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Path: utzoo!watmath!jagardner
From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: What an advanced race would come far to get....
Message-ID: <15912@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 14:01:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.15912
Posted: Thu Jul 25 14:01:54 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jul-85 07:27:06 EDT
References: <2763@topaz.ARPA> <109@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 31

[...]

The enslavement of entire races is a common enough theme all
over the place.  First examples to come to mind are "The Word
for World is Forest" by Ursula K.LeGuin, the Velantians (slaves
to the Overlords in the Lensman series), and the lion-like aliens
in "Warriors' Gate" in Dr.Who.

Generally races are enslaved for one of the following reasons:

(a)	The slavers are just natural slavers at heart.  This is
	the case in Sundiver, etc.  They think that enslavement
	is the natural state of affairs.

(b)	The slaves can do something the slavers can't.  This is
	true of the lion-like aliens in Dr.Who -- they had psychic
	abilities that allowed them to navigate in space (around
	meteor showers, through asteroid belts, etc.).  It occurs
	to me, this was also the reason that the Slavers enslaved
	the Tnuctipun in Niven's known space series.

(c)	The number of slavers is too small to do some job they want
	to do.  In this case, the slavers are technologically advanced
	enough to control large numbers of slaves, and these slaves
	are the ones who will do the work.  Note that the slavers
	can actually be sympathetic characters if this is their motivation:
	they have something vastly important to do and must take
	repulsive measures to achieve their ends.

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo