[GZG] Bovine rebuttal

Texas sheep: http://www.cowswithguns.com/cowmovie.html

Sounds like there may be a cross-over scenario of SG and BattleCattle in

there

Michael Brown mwsaber6@msn

At the least a theme song....)

[quoted original message omitted]

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"Cows with Guns". What a great song. I love the line about running free with
the buffalo or dying. Ironic considering the state of the North American
Bison. And one cannot forget the imagery of chickens in choppers.

This does bring up an interesting point on alien races. You don't see a lot of
alien races that are not based off of herbivores. I know there is some theory
that it is the predatory species who are bound to evolve into the intelligent
species on world, but there are enough, intelligent herbivorous species on
Earth alone to make me blink at that theory.

-Eli

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Don M" <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com>

> At the least a theme song....)
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
> > >

> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 11:24 AM, <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

Though your point certainly stands, that they are rare, the K'Kree from
Traveller were herbivores and militant vegans, to the point of committing
genocide against a nearby carnivorous species.

More info:
http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/K'kree

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, though militant Vegan may not be too accurate. Militant Vegetarian perhaps,
but definitely not Vegan if they are killing other living beings. Not that I
care all that much, but I know a few Vegans who would be quite cross at you
for making the mistake..;)

Thanks for the headsup on the K'Kree. Not too familiar with Traveller, but
they did always seem to have very interesting aliens.

-Eli

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Ryan Fisk" <ryan.fisk@gmail.com>

> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 11:24 AM, wrote:

Though your point certainly stands, that they are rare, the K'Kree from
Traveller were herbivores and militant vegans, to the point of committing
genocide against a nearby carnivorous species.

Well it has been found in our own evolution that taking on protein did help
brain development, which is why I find the vegan concept somewhat disingenuous
at best, our ancestors ate flesh so our brains would grow to the point where
we think we should not eat flesh...funny when you think about it. Another
"purely anecdotal" point I've been around horses and dogs my entire life, love
both but, of the two dogs are far more intelligent. There are exceptions and
I've seen some really smart horses in my day but, even those were nowhere as
intelligent as an average dog. Again purely anecdotal but it does make one
think there may be something to it. This doesn't cover alien evolution at all
of course, anything can happen out there, we just don't know at this point.

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have some cool points here.

First of all the Vegan issue isn't based as much in biology and reality as it
is philosophy. I have Vegan freinds and relatives. Growing up on a farm and
raising a lot of my own food animals, I have butted heads lots of times and
when you strip the arguements down past the science they
will always trump you on the philosophy/spirtituality of the animals
rites, etc.

I would agree with you on dogs vs horses and certainly cows and sheep are rite
out, but I also think these arguments are watered down a bit by the fact that
we are talking domesticated animals. I am sure the wild cousins of horses and
even cows and sheep rate much more intelligent as do wolves vs dogs.

That being said, I think if you can concede that life on other planets may not
mirror life on Earth then you may very well end up with some very clever,
crafty herbivores that might evolve into intelligent species. I know in my own
creations, one species, the Tonk, are evolved from an amphibious creature
halfway between a manitee and a salamander.

To use the Tonk as an example, if I may, they evolved a higher order of
intelligence due to the demands put upon them by a changing world and the
hostile nature of their natural environment. They were forced to adapt quickly
and in doing so "stumbled" into the spark that led toward sentience. Even in
their intellignet, humanoid selves, they are still big and muscular, possessed
of poor eye site but possessing other
attributes - natural damage resistence, accute senses of smell and
hearing, as well as a capacity for sub-sonic communication, and
incredible strength.

Is this the most realistic of scenarios? Who knows. It makes enough sense and
honestly it's based on the figs I had converted from some old Warzone figs.

-Eli

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Don M" <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com>

> Though your point certainly stands, that they are rare, the K'Kree

> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 02:41:53PM -0500, Don M wrote:

> Well it has been found in our own evolution that taking on

Though it's worth noting it's still the omnivore, not the carnivore, that got
to sapience first.

In the one example we have to play with, that is. We can theorise all
night...

R

Though it's worth noting it's still the omnivore, not the carnivore, that got
to sapience first.

***Just as in nature the generalist beats the specialist every time.

In the one example we have to play with, that is. We can theorise all
night...
*** Why else evolve, if you can't talk about it...)

