KV, Humans, and Political Divisions
From: "Brian Bilderback" <bbilderback@h...>
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 22:57:17 PST
Subject: KV, Humans, and Political Divisions
I was doing some pondering (as I am wont to do), and I started wondering
something. I've noticed a trend in SCience Fiction, and especially
amongst
Sci Fi games, that I'd like to address, and I'm going to use the
Tuffleyverse, and what little I know about it, as an example.
So let me get this straight: There are, amongst others, these powers:
The
FSE (Human), the NAC (Human), the ESU (Human), the PAU (human), etc.,
and
there are the KV (KV)... Hmmm....
What I've noticed is that most "Alien" races in Sci Fi are presented as
one
homogenous group. The discussion of KV phsychology has been
interesting,
but I wonder, would KV analyses of Human Psycchology be as easily
undertaken? Imagine taking specimens from one single culture here on
earth,
and trying to form your opinion of the entire species from that. To be
sure, there is a great deal that all humans share in common, but there
is
also a huge amount of diversity. Yet with the KV, and other aliens (to
be
fair), their entire species has one culture?
It seems to be the major trend in xenofiction - regardless of the Human
timeline presented, whether we've united or split further, no matter how
far
we've journeyed into space or no, despite the multitude of cultures,
(Say,
for instance, a ship's crew with a Slavic helmsman, an Asian con
officer, an
African communications officer, a Celtic physician and Engineer, and an
American captain... ok, so maybe that's a little exaggerated, but you
get my
point), the aliens are always presented as having one culture and
society
for their entire race, even if there are diverse political factions or
classes within that culture.
Why? I know the old arguement of a unified culture advancing faster, but
let's look at it from another point of view. A lot of the KV psychology
that's been discussed was a result of evolution, of methods developed
for
dealing with the predators back home. OK, but what happens when you've
evolved far enough to not have to worry about ol' mr. T-rex, or the
solar
storms, or what have you? Why evolve any further? You've found your
niche in
your environment. The answer can't be individual competition alone -
there
are plenty of species on earth where individual members compete with
other
individual members, yet they have not built space ships yet (That we
KNOW
of....). And in a sentient race, you could expect competition instincts
between INDIVIDUAL members to be resolved by ritualistic competition,
trials
of position and duels and such.
OK, so maybe these individual competitions, plus the social aspect of a
species, leads to the tendency to develop alliances, to support other
individuals with the same genetic lineage, or with whom you have social
affinity.
This just supports my point - that these points to trends like
clannishness,
tribalism, eventually ethnicism and nationalism. The tendency to not
only
compete individually, but to also group together in social groups that
then
compete with each other, is what drives development.
In short (I know, too late), once you've conquered your environment, and
other competing species, you have no need to evolve further unless there
is
competition to compete with other members of your OWN species. Hence
the
fact that the most advanced species on earth is also the most diverse
and
factionalized.
So why don't we ever, in our fiction, meet other species with the same
tendencies? I'd love to see a scifiverse where humans meet another race
whose home planet has as many different ethnicities and political
divisions
as does Earth.
Brian B
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