Chapter VII breaks a cycle because it stays with a human point of view. Captain Dejerine is delighted when his guide for a day on Ishtar is to be Jill Conway so Dejerine is the viewpoint character and the third character through whose viewpoint we will see Jill. However, later in this chapter, she regrets a remark so the pov (point of view) has shifted to her and stays there.
They discuss life on Ishtar. Some of the information is in earlier posts on this blog and more might go on. To Dejerine's surprise, Jill argues that:
"'...the Ishtarians are a more advanced form of life than us.'" (p. 75)
Post-mammalian Ythrians pump oxygen directly into their veins. Ishtarians have beneficent symbiotes.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but that "demon sun" of theirs keeps periodically kicking Ishtarians back into chaos and anarchy.
Ad astra! Sean
"Post-mammalian Ythrians"
IIRC 'post-mammalian' is used in one of Poul's Ythrian stories, but I think the term is misleading.
They aren't descended from mammals, they have an adaptation that is in at least some ways better than what mammals have. Evolution would not put such an adaptation into descendent of mammals.
Think of how cephalopods have an eye that is better than the vertebrate eye, because an accident of the initial evolution of eyes in the two phyla gave vertebrates an eye with the nerves coming out of the retina toward the lens & then going toward the brain through the blind spot. Meanwhile the cephalopod eye got it right.
Similarly the early evolution of the lungs of mammals & the ancestors of birds gave the birds a superior system. However IIRC the blood cells of mammals carry more oxygen because they don't carry around the mechanisms to reproduce and are made in the bone marrow.
Perhaps some extremely advanced genetic engineering could make an organism that looks like a human, but has an octopus style eye, bird type lungs, and mammalian type blood cells. However, to evolve that would require starting from early multicelled animals & getting all the accidents right. Evolution won't back up to combine all these desirable traits.
Kaor, Jim!
That makes sense. But, even if somewhat implausible, both Ythrians and Ishtarians also made sense, if only as speculative thought experiments.
Ad astra! Sean
Low-probability stuff can happen in evolution, because it's a -random- process. You get lots of mutations; most are harmful; occasionally one helps its bearer reproduce.
Think of the steep drop in male testosterone levels humans underwent to become behaviorally modern (or self-domesticated).
It would require unusual circumstances to spread, because it wouldn't be -individually- advantageous, particularly at first.
You could speculate that it started with a pair of brothers who then -cooperated- to depose individually more aggressive high-testosterone rivals.
"Even Hercules can't fight two", as the ancient Greek saying goes.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that interests me, the idea that a pair of "self-domesticated" brothers cooperating in getting rid of Rogaviki type males! So they could snap up the women in the family.
Ad astra! Sean
S.M. Sttirling
"who then -cooperated- to depose individually more aggressive high-testosterone rivals."
That reminds me of a significant part of the plot of "West of January" by Dave Duncan.
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