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y will always trump you on the philosophy/spirtituality of the animals
rites, etc.

***Great fall back, something that can't be proven ether way...)

I am sure the wild cousins of horses and even cows and sheep rate much more
intelligent as do wolves vs dogs.

***I hope so in the case of cows in! Dogs Vs wolves I'd say they are close.

Tonk, are evolved from an amphibious creature halfway between a manitee and a
salamander.

***I've seen your write up on the Tonk, liked it, well thought out.

There are also other combinations that we've not thought of, like
plant/anamal mixes,
silicon based life...lots of possibilities....)

> On Thu, 29 May 2008, Don M wrote:

> There are also other combinations that we've not thought of, like

Consider the Kzin. A carnivore race that got a claw up from another race. The
reverse could be possible. A slave race of heriboves genetically modified for
greater intelligence that revolts...

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omnivore angle is definitely a worthy arguement too as the species has already
adapted to be versatile and flexible, a strategy that will let it live long
enough to evolve.

-Eli

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ther issues comes up in how we recognize and rate as intelligence. There have
been long arguements about the prejudicial approach even in rating human
intelligence let alone assigning ratings to animal intelligences. Heck the dog
vs. cat arguement usually hinges on this concept.

-Eli

-------------- Original message --------------
From: Roger Burton West <roger@firedrake.org>

> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 02:41:53PM -0500, Don M wrote:

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even an accidental biproduct of genetic tampering.

-------------- Original message --------------
From: Mike Stanczyk <stanczyk@pcisys.net>

> On Thu, 29 May 2008, Don M wrote:

> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 5:16 PM, <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

They'll be in the online archive of this list somewhere.

Not at home, don't have my GZG-L archive bookmark handy, but Google
knows all.

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't remember what the URL was off hand I'll check through the bookmarks.

Don
[quoted original message omitted]

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even an accidental biproduct of genetic tampering.

Even as an accident for some species using another a food...possibilities are
endless.

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htmn ake for an interesting military campaign where accidentally uplifted
cattle rise up against humanity. Operation: Animal Farm would
be a nasty wake-up call for humanity.

-Eli

Could be from a parasite on a colony world that only effects
cattle.....)

> emu2020@comcast.net wrote:
Or a deliberate uplift.

And remember, it may not take a lot of brains to sneak up on a leaf, but

it takes a lot of brains to outwit the predator sneaking up on YOU!

Another issues comes up in how we recognize and rate as intelligence. There
have been long arguements about the prejudicial approach even in rating human
intelligence let alone assigning ratings to animal intelligences. Heck the dog
vs. cat arguement usually hinges on this concept.

-Eli

My $0.02: Well, ignoring anything that can't build a starship...essentially
background fluff. (I can't remember the name of a good scifi novel with a
sedentary race.

Quite intelligent, never left their home planet. Everyone consulted with them.
Took a long time to for them to think though.)

I think "cattle" races would make good candidates for intelligence. A big plus
is most "cattle" races are group thinkers. Most predators, not

all, tend to live alone. IMHO Predator races would take longer to reach

the "building starships" level than "cattle" races.

I tend to stay out of RL arguments involving animal intelligence.

All this talk has made me seriously consider what it would take to run such an
uprising.

My $0.02: Well, ignoring anything that can't build a starship...essentially
background fluff. (I can't remember the name of a good scifi novel with a
sedentary race.

Quite intelligent, never left their home planet. Everyone consulted with them.
Took a long time to for them to think though.)

Your leaving out pack hunters, one could argue that it takes even greater
communication skills to coordinate an attack than a herd of "cattle" that runs
in the same direction. That said it's the omnivore (at least in the one case
we know) that develops civilization.....)

All this talk has made me seriously consider what it would take to run such an
uprising.

Should be interesting...)

> Your leaving out pack hunters, one could argue that it takes

Not at all. A quote from my message:
> Most predators, not all, tend to live alone.

IMHO I consider the various pack hunters to be good candidates along with the
"cattle" species. Generally any species that communicates makes a good
candidate. Species that have limited communications make poor candidates.

Wolf/dog packs, for instance is probably the best known example of
communication.  Buffalo/elephants also.  Don't forget the various insect
species. Most Bees and wasps build nests. However there are some species that
are loners.

This means you can usually find an example in nature to base an intelligent
species on.

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> Thu, May 29, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:

> Though it's worth noting it's still the omnivore, not the carnivore,

We are the reverse cheetah. I cannot imagine how it must have tasted, loaded
with fatigue poisons, but early humans hunted by chasing an animal until it
could no longer run. It would just stand there after a thirty mile

This means you can usually find an example in nature to base an intelligent
species on.

Donald Hosford

Good points, I just think herd animals are a bit more vulnerable to having
their food supplies disrupted, a carnivore too as it lives on the herbivore,
however it lives on any herbivore. The larger or smaller, it just seems to me
they have better chance. That said the omnivore has the best chance, so
something that develops that trait will succeed over anything else in the long
run. Again though I'm speaking through earth norms who's to say there wouldn't
be a highly socialized type of bear that develops
up right movement and hands. Hey in sci-fi anything is possible.

My $.02:

First, I'm a rare-earther by temperment. So what I see is the vast
majority of systems being uninhabitable by any standards, with lots of
asteroid/planetoid bases. By far the most common habitable world would
be the Europa model: huge subsurface ocean heated by tidal stress. "Earthlike"
worlds would mostly be larger than earth (with attendant higher gravity), have
MUCH higher air pressure and be outside what we normally think of as the
Habitable Zone for its star (our moon is unusually large; it stabilizes our
rotation and stripped away most of our atmosphere; more atmosphere = more
greenhouse effect so the real habitable zone is further out). Obviously, your
mileage may vary. I think life can take hold in lots of situations but that
our world will probably turn out to be atypical.

On most worlds, life takes the form of a prokaryotic soup. Which is fine by
us: without it, the world would be uninhabitable and need to be terraformed.
But such simple life is easily supplanted by more advanced (and probably
genetically tailored) Earth life. It means settlers can move right in.
Eukaryotic worlds have life that is
well-adapted for local conditions; very hard to replace, likely to put
up an evolutionary fight against us, and complicated enough that it would take
some major planning and preparation to move in safely.

OK so now to intelligence.

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times recently about the
development of higher intelligence. Our body pays 20% of its metabolic energy
as a "sentience tax". Of course, it's too soon to be certain but so far it
seems to be working out for us. But long before you get
to language, tool use and tax-deferred municipal bonds, there's this
period when you're as savvy as a wolf or lion. Intelligence, this research is
showing, has all kinds of hidden costs in metabolic energy, development time,
helplessness during development, physical attributes like strength, etc etc.
So how does each incremental gain in intellect keep paying off without having
the animal hit some local maximum where they're smart enough for their
ecological niche? It seems like, for the vast majority of animals, it doesn't.
Of course,
you only need a brain-replete animal to appear ONCE. (Four times, if
you count the Kra'Vak, Sa'Vasku, and Phalons). The Sa'Vasku are surprised to
see so many sentient races appear at once; that seems to support all this in
the Tuffleyverse.

(ok going from rampant speculation to irresponsible rambling here) I think
that the the vast majority of habitable worlds are "slimeballs": worlds filled
with organic soup and little else. Europas are more common than Earths by an
order of magnitude, but complex life on Europas almost never leads to advanced
(technological) intelligence. The Sa'Vaskus are a possible exception, though
they could have evolved
on an earth-like world I kind of prefer that they didn't. Normally,
Europan creatures wouldn't develop technology, but the Sa'Vasku clearly have
had a long slow drive from animal husbandry to genetic engineering to
chemistry to physics (whereas we're kind of going in the reverse direction).
Unlike most of the crabs, lobsters, cephalopods and starfish that gain
rudimentary sentience to little
long-term gain, the Sa'Vasku are the rare exceptions who made it work.
The others followed a similar path to us.

OK so how do you get a feedback loop, one where a species is constantly driven
to be smarter, but is never quite smart enough? The
predator/prey relationship is one idea; besides the hunting models
we've talked about Mary Doria Russell's _The Sparrow_ presents a cool
idea: predatory mimicry. Though it also raises a logical point: if intellect
is growing due to competition, then you have a good chance
of having TWO species co-evolve. Then either the predator is
exterminated, the prey is enslaved, or you get a weird interdependence of
predator and prey (as in The Sparrow). Could make for some VERY weird
psychologies.

Another possibility is sexual competition (though note that it's relatively
rare that mates are attracted by intellect alone vs physical attributes even
among humans). Could you imagine the Kra'Vak
evolving on a world of super-predators, some highly intelligent
THEMSELVES? Not smart enough for technology, but pretty sharp. Or perhaps even
intelligent but not technological.

I hate it when I argue the other side, but a great number, perhaps most,
carnivores are specialized in their attacks, occasionally to particular
species of prey.

The specialist will always trump the generalist, over short periods. Some of
those periods are only geologically short, which is damn long in my
perspective.

Change tends to be the friend of the generalist, or, at least, less a friend
of the specialist.

'Geeze, Doug, is this going someplace?'

Dunno. Maybe species annihilation in the face of global warming? Kind of lost
track...

The_Beast

Don M. wrote on 05/30/2008 02:38:04 AM:

***snippage***

> Good points, I just think herd animals are a bit more vulnerable

***snippage***,

By the way, Niven's Pierson's Puppeteers are vegetarians.

And, Vegan's kill and eat plants, which are alive. Only less so...

Milliways:

'Are you going to tell me,' said Arthur, 'that I shouldn't have green salad?'

'Well,' said the animal, 'I know many vegetables that are very clear on that
point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled
problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable
of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am.'

The_Beast

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somewhat related discussion appears to have arisen around intelligence
and consciousness/sentience--the "what is consciousnees _for_?"
question. Some (and this is not my field of inquiry, so I'm not taking sides
except to say that I think it's for something) argue that
self-awareness actually gets in the way. For fictional treatments, see
Philip Watts's novel _Blindsight_ (has an extensive bibliography of
academic references) and Charles Stross's novella _Missile Gap_.

Best,
  Ken
United Systems
  Up the Individual! ;-)

> Donald Hosford <Hosford.Donald@ACD.net> wrote:
Another issues comes up in how we recognize and rate as intelligence. There
have been long arguements about the prejudicial approach even in rating human
intelligence let alone assigning ratings to animal intelligences. Heck the dog
vs. cat arguement usually hinges on this concept.

-Eli

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too the main issue of bovine, The K kree don't suckle their young. To be
bovine it helps to be mammalian first. As too descendants to mammal like
reptilian stock they could qualify.

> --- On Thu, 5/29/08, Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:
From: Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Bovine rebuttal
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Thursday, May 29, 2008, 7:10 PM

they will always trump you on the philosophy/spirtituality of the
animals rites, etc.   ***Great fall back, something that can't be proven
ether way...)    I am sure the wild cousins of horses and even cows
and sheep rate much more intelligent as do wolves vs dogs.   ***I hope so
in the case of cows in! Dogs Vs wolves I'd say they are close.   Tonk,
are evolved from an amphibious creature halfway between a manitee and a
salamander.   ***I've seen your write up on the Tonk, liked it, well
thought out.   There are also other combinations that we've not
thought of, like plant/anamal mixes,
silicon based life...lots of possibilities....)  
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> Robert Mayberry wrote:
In the "mutineer's moon" series (Also called: Empire from the Ashes -
from the baen books free library), the humans end up fighting the Achuultani
with an exstream form of xenophobia. They refered to any intelligent species
as "nest killers". Early in their interstellar history, they ran into another
violent race, and a war started. During that war, the violent race almost
wiped out the xenophobic race. As their government was gone, one of their
sentient computers took over, and lead the war. Then the xenophobic race
finished the war by completely wiping out the other race. Once the war was
over the computer declared that the emergency didn't actually end, so it could
continue in power. After that they would sweep the entire galaxy wiping

out any race they could find.

In the "Antares dawn" series, one of the enemy mentions their home world

spawned two sentient species. The two species constantly fought, until one was
wiped out. The surviving race never trusted any other race again. Some
interesting space battles in this series.

There was another old sci-fi story with an interesting "Intelligent -
Unintelligent" species. The main predator was something like a black panther
the size of a horse with three front legs. The "panthers" were not intelligent
themselves. What made sentience possible was a local "insect". It resembled a
large tick. Maybe an inch across. The ticks were not intelligent either! It
turns out that the ticks carried the memories. One of the "natives" called
them: The little bugs that knew things. When the panther in the story made a
kill, it was careful not
to kill the little bugs on the kill.   The more of these memory bugs you

had, the smarter you were. So any of the local wildlife could make an
(literally) instant sentient being. Amazing concept!

In the story the "natives" had a rather advanced society, judging from the
ruins found everywhere. They never achieved space flight or star flight,
because their star was almost outside the galaxy. Their planet was the only
object in their starsystem (no moons either.) So their night sky had no moving
objects of any kind for them to get interested in! They were trapped both
physically, and mentally!

Fascinating stories!

Parrallel sentient development nearly happened on Earth with Cro Magnon man
and Homo Sapiens and Dolphins may well count as sentient non technical.

If you had two similar creatures that existed in the same ecological niche
they would compete and the most efficient would win. With the loser consigned
to extinction.

I imagine it would be difficult to develop a technological society on a
planet with large super predators, Dragons, T-rex etc. You would not get

started developing the necessary infrastructure before some predator pack
assaulted your encampment of skin huts and scattered your band. I imagine it
would be hard to develop technology under those circumstances.

One of the B5 races had parrallel sentient development and then conducted
their own ethnic cleansing to get rid of one of the races.

All sorts of interesting possibilities.

Parrallel sentient development nearly happened on Earth with Cro Magnon man
and Homo Sapiens and Dolphins may well count as sentient non technical.

If you had two similar creatures that existed in the same ecological niche
they would compete and the most efficient would win. With the loser consigned
to extinction.

***There was a short lived TV show a few years back (can't recall the name)
that had an interesting plot line where a more highly advanced version of
modern humans was either created or arose, and were placing themselves all
over the planet and plotting our down fall.

One of the B5 races had parrallel sentient development and then conducted
their own ethnic cleansing to get rid of one of the races.

All sorts of interesting possibilities.

*** Indeed, taking ideas from the eugenics wars from Star Trek, or the tanks
from Space Above And Beyond. You could do an interesting campaign also. Could
be a government or a rouge element within one or outside of one. Sort of super
clones, perhaps bred to fight the Kra'Vak and decide "why fight for them" sort
of thing. As you say all sorts of interesting possibilities.....)

> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 6:12 PM, Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:

The Tuffleyverse is firmly rooted in science fiction ideas from the 70s, and
early 80s. Missing are a number of more recent ideas. As far as I can tell,
there are no transhuman elements in the Tuffleyverse.

If I ever get around to doing a Tuffleyverse RPG (which I've thought of doing
after finishing off the books I'm actually going to get paid to do) I'd like
to explore the nature of humanity in the Tuffleyverse...

You mean neanderthal. You know, while the research apparently shows that they
weren't as smart as us, they DID have the larger braincases.:) The History
Channel special I saw presented them a bit like dwarves in fantasy: stocky,
hairy, gruff, suited to cold temperatures and extreme conditions, and more
resistant to physical trauma.

Cro magnons competed with them. They were taller, less hairy, and less
durable, but they were fast talkers. They were famous for their marketing
executives, telephone sanitizers, and tax collectors. The neanderthals never
knew what hit them.

The B5 case you describe is interesting: the Centauri and the Xon(?) developed
at the same time on the same planet, but had no contact with one another until
late in their technological development. I find it
implausible that both races would be nearly at parity when they met--
enough that it was a serious fight-- but OTOH the older races meddled
in every world's development so maybe they set things up that way. The
Hyach and the Hyach-do(again, spelling?) apparantly co-evolved (until
the former exterminated the latter).

That case is interesting because it presents a THIRD possibility: two nearly
identical species that develop at the same time, not as competitors but as
clades of some parent species. Which considering it happened on Earth isn't
insane.

It could explain the Sia'na among the Kra'vak. While they're believed to be a
rare mutation, this might be flawed intelligence gathered by
humans. A parallel Kra'vak-related species might have evolved on a
less competitive continent/region, in a place where Rokah was selected
against. Then when they encountered the main species they were decimated until
firearms were invented and a subspecies that just took the suppression marker
instead of the extra casualties became attractive.

One thing I'd love to think about is how Kra'vak psychology enters into their
strategic thinking and culture. Fear and intimidation
tactics may be based on low-level instincts, but they manifest at
every level of human culture. Again, like in Footfall. You get these moments
where people realize how alien the aliens' thinking is. Stuff that if the
whole race does it works just fine, but then when they bump into us we don't
make any sense to each other.

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 4:12 PM, john tailby <John_Tailby@xtra.co.nz>
wrote:
> Parrallel sentient development nearly happened on Earth with Cro

One element that almost never seems to be represented in any sort of fiction
is diversity in alien species. Just about everything you see, seems to have
all the aliens of a particular species speaking the same language, having the
same culture, the same philosophies, etc. This happens I'm sure, but
it's way to common in sci-fi to be realistic.

-Eli

> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Eli Arndt <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

In television and movie sci-fi. Not true with written sci-fi. Not by a
long shot.

Maybe I'm reading the wrong books then.

[quoted original message omitted]

> On Sunday 01 June 2008 05:11:30 Eli Arndt wrote:

The "Cassini Division" by Ken MacLeod sort of subverts the 'aliens are all
united' trope by having the 'good guys' assume this is the case, then get
surprised when it turns out not to be true (though there are no aliens, just
various offshoots of humanity).

> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 11:11 PM, Eli Arndt <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

Sounds like it. :-)

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l, to be honest, I rarely have time to read fiction, so my cross section
of sci-fi novels read isn't all that wide. I'd love some suggestions for
books presenting multi-cultural aliens.

-Eli

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Allan Goodall" <agoodall@hyperbear.com>

> On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 11:11 PM, Eli Arndt wrote:

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cinating how these ideas come up again and again. In the 1920s Ralph
Milne Farley wrote a pair of books -- The Radio Beasts and The Radio
Planet -- one premise of which was that two sentient species could not
occupy the same continent for long. As soon as one species acquired the means
to exterminate the other, it would do so. I never read The Radio Beasts, but I
enjoyed The Radio Planet as a teenager; I would call it
well-crafted pulp with attention to character. I think there were later
books in the series as well.

Best,
  Ken

> Robert Mayberry <robert.mayberry@gmail.com> wrote:
You mean neanderthal. You know, while the research apparently shows that they
weren't as smart as us, they DID have the larger braincases.:) The History
Channel special I saw presented them a bit like dwarves in fantasy: stocky,
hairy, gruff, suited to cold temperatures and extreme conditions, and more
resistant to physical trauma.

Cro magnons competed with them. They were taller, less hairy, and less
durable, but they were fast talkers. They were famous for their marketing
executives, telephone sanitizers, and tax collectors. The neanderthals never
knew what hit them.

The B5 case you describe is interesting: the Centauri and the Xon(?) developed
at the same time on the same planet, but had no contact with one another until
late in their technological development. I find it
implausible that both races would be nearly at parity when they met--
enough that it was a serious fight-- but OTOH the older races meddled
in every world's development so maybe they set things up that way. The
Hyach and the Hyach-do(again, spelling?) apparantly co-evolved (until
the former exterminated the latter).

> On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 7:38 PM, <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

Rather than relying on my faulty memory, I asked an authority. A close friend
of mine is Lorna Toolis, a librarian. Actually, she's not only a branch head
in the Toronto Public Library system, but she's also the head of the Merrill
Collection of Speculative Fiction (the largest
publicly held collection of sci-fi, fantasy and horror in the world),
and she's head of science fiction, fantasy and horror acquisitions for the
TPL.

Apparently this is not an uncommon question. She wrote back, "That was John
Campbell jr's favouite question: 'show me a creature as intelligent as a man,
which is not a man.'"

Here's what she wrote (some of it is quite appropriate for the
discussion your e-mail generated):

"C.J. Cherryh does the best aliens and alien societies. 40,000 in Gehenna is
an enduring favourite of mine for this reason, likewise Hunter of Worlds,
which deals with the consequences when humans must deal with a race of
intelligent aliens which evolved from a pack
species. Serpent's Reach is another good one. Her current Defender /
Foreigner series is also interesting in the context of this question.

"George R.R. Martin's Tuf Voyaging deals with the ecology of
non-terran species which are not intelligent. Probably not [what you
were asking], but still a lot of fun. Likewise David Gerrold's The War
With the Chtorr series is fun - the alien motivations are not
particularly alien, but the idea of invading earth by introducing an alien
ecology is very cool. Start with A Matter for Men.

"Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis books: Dawn, Adulthood Rites and Imago
deal with convincing alien/human interaction in a depressing way. J.G.
Carr's Leviathan's Deep is less depressing, but very hard to find.

