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Originally Posted by jason taylor
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I don't remember Fair Cathay being used as the basis for a sci-fi state. Unless you count the Ziru Sirka.
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China as a model for a good Empire was the idea I was pushing. It would be unexpected and fun.
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One not mentioned which could be used is an empire which is never found on stage but from which come marvelous things. I think that would be a great setting hook.
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True.
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If I remember Fu Manchu was a gangster not an Emperor. The idea really isn't incompatible in principal with a sympathetic China even if the original was incorrigibly racist.
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I was evoking certain orientalist tropes that haunt sci-fi's margins. Fu Manchu is often used as shorthand for the "
Yellow Peril Myth" and I use him as such. By the way, remember that Fu Manchu's family, with the exception of one daughter, was wiped out by brutal and corrupt colonial officials. He had plenty of reason to hate and fear Britain and the West. Take Fu Manchu as your base and rework him as a deeply flawed hero fighting to defend his people and others from deadly imperialists. Heck, allow him a nuanced view of the world that sees where he can get allies and how to bring the strengths of other cultures into his own.