On Talwin:
"...the standard division into photosynthetic vegetable and oxygen-breathing animal had occurred, and the larger animals were structurally familiar with their interior skeletons, four limbs, paired eyes and ears." (p. 290)
Much sf makes this assumption. Some does not. Poul Anderson wrote both kinds. Larry Niven's Puppeteers would assume a galaxy full of beings looking like them.
The Talwinian Domrath:
bipeds;
four-fingered hands;
long legs;
large, clawed feet;
glabrous (hairless), blue-tinted skin;
brown and black mottlings turning gaudy in the mating season;
round heads;
beady eyes;
large erect ears for hearing and cooling;
a short trunk, both chemosensor and snorkel;
small, downward tusks on males;
loincloths;
straw cloaks;
necklaces;
bone, shell, ivory or tinted clay ornaments;
bronze or paleolithic tools;
males over two meters and a hundred kilos;
females larger;
mothers feeding infants by regurgiation;
poikilothermic bodies.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I still believe it makes sense to think life on other worlds, intelligent or not, to favor having four limbs and a head where the brain is located. And for the head to have eyes, ears, breathing orifices, a mouth. And for intelligent races to have were originally forelegs becoming arms and hands.
Yes, I believe there will likely be exceptions, such as the flying Ythrians or the draco/centauroid Wodenites.
Ad astra! Sean
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