Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-ngp.UTEXAS
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!lindley
From: lindley@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (John L. Templer)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: What an advanced race would come far to get....
Message-ID: <2174@ut-ngp.UTEXAS>
Date: Fri, 26-Jul-85 23:15:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.2174
Posted: Fri Jul 26 23:15:53 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 08:13:33 EDT
References: <2763@topaz.ARPA> <109@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: U.Texas Physics Department; Austin, Texas
Lines: 47

> This is probably not quite what you were after, but hopefully still
> relevant.  In SUNDIVER and STARTIDE RISING, David Brin has postulated
> an interesting idea: the enslavement of an entire race.  (Has anyone
> seen this idea before? If so, where?)

Well, there's Larry Niven's short story "What Can You Do With Chocolate
Covered Manhole Covers?", which is found in the anthology "All the
Myriad Ways."  The idea in that story is that an alien race seeded
humans on Earth as a means to improve the stock among their servant
race (us).

> Now, this sounds highly plausible to me.  Wouldn't humanity benefit
> from having access to the *entire* scientific, artistic, and philoso-
> phical output of another intelligent species?

Assuming that you mean humans interacting with a more advanced race,
then I don't think that would necessarily be such a good idea.  I
pretty much agree with the idea that the more advanced civilization
would destroy the other, even if accidentaly.

> Taking it as a given that humans have a different perspective on life,
> the universe, and everything (sorry, Doug) from our hypothetical
> aliens, we might have something(s) they would kill (or even cross
> interstellar space) to get.

About the only things I can see a race traveling interstellar