The Mote in God's Eye

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The Mote in God's Eye

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction novel
Publisher Simon and Schuster
Publication date 1974
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 537 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-671-21833-6
Followed by The Gripping Hand, 1993

The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, is a science fiction novel that was first published in 1974. The story is set in the distant future of Pournelle's CoDominium universe, and charts the first contact between Mankind and an alien species. The title of the novel is a wordplay on Luke 6:41.

The book describes a complex alien civilization, the Moties. The Moties are radically different (both physically and psychologically) from humanity in ways that become clearer over the course of the book. The human characters range from the typical hero-type in Captain Roderick Blaine to the much more ambiguous merchant prince and suspected traitor Horace Bury. Robert A. Heinlein, who gave the authors extensive, detailed advice on the novel, blurbed the story as "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read".

The novel is an example of hard science fiction in that close attention is paid to scientific detail. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are noted for writing in this genre, and it is especially evident in this work with regard to the theoretical mechanics and physics of interplanetary travel. The book's Alderson Drive and Langston Field are literary inventions, but they are presented against a background of established science knowledge.

One interesting aspect of the novel — in comparison to other works of science fiction — is how the alien race's psychology is influenced by its physiology. Prior to this work, most aliens in science fiction would have a physiology radically different from human, but act and think in much the same way.

A sequel to The Mote in God's Eye, entitled The Gripping Hand, was written by the same authors over twenty years later. It was published in the UK and other countries as The Moat around Murcheson's Eye.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The book is split up into four parts.

[edit] The Crazy Eddie Probe

In the year AD 3017, Mankind is recovering slowly from an interstellar civil war that tore apart the first Empire of Man. A new Empire has risen and is occupied in establishing control over the remnants of its predecessor, by force if needed.

Commander Lord Roderick Blaine, having participated in the suppression of a rebellion on the planet of New Chicago, is given command of an Imperial battlecruiser INSS MacArthur when the captain has to stay behind to restore order on the planet. Blaine is given secret orders to take Horace Hussein Bury, a powerful interstellar merchant who is suspected of fomenting the revolt for his own profit, to the Imperial capital, Sparta. Blaine is one of the few people available who is wealthier than Bury, so he is the ideal man for the mission as he can't be bribed. MacArthur is to be repaired in the New Caledonia system, then proceed to the capital. Another passenger is Lady Sandra Bright "Sally" Fowler, the niece of an Imperial Senator and a rescued prisoner of the rebels.

New Caledonia is the capital of the Trans-Coalsack sector, located on the opposite side of the Coalsack Nebula from Earth. Also in the sector is a red supergiant star known as Murcheson's Eye. Associated with it is a yellow Sun-like star. From New Caledonia, the yellow star appears in front of the Eye. Since some see the Eye and the Coalsack as the face of a hooded man, perhaps even the face of God, the yellow star is known as the Mote in God's Eye.

While in the New Caledonia system, Blaine receives a message saying that an alien spacecraft has been detected, and includes an order that MacArthur intercept it. Human ships use the Alderson Drive, which allows them to "jump" instantaneously between points in specific star systems. The alien craft, by contrast, is propelled by a solar sail, taking 150 years to cross between stars at sublight speed. MacArthur duly intercepts the craft and is fired upon by its automated systems, but manages to capture it relatively intact. However, on arrival at the planet New Scotland, its single occupant, evidently the pilot, is found to be dead.

The alien is bizarrely asymmetric, with two delicate arms on one side of its body and a single, much larger and stronger arm on the other. Although it is bipedal and has a head and face similar to humans, its anatomy is entirely different. It has no flexible spine and the face is capable of little expression. It is the first alien race that humans have come into contact with. The ship itself is composed of alloys with remarkable properties and designed around unique, custom-built parts, no two alike, that perform multiple unrelated tasks simultaneously.

