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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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