As for a scientific world view, the Flock has some idea of evolution and the Fleet understands astronomy. Van Rijn is able to explain to both sides that they are a single species despite their shockingly different lifestyles. Neither is bestial or demonic so agreement should be possible.
Elsewhere in known space, there are greater religious disagreements, between human beings and Ythrians or most Ikranankans, but no irreconcilable conflicts between species as such. It is the Wilwidh culture, not the Merseian species, that is unable to recognize others as equals. And the hydrogen-breathing Ymirites are so different that there can be no ground for conflict between them and any oxygen-breathers.
1 comment:
Hi, Paul!
Your comments about science reminded me of this important paragraph near the end of Chapter 8 of Poul Anderson's IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS? (page 154 in both my hardback and soft cover copies): "To summarize, the scientific method appears to have been born in the later European Renaissance after a gestatation extending far back into the Middle Ages. Its ancestry is not quite certain but may well consist largely of this triad: accumulated technology, Christian respect for order and theory, and vigorous practical-minded capitalism. Whether this be right or wrong, it seems clear that science was not a matter of inevitable progress but of the accidentally right combination of social circumstances--and the course of its development has also frequently determined by accident. Nor do we have any guarantee that it will continue. Social conditions may change so radically that scientists become as extinct as Osiris worshipers."
So, of the two Diomedean cultures we see in THE MAN WHO COUNTS, I think it's plain which will more easily and willingly become truly scientific minded: the Fleet and its associated cultures. And this is borne out in what we see of Diomedes in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, where the descendants of the Fleet had, by and large, successfully adapted to Technic Civilization (including mention of some Diomedeans apparently becoming Christians). The Flock and its descendants, however, seemed to have had far more difficulty adjusting. Largely because, in my view, it had failed to aquire the kind of philosophic mindset necessary for successfuly adapting.
In conclusion, the actions of Old Nick on Diomedes and its consequences would continue to reverberate there for centuries!
Sean
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