[edit] The Crazy Eddie Point

MacArthur and the battleship Lenin are sent to the Mote: the star from which the alien ship came. MacArthur carries civilian research teams intended to meet with and investigate the Moties, while Lenin is there to ensure the security of humanity's technology and secrets, avoiding all contact with the aliens. Aboard Lenin is the commander in charge of the mission, Admiral Lavrenti Kutuzov, a ruthless, supremely loyal officer who had already sterilized one rebellious colony planet to safeguard Imperial Reunification. Bury goes along officially because a merchant is needed to assess the trade possibilities, but actually because there is nobody trustworthy enough to take him to the capital, as does Sally, a trained anthropologist, who ranks too highly in the political aristocracy to be refused. Despite (or rather, due to) the civilians' distrust, Blaine remains in command of MacArthur.

The Mote has only one Alderson point leading to it, and to reach it the ships must actually enter the outer layers of the red supergiant itself before activating the drive. This is only possible because they also have the Langston Field for protection. Supergiant stars are up to 500 million km in diameter, but the outer layers are basically a hot vacuum.

MacArthur successfully makes contact with the Moties. They have advanced technology (in some areas superior to that of the First Empire, let alone the current Second), but seem friendly and willing to share it. Indeed, they would have been a formidable threat to Humanity, had they not been bottled up in their home system. They had independently invented the Alderson Drive, describing it as the "Crazy Eddie" Drive, but the ships that used it had all disappeared and never come back. In fact, they were destroyed because the Moties didn't realize that the other end of the Alderson Drive tramline ended inside the supergiant. The Moties deduce that humans use the drive because MacArthur and Lenin appear at the "Crazy Eddie Point".

[edit] Meet Crazy Eddie

The Moties are an old species that has evolved into many specialized subspecies. The first encountered is an Engineer, a brown fur form with amazing technical abilities but limited speech. The Engineer brings along a pair of tiny Motie "Watchmakers" that are astonishingly adept at modifying and customizing items (such as custom-tailoring a gun to the sailing master's hand). The next are Mediators, brown and white forms like the dead pilot, who have astounding communication and negotiation skills but have very limited ability with tools and never fight. Each one adopts a particular human in the contact party, becoming his (her in Sally's case) Fyunch(click), studying its subject and learning how to think like him or her, even to the point of exactly reproducing voice and mannerisms. Other forms include the white Masters, who are good at evaluating problems but cannot negotiate without risking global war, and various semi-sapient versions kept for menial work.

These and others are encountered when the contact party visits the planet Mote Prime at the invitation of the Moties. They reside in a special building created for them, protected from the polluted and poisonous atmosphere. From there, they are taken to places of interest in the surrounding city, such as an "art gallery", which seems to be more of a monument to events in history. The Moties attempt to interest their visitors, especially Bury, in the commercial possibilities of continued contact between the civilizations.

Back on MacArthur, disaster strikes. The Watchmakers had escaped, and although it was assumed they had died, they had actually been breeding furiously. Despite several attempts to rid the MacArthur of the infestation, the Watchmakers, unknown to the human crew, had been quietly redesigning and rebuilding MacArthur — while continuing to breed. When they are discovered, there are already large numbers aboard, and a furious battle for control of the ship breaks out. The crew is eventually forced to abandon ship; Lenin has no choice but to destroy MacArthur — an incredibly difficult act, as one of the improvements made to the ship was to its Langston Field. The field now expands as it absorbs energy, increasing its surface area and dissipating heat faster. Lenin, however, does not cease its attack, and MacArthur is eventually destroyed. The contact party is then recalled without explanation and told to rendezvous directly with Lenin.

Three MacArthur midshipmen who managed to escape from the ship in lifeboats (which, unfortunately, had been reconstructed by the descendants of the escaped Watchmakers) automatedly land in an unpopulated area of Mote Prime. Exploring unsupervised for the first time, they find a fortified structure locked by a puzzle that required relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy to solve. It is a perfectly maintained yet completely deserted structure that appears to be some type of museum. Every aspect of Motie civilization is preserved in detail, and they realize that, though the Moties had carefully portrayed themselves as peaceful, this was evidence of a long and violent history motivated not by malice, but biology.

The Moties are sequential hermaphrodites, changing sex over and over again over the course of their lives. However, if a Motie remains female for too long without becoming pregnant, the hormone imbalance will kill her. This ensures a never-ending population explosion. Attempts at population control through chemicals or infanticide have always failed for the Moties, because those who (secretly or openly) breed uncontrolledly eventually swamp those Moties who complied. Once the population pressure rises high enough, massive wars inevitably result.

Humans have encountered eight distinct Motie subspecies, as well as hybrids such as the Mediators. Masters, Engineers, Doctors, Porters, Farmers, Runners, Watchmakers and Meats. But there is also a ninth - the Warriors, and a tenth the War Rats. Bred specifically for combat, they are far superior in combat to any human soldier and capable of using any type of weapon. There are no fissionables remaining in the Mote system, but asteroid bombardments served as a more than adequate weapons of mass destruction giving the entire surface of the planet a cratered appearance resembling Mars.

These wars seem to have always ended in the complete and total destruction of the current Motie civilization. However, Moties are extremely capable survivors, and enough always survive that the planet is eventually repopulated. History had shown that a faster rise to civilization led to a longer period between Collapses, giving rise to the museums, as this is their intended purpose. They are located in unpopulated areas so as not to be targets during collapses. Once the surviving population is advanced enough to solve the puzzle at the door, they have access to a literal catalogue of civilizations, and the weapons to put them into effect. Population is controlled by disease and injury between collapses and reconstructions, but the cycles have thus far never been stopped completely.

The Cycles of civilization, war, and collapse have apparently been repeating for hundreds of thousands of years. They are so devastating that in the past, Mote Prime has been completely sterilized several times, to be repopulated by those living in hollowed-out asteroids. In the process, the Moties mutated from earlier symmetrical forms. Presumably, each civilization arose, unlocked the museums, and discovered that that unless they could solve a problem that had plagued countless others, they were doomed. Thus, the Moties have become fatalistically resigned to the never-ending Cycles. Only a mythical character called "Crazy Eddie" believes there is a way to change this, and any Motie who comes to believe a solution is possible is labeled as insane and a "Crazy Eddie." This is why they call the system's Alderson point (which, unbeknownst to the Moties until human contact, leads into the photosphere of Murcheson's Eye) the "Crazy Eddie Point".

The Keeper, the museum's caretaker, is revealed to be behind the abduction of the midshipmen. He states that the whole charade is the work of a coalition of Motie Masters who have seized the opportunity the Lenin and the MacArthur represent in order to save themselves by escaping into the universe at large. But the Keeper is a childless Motie Master who has voluntarily been sterilized, and thus considers the well-being of his entire race, and as such, disagrees with such a plan.

So far, no effective means of birth control has been found, and so the Moties cannot stop breeding. Logically, it is accepted that expansion to other planets would only postpone the Cycles; nearby planets would soon be filled with Moties, and the Alderson Drive takes time to use — years of travel across systems from tramline to tramline to reach distant planets. Eventually, it would be easier for Moties to challenge humans for their planets, especially since humans cannot compete with Moties, technologically, biologically, or even numerically. Motie victory would be inevitable, but eventually futile as the population continued to expand exponentially. However, many Motie masters see this temporary solution as more appealing than the impending cycle of collapse.

However, humans have outperformed Moties before — when they created the Langston Field. There is hope that their outside perspective will produce a solution to millions of years of repetition. However, the "givers of orders" are divided as to whether the humans should be made privy to the actual situation.

[edit] Crazy Eddie's Answer

Lenin returns home, taking with it — in violation of explicit orders to avoid contact at all costs — three Motie ambassadors. Kutuzov takes this step only after much debate.

The Motie party consists of two Mediators, called Charlie and Jock, and a sterile white Master, known as Ivan (specifically, three infertile Moties). Their mission is to open the galaxy to their ships while concealing from the humans the frightening facts about the Moties: the Cycles, the wars and the Warriors. They have to deal with problems ranging from the conditions in their quarters, where the atmosphere is breathable but too pure, to their inability to fully understand human motives. When the Alderson Drive is used to Jump out of Mote System, it becomes obvious that as bad as the Jump is for humans, it is worse for Moties due to their more complex nervous systems. In fact, after a Jump they remain incapacitated for a much longer period of time.

