A couple more thoughts, entirely frivolous (I'm going back to the Shallow Side, people).
Re the talk of imperialism, H Rider Haggard etc and She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, I found her and the book extremely funny, but that could be 'cause I was exposed to Rumpole's 'She' first ...
... and Neil's "It is glib propaganda for armchair adventurers who need to be reassured that civilisation amounts to supremacy and that technological sophistication is the only kind worth a damn."
Errrmmm ... this is of course why Nation also showed us that White Man armed with wonderful super-futuristic guns is no match for Hairy Barbarian armed with amazing polystyrene rocks and stones, and has to run away (and would have been Up Creek without paddle had not Grecian-robed Barbarian saved him :-)).
"Ultimately, it endorses a self-granted mandate to invade the lives of so-called inferior peoples ..."
Now be fair. Our Heroes did *not* go to the planet either to exploit nor to explore but to resuce people who'd landed their by 'accident' then rescue one of the rescuers. They had no intention of sticking around long enough to set eyes on the so-called inferiors, let alone invade their lives - it's really the other way around, said peoples invaded their lives, and rather stroppily. As far as the tribespeople are concerned, Our Heroes did nothing more than take back what was theirs (one of their crewmates) and then leave.
And - lest we all forget - Avon doing the technological whizz-bang bit (and I still think one should have to do more than press a few buttons to achieve godhood, BTW) WAS ALL MEEGAT'S IDEA. She not only aksed him to, she made it rather more than difficult for him to demur. This particular 'inferior peoples' dragged was the one dragging the 'superior' one into the whole thing.
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