Star Trek
James Blish's Okie series
Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History
Anderson's Time Patrol series
They are enforced by:
Starfleet
Earth cops
the Coordination Service
the Time Patrol
Some sf is moral stories about the need for non-interference. In Anderson's "The Night Face," the Gwydiona handle their temporary annual insanity by dancing and enacting myths. Tolteca, blundering in with good intentions but no understanding, upsets their rhythm and causes at least three deaths.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And the Allied Planets enforced an interdiction of Gwydion, prohibiting off planet landings there. Precisely in order to prevent, among other things, well meaning idiots like Tolteca from harming the Gwydiona.
Ad astra! Sean
Well, pretty sure the Gwydiona "routinely" were killing each other, including their own children, anyway; and during the climax of the story.
IIRC, Tolteca was at most a witness to the first murder, which is part of what prompted him to try and stop anything more, which is - basically - when Raven comes into the picture and decides to make his last stand so Tolteca can get the word back to their ship.
Kaor, Dave!
Not quite, over centuries the Gwydiona had worked out ways of limiting the harm done while insane during Baletime. But for that to mostly work depended on those means not being interrupted, which is exactly what the blundering Tolteca had done.
Ad astra! Sean
Dave,
It was Tolteca's intervention that caused the first killing. We can't call it a murder because the killer was insane.
Paul.
Sean and Paul - Okay, it's been a while since I read it, but I thought the murder and cannibalization of children and others was pretty much part of the "ritual," so to speak.
Isn't there a bit where the Gywdiona and the landing team observers are all in the town - before the events kick off - where it's pretty clear that infants, small children, and others who would be at significant risk are protected in fortified structures and by robotic guardians/servants?
And the child who dies first at the ritual site is already being (essentially) attacked before Tolteca - who, yes, has followed the group to observe - actually tries to stop them from attacking her?
Like I said, it's been a while, but my recollection is that casualties occur during the "rituals" - the Gwydiona have set things up to minimize that, but not eliminate the risk entirely, and that has nothing to do with if anyone else is there to observe or not.
Kaor, Dave!
Like you it's been a long time since I last read THE NIGHT FACE, so my comments here will have to be tentative.
Yes, while "sane" the Gwydiona built fortified structures for housing infants and small children during Baletime, with robotic guardians. I suspect the elderly got killed off during Baletime due to becoming less able to mesh into those self-hypnotizing rituals and dances.
Also, I suspect that child who was killed had become too old to any longer stay in those protective structures. After reaching a certain age the periodical insanity affecting all Gwydiona would manifest itself (perhaps age 7, in Terran years).
Yes, the dances, rituals, off the top of the head mythologizing, mazes, etc., would not save all Gwydiona during Bale Time.
But Tolteca still blundered, disrupting those dances and rituals. And Raven had tried to warn him, that he and all the other visiting space men should stay away from the "Holy City" during Bale Time.
Ad astra! Sean
The girl ran away from Tolteca. Her father caught and killed her.
Kaor, Paul!
Horrifying, of course!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
And I was wrong thinking "The Sharing of Flesh" mentions the Allied Planets interdicting Gwydion.
Ad astra! Sean
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