Back on New Caledonia, the Empire holds talks aimed at establishing trade and peaceful relations with the Moties, not realizing the danger. Fortunately, MacArthur’s sailing master, the unconventional Kevin Renner, manages to put together various clues they had picked up during the expedition — in particular a series of images taken by MacArthur's cameras as it was attacked by the Motie probe ship (showing, in detail, the well-kept secret of the Motie Warrior caste) — and proves to the others in the nick of time the magnitude of the threat they face. This, combined with the revelation that there is no such thing as "population control" on Mote Prime, resolves the human Commission against an alliance with the Moties.

It seems that they will have no choice but to send the Fleet in to destroy the Motie civilization totally. Protest that "But the Moties are not monsters!" is answered by "No, they are just enemies." — the social and political philosophy underlying Pournelle's works in a nutshell. This is when Charlie requests asylum, and once separated from his fellow Moties, she passes on the Keeper's plea for help. This convinces the humans to instead blockade the Alderson point, and keep the aliens confined to their own system for the foreseeable future.

The Moties are helpless for so long after a Jump that the ships of the human blockade can easily destroy any arriving ships, especially within the superheated photosphere of Murcheson's Eye. Even the Moties' improvement on the Langston Field — causing it to expand as it absorbs energy so as to faster dissipate heat — is useless. Within the red giant's photosphere, this simply causes it to absorb heat faster, resulting in a chain reaction that instantly destroys ships attempting to use it.

The book ends with Charlie predicting that the humans will take over the Motie civilization after the next collapse, and wondering if perhaps the Keeper was right — maybe the humans might be able to end the Cycles once and for all.

[edit] Notes

Cover of 1991-03-01 paperback edition
Cover of 1991-03-01 paperback edition

[edit] Setting

The original intent of the authors was to write the ultimate First Contact novel. Casting around for a model society, they decided to use the CoDominium future history already written by Pournelle. Various features of this, particularly the form of government, the Alderson Drive and Langston Field technology, and the existence of Murcheson's Eye on the other side of the Coalsack, were ideal for their purposes.

[edit] Technology

Although they invented the Alderson Drive and the Langston Field technology, the authors go to great lengths to keep the rest of the novel within the bounds of known science. The spaceships, in particular, have significant limitations despite having highly efficient nuclear propulsion systems based on hydrogen fusion, aided by the ability of the Langston Field to confine and direct hot plasma. They cannot zip from planet to planet in mere hours. In pursuit of the Motie probe, MacArthur accelerates at up to 4 g for five days to match velocities at about 6% of the speed of light, then has to decelerate to reach New Scotland safely, arriving more or less out of fuel. Warships like MacArthur tend to get to their destinations as fast as possible using constant acceleration and deceleration, while commercial ships coast on long transfer orbits to conserve fuel. When artificial gravity is needed, the ships are spun to produce centrifugal force.

The Alderson Drive and Langston field also have their drawbacks. Alderson Jumps are bad for delicate electronics and biological systems, especially nerves. Electronic equipment has to be shut down for the duration of a Jump and carefully restarted afterwards. For this reason, the crews of Navy ships are quite young, as the young recover faster than their elders. Blaine is only 25 standard years old. His junior officers range down to midshipmen in their mid-teens. It turns out that the Moties suffer much worse than humans in this respect.

Jumps can also only be performed from specific jump points or Alderson Points. These are said to be points of equipotential thermonuclear flux between two stars and can be difficult to find. Thus, escaping a battle by "jumping to lightspeed" is nearly impossible in this universe.

In effect, space as traversed by this type of technology is not the equivalent of a wide-open ocean where ships can choose from countless possible routes, but of a series of discrete narrow seas connected by specific channels which can be easily blockaded by a superior naval force. Without this basic feature, the book's resolution which provides the Moties' salvation would not have worked.

The Langston field can absorb energy, but must store it somewhere or re-radiate it away to the outside, otherwise the field will overload and collapse, with all the energy released in a burst, destroying the ship.

