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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Fyunch(click) | ||
| An alien assigned to become an expert in just one person. |
When humans enter the Mote, the aliens use one of their techniques to try to understand them.
| “You always sound so cautious when you speak of the ship. Am I stepping on Navy secrets? It-is not the ship that concerns me, Rod. I’m Fyunch(click) to you. It means considerably more than just guide.” The Motie
gestured oddly. Rod had seen her do that before, when she was upset or annoyed.
“Just what does Fyunch(click) mean?” “I am assigned to you. You are a project, a masterwork. I am to leam as much about you as there is to know. I am to become an expert on you, My Lord Roderick Blaine, and you are to become a field of study to me. It-is not your gigantic, rigid, badly designed ship that interest-ss me, it-ss your attitudes toward that ship and the humans aboard, your degree of control over them, your interess-t in their welfare, et cetera.” |
| Technovelgy from The Mote in God's Eye,
by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Compare to thought pattern divination from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Mote in God's Eye
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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
