Wednesday 2 March 2016

Aleriona, Moties And Draka

One Aleriona who is bred to think like human beings and not allowed to procreate, in order not to disrupt his own society, is lonely and tries to befriend the captured Heim, thus giving the latter an escape opportunity.
-copied from here.

This Aleriona sounds like Niven's and Pournelle's Motie Mediators who can go mad from identifying with human points of view. Mediators must be sterile so that they will not put the interests of their children over those of their Masters, like the idea of a celibate priesthood.

Anderson's Aleriona have a Final Society, like Stirling's Draka.

However, none of this should be interpreted to imply that The Star Fox by Poul Anderson, The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and Drakon by SM Stirling are interchangeable works. On the contrary! Anyone who has not already read these three novels should be encouraged to do so and to appreciate their diversity.

All three works involve interstellar travel but in entirely different ways. Anderson and Niven & Pournelle present ingeniously imaginative aliens whereas Stirling speculates about what humanity might do to itself.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I remember how the Moties called Mediators who go mad by identifying too closely with "their" humans "crazy Eddy."

And the idea of a Mediators bred to be sterile so they would always be loyal to the wishes and interests of their Masters reminds me of the periods on our Earth when eunuchs were used to staffed gov'ts or gov't agencies. The ideas was that eunuchs, being unable to have children, would be esp. zealous defending the interests of their gov'ts.

Sean