In spite of these limitations, the ships are immensely powerful, not only with their armaments of high-power lasers and nuclear missiles, but with the fusion drives that can themselves be used as plasma weapons, especially against unprotected ground targets. These plasma beams can also be used to burn roadways across the landscape to help in terraforming a world. This is mentioned during the MacArthur’s stopover at New Scotland in the New Caledonia system. While the ships seem to have vast reserves of power, from time to time, all engine power has to be allocated to send a message across interplanetary distances using a maser. The Langston Field or some variant thereof is used within the fusion drive, presumably to contain a fusion reaction sufficiently intense to provide enough energy to power the ship.

Some other technologies of the Second Empire of Man are mentioned. Marines are armed with lasers and laser resistant armor. People use PDA-like pocket computers, which at the time of the novel’s writing, was considered futuristic and fantastic. Despite this, the Second Empire is not quite as advanced as the First Empire. Some knowledge, such as the fabrication of ultrastrong materials, has been lost. Due to interstellar war, some worlds have even reverted to primitive levels of civilization.

[edit] Moties

Moties are the human name for the alien species which inhabit the Mote system. Their defining factors are their asymmetrical anatomy, their genetically hardwired reproductive rate, and their instinctive specialization, which makes each caste superhumanly expert at the jobs they are bred for.

[edit] Motie physiology

Inhabiting the planet Mote Prime and most of the habitable orbiting bodies in Mote System, as well as many artificial orbiting constructs, the Moties' primary distinguishing physical feature is their specialization into castes. This combines with their high fertility to make them dangerous to other species with which they compete for living space. Castes mentioned in the chronicles include Mediators, Engineers, Warriors, Doctors, Runners, Porters, Farmers and Meats. All of these castes are in the entourage of a Master. Feral forms have also been observed. Engineers use the semi-intelligent Watchmaker caste (called "miniatures" by the crew of MacArthur) as mobile tools. Where a Human can to a greater or lesser degree carry out all or any of these functions, a Motie of a given specialisation is (to a Human) astoundingly skilled in it.

Moties alternate between being male and female. A female Motie will revert to male after giving birth, changing back to female after a time. At some point the female must become pregnant again or else the hormone imbalance will kill her. This naturally forces Moties to become pregnant whenever possible.

Since Moties have been a space-based creature for an incredibly long time, at some point they evolved the basic Motie body plan to change from a symmetrical (possibly four-armed) to an asymmetrical layout. Most Moties have two right arms and a much heavier left arm. A form with two human-scale left arms and a heavy right arm occurs when a motie is born left-handed. The gripping hand has only three large fingers, while the other two smaller hands have six each — four fingers and two opposable thumbs. By analogy with humans counting in base-10 supposedly as a result of their having ten digits, it can be posited that Moties count in base-12 as a result of their two right hands having twelve digits.

Moties have no spine, instead simply having three bones which perform a similar function. During first contact with humans, the Moties found the spine to be of great interest. Moties also have no shoulders, the arms instead attach directly to the head. The heavy attachment for the strong gripping left hand causes the head to become permanently tilted to that side.

[edit] Motie culture

Masters command the loyalty and obedience of groups of other kinds of Moties, such as Engineers, Warriors, Doctors, etc. However they are not good negotiators. Mediators were created as sterile hybrids of the white Masters and brown Engineers to minimize the number of wars between rival Masters. Mediators will always obey Masters, so they cannot themselves change the direction of Motie civilization, but they have considerable latitude to do their job. There is no monetary economy as such, but Masters barter prestige, material goods, etc. A few sterile Masters (unlikely to attempt a takeover for their children) are designated as Keepers and given control of the Museums where knowledge is carefully stored to aid recovery after collapse. When a civilization is doing well, alliances of Masters can cooperate to achieve great things, but the urge to reproduce always causes the alliances to break down, usually resulting in catastrophic wars.

