're engineered to be passive, "soft" if you will, and sort of like the Aldenata-verse Indowy, simply aren't psychologically capable of fighting.

They are made to have no spine, which would make them poor commanders or soldiers. The Draka from my fanfic don't use them in that capacity, they use hellhounds for grunts and alien conscripts for the middle-level officers. Servus are mostly technicians and support personnel in their army.
Their Navy is extensively staffed with Servus, but being soft shouldn't really be much of a problem there. Tactical doesn't have to be psychologically "hard" to launch the weapons, he just has to push the right switches when the Draka Captain tells him to. It's exactly the kind of subservient labor they're made for.