An sf writer is not required to present a physical description of an alien species. His prose can be allusive. A visual medium usually has to show us something although Arthur C. Clarke decided not to show us the aliens in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This story by Poul Anderson informs us only that:
the Morwain have tentacles;
"'Their perspiration is glutinous, they walk like cats, and they have three sexes...'" (p. 51);
a male (or at least masculine) Morwa has "mates" (p. 55), not a mate;
their cubs are described as "fuzzy" (pp. 55, 56).
A film-maker would have to invent the appearance of the Morwain almost from scratch.
Members of another species, the Bilturs, are described only as "'...monsters...'" (p. 54) A film could either just reproduce this dialogue or, alternatively, present some kind of image - preferably something moving and not seen very clearly.
In order at least to prolong the interstellar war against the Morwain, the narrator had been ordered to transform the entire atmosphere of a colonized planet:
"...into an incandescent plasma..." (p. 57)
- causing months-long firestorms that would have left only a desert and an ocean from which life might possibly re-emerge millions of years hence. He does not do it.
What would have been thought of the species that done that?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I dunno, for a species to need three sexes in order to reproduce seems a needlessly complicated way of having children. Having two sexes, male and female, is simpler!
Humans, being fallen and imperfect, can be that brutal. The 20th century alone, with its genocides, gulags, killing fields, etc., gives us plenty of evidence for that!
Ad astra! Sean
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