[edit] Motie castes

Motie castes are physically distinct, and differ in coloring, body size and the number and size of the arms. Each of the castes, such as the Masters and Engineers, are so different genetically that they form separate species, can produce offspring together, but the offspring are usually sterile, as with the Mediators. Obedience has been bred into the inferior castes, so Engineers will obey Masters and Mediators without question, while Watchmakers take instruction from Engineers. Warriors can only be controlled by Masters, and their Master's Mediators. Even then it takes a certain number of Masters to control an army of Warriors.

From time to time in Motie history attempts have been made to eliminate some of the castes, but these have never succeeded. Some Master has always kept a small breeding stock, from which the numbers have been rapidly replenished.

Each of the listed castes come in numerous space-adapted and planet-bred versions, however space and planet castes can interbreed successfully within their caste to produce fertile offspring.

Masters

Motie Masters have white fur and are described as decision makers by the Mediators. Some might be ship commanders; others might be warlords who control large territories. Masters have the biological imperative to breed and protect their offspring and siblings; however, sterile individuals, or those who have bred a sufficient number of times, can hold positions for the good of the Race. These positions include that of Keeper. Keepers are responsible for the safeguard of the "museums" that preserve technology so that the survivors of a Collapse can find the tools to rebuild civilization as quickly as possible.

Engineers

Motie Engineers (also referred to as Browns) have brown fur and are essentially idiot savants. They communicate very little but are geniuses when it comes to anything mechanical or electrical. They can build, modify, or repair almost anything with great speed and competency. Engineers tend to have a supply of Watchmakers on hand, which they regularly cull to keep the numbers down, for instance tossing most out into the vacuum of space, keeping a few back to use and breed.

Watchmakers

Watchmakers are not Moties proper, but a related non-sentient, "animal" subspecies. Genetic tests indicate they are likely a degenerate offshoot of the brown Engineer sub-species. They are about a third the size of Moties, have four arms and brown-and-white mottled fur. They are used by Engineers as assistants and share that caste's ability and ingenuity with anything mechanical or electronic. According to the ambassador Moties at the end of The Mote in God's Eye, "Watchmakers given time to adapt can destroy any ship. They contribute greatly to a collapse. If they were not so useful we would have them exterminated."

Mediators

Mediators are created by breeding Master moties with Engineers. They have mixed white/brown fur and are highly empathetic. They are sterile mules, and because of this their lifespan is shorter than average—about 25 years. Since Moties sexually mature in 10 years the useful life of a Mediator is short.

Mediators learn languages very quickly, which is essential on Mote Prime with its millions of years of population-explosion cycles and competing Masters. They are actually a product of genetic engineering, with their ability to think independently carefully tuned to allow them to negotiate away conflicts while still being loyal to a Master. Mediators can commandeer any kind of transport, so they can travel quickly to damp down hostilities. Extremely fast aircraft are reserved for Mediators alone, as Masters will not trust each other to use them for peaceful purposes.

Mediators are assigned with the intention that they will learn not only the language but also the culture and personality of their host. Mediators have a word - Fyunch(click) - which describes their relationship with a counterpart whom they must learn about and emulate in every way. Mediators emulate the sound of the voice and the mannerisms of their counterpart.

Warriors

Warriors are controlled by Masters and far surpass any human warriors or soldiers (though it is implied that a pure Sauron may be a match). They can operate and maintain any weapon, fire with deadly accuracy, throw objects at high speed, and fight hand-to-hand using built-in weapons. These include fangs, hard edges and horny points on the limbs and extremities, and a vestigial second left arm adapted as a bone dagger. Warriors have enhanced senses, especially vision, enabling them to resolve detail at a distance impossible for a human. They are described as "standing like coiled springs". Their marksmanship is described as "inhumanly accurate".

War Rats

In a parallel development, Warriors also degenerated into a wild miniature form which appears in the first novel as a zoo animal and in the second novel as a War Rat, a spaceborne version with Watchmaker abilities living in hive-like space colonies. It is implied that War Rats and Watchmakers can interbreed forming a hybrid sterile mule varient that is voracious and skilled at building miniature weapons.

