Poul Anderson created Ulf Markham;
Jerry Pournelle & SM Stirling deduced that Markham would welcome control by a Slaver.
Markham thinks:
"The Master's race was fit survive and dominate. Overman ... is demigod, he remembered. No more struggle, the Power proved whose Will must conquer."
-"The Asteroid Queen," Chapter VI, p. 116.
Well, yes. If you think that the only alternatives are to dominate or be dominated and if you are unable to resist domination by a Slaver...
Thus, Markham remains pro-Slaver even when out of the grip of the Power:
"Control must be maintained until the Master awoke; he could feel the others would be difficult. Only I truly understand, he realized. It was a lonely and terrible burden, but he had the strength for it. The Master had filled him with strength. At all costs, the Master must be guarded until he recovered." (p. 117)
Ye gods! While a Slaver is unconscious, kill him, if you cannot put him back into stasis.
Anderson's character, Yo Rorn, cannot resist mental incorporation by the extra-galactic Ai Chun. Unlike his own civilization, they give him:
"'Wholeness.'"
-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), XII, p. 81.
"'...something great, calm, beautiful, at peace with itself.'" (ibid.)
Humanity will be divided against itself if it encounters hostile aliens.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I too had thought of the Ai Chun we see in WORLD WITHOUT STAR. An ancient intelligent race using its ability to not only telepathically dominate others but also to breed into intelligence another species.
Rorn and Markham were not truly HELPED by the Slavers and Ai Chun, they were merely enslaved. The only way their internal conflicts, neuroses, troubles, etc., could have been helped would have been by them seeking help in independently re/integrating their personalities as truly autonomous individuals.
And there's also Heinlein's THE PUPPET MASTERS, in which aliens invade Earth and try to take over by physically attaching themselves to humans and dominating their minds. And the vanrijns of Anderson's "Hiding Place" also comes to mind.
Ad astra! Sean
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