"Lem's Solaris is famous, as is Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud. Philip
K. Dick's The Game-Players of Titan and Our Friends From Frolix-8 are
also well regarded.

"Other titles include:
James Gunn   The Listeners
Robert Silverberg The Tower of Glass Ben Bova Voyagers
Orson Scott Card   Ender's Game
Jeffrey Carver The Infinity Link
Philip Mann   The Eye of the Queen
David Brin The Uplift War Richard Cowper The Twilight of Briareus Stephen
Goldin, Ed. The alien condition

"Other writers who deal successfully with this topic include Poul Anderson,
Michael Bishop, David Lake

"This is a topic often dealt with more successfully in short fiction. I only
listed one anthology because most of the titles I would recommend are out of
print and difficult to obtain.

"A lot of these are going to be difficult to obtain. The Philip K. Dick, C.J.
Cherryh, Poul Anderson, David Gerrold, Octavia Butler and Card books should
all be relatively straight forward."

I'll add a few comments myself.

_Ender's Game_ is interesting, but you only get a very brief glimpse
of the aliens themselves. It's mostly from the point of view of the
humans. However, the "Piggies" in the sequel, _Speaker For The Dead_,
are fairly alien. (Very alien biology, for certain, you don't get into
their psychology an awful lot.) I would put the sequel above _Ender's
Game_ on this list.

Niven's books had a number of interesting aliens, though I'm not sure the Pak
could be described, accurately, as "alien". The Puppeteers are probably the
most famous of his "alien" aliens.

One of the weirdest aliens is the Shrike from Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos (I
only read the first two; need to add to my reading list).

They also serve as a reason why it's hard to make aliens truly alien. If they
don't have some level of humanity it's very hard to relate to them. Without
being able to relate to them, you're stuck with them
being unknowable antagonists (the bugs in _Starship Troopers_, the
"ants" in _Armor_, the grendels in _The Legacy of Heorot_, etc.).

An example of making them too easy to relate to humans is the alien
race in Hal Clement's _Mission of Gravity_. The world is really cool,
but the aliens -- supposedly centipede-like creatures -- are
criticized as being too human.

I agree with Lorna that many of the weird aliens I've read about are from
anthologies. One in particular that "haunts" me is an alien race that requires
a sacrificial final victim in order to end their wars. So, they present a
prisoner for the humans to kill, and expect the humans to present one of their
own. The idea of one last death to seal the peace seems reasonable enough...
unless you're that final victim.

Hope this helps.

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All I can say is, "Wow."

That is a million times more of a reply than I could have expected.

Thank you,

Eli
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Allan Goodall" <agoodall@hyperbear.com>

> On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 7:38 PM, wrote:

> friend of mine is Lorna Toolis, a librarian. Actually, she's not only

> head of the Merrill Collection of Speculative Fiction (the largest

> the TPL.

> John Campbell jr's favouite question: 'show me a creature as

> With the Chtorr series is fun - the alien motivations are not

> Carr's Leviathan's Deep is less depressing, but very hard to find.

> their psychology an awful lot.) I would put the sequel above _Ender's

> probably the most famous of his "alien" aliens.

> the peace seems reasonable enough... unless you're that final victim.

There's has to be a wiki page or something that can act as a permanent
repository. Maybe Winch has space on Atomic Rocketry...

> On Jun 2, 2008, at 2:15 PM, Allan Goodall wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 7:38 PM, <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

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I can say is, "Wow."

That is a million times more of a reply than I could have expected.

Thank you,

Eli

LOL, and to think I started this thread as a bad cow pun....)

Don

> Allan Goodall wrote:

<Fantastic book snippage!>

Another series of novels with alien societies is the "Well World" series

by Jack L Chalker. Fascinating series. The planet: "well world" is divided
into some 1300 hexagons. Each is the home to a different alien race. In each
book, the characters visit a number of different hexs.
So you get a short view of a number of these alien cultures/races.

G'day,

> Though it's worth noting it's still the omnivore, not the carnivore,

We've learnt a bunch about intelligence and communication in the past decade.
It currently appears omnivores have a slight edge, though seed eaters and
frugivores are up there too. Specialists be they carnivore or herbivore can
get a ways down the track, but can get 'trapped' by the same pressures that
saw them specialise in the first place.

Cheers