Doctors

The last of the truly sentient Motie classes, the Doctors are to physiology what Engineers are to electronics. They have a great store of instinctive physiological knowledge, can manipulate the smallest objects, and can build, or cause to be built, any necessary medical devices. Their fur is a rust-red color. While Doctors do not fight, there is a Doctor-Warrior hybrid that fills the role of the field medic. A doctor-master hybrid was bred to serve as a medic for injured humans.

Runners

Runners are employed carrying messages and are much taller than other Moties, but the Runner is mostly leg, while . The Gripping Hand also describes a variety of Runner whose multicolored layers of erectile hairs allow it to camouflage itself while delivering messages.

Porters

These semi-sentient Moties do menial jobs, carrying heavy objects. Much taller than the average Moties the Porter has symmetrical strong arms.

Farmers

Farmer Moties tend crops, which grow on whatever land is not covered by buildings or roads. They ignore anything except plants and anything that seems to threaten the plants, being essentially agricultural relatives of the Engineers. Their hands and feet are adapted for digging and tamping down soil. They can operate machinery such as tractors.

Meats

A non-sentient Motie caste bred as a food supply, they were kept in a museum as a relic of an earlier time.

[edit] Hybrids

Besides the Mediators, several other hybrid types were mentioned in the books. The doctor and warrior castes were crossed for a field medic. The engineer and warrior became an engineer with combat capabilities. A master and doctor cross was for when more thought was needed in addition to the doctor caste's instinctual medical ability (this was thought to be useful when the Moties needed to treat an injured human.) It is unknown whether these crosses are mules or fertile. The implication is that all crosses are sterile, else they would form a separate breeding caste as the others do.

[edit] Motie technology

After thousands of Cycles, the Motie system has depleted its natural reserves of important materials. When humans arrive in the system, consumables such as fossil fuels and radioactives had long since been exhausted. As the Moties are said to be using all of the easily-accessible metal in the system, making something new invariably involves dismantling something else, rendering metal quite valuable. Where human technology relies on specialized devices, often with multi-redundant backups, Moties rely on the technological idiot savant Engineers, assisted by the semi-intelligent miniature Watchmakers, to constantly build and rebuild devices to order, recycling existing parts that are not needed at the moment. For instance, rather than have a programmable autopilot in a ship, an Engineer would build one to send a ship to a new location, using its ever-present kit of tools and advanced materials. Moties do not use computers as such, relying on the instincts of their specialized castes for jobs such as space navigation. On the ground, Engineers drive at breakneck speed on crowded roads without fear of collision, and upon reaching destination, will dismantle their cars so they won’t take too much parking space.

Another feature of Motie technology is that, to save material and weight, devices perform multiple functions simultaneously, such as being both structural components and sensors. However, having adapted to space, the off-planet Moties are at home in zero gravity and do not have to spin their ships. This has important consequences for the structure of their ships, which are always in flux in any case.

One of the complaints of the ambassadors is they have no Engineer with them to customize their cabin and beds, and to build them devices to help them live more comfortably. An Engineer would have given away the secrets of Motie biology, especially the reproductive compulsion.

[edit] Crazy Eddie

This is a translation of the term the Moties use for any exercise in futility, or any attempt to do, or even think about doing, anything to try to stop the inevitable collapse of their current civilization which is war driven by overpopulation. Their version of the Alderson Drive was called the Crazy Eddie Drive. The spaceship sent to New Caledonia was called the Crazy Eddie Probe, particularly since the effort needed to send it on its way with huge lasers caused a collapse all by itself. The Mediator assigned to Rod Blaine goes Crazy Eddie, infected by Blaine's idealism. Going Crazy Eddie is an occupational hazard for these Mediators, who cannot deal with humans' ability to switch between different roles in their society, or who succumb to the optimism inherent to human nature.

It is unknown whether the term "Crazy Eddie" was conceived independently of the electronics discount store of the same name or inspired by it. While at the time the novel was written, the Crazy Eddie stores were confined to a small part of New York City and the authors lived in California, the Crazy Eddie brand had become a pop culture phenomenon appearing in comedy routines and trivia references.

[edit] Awards and nominations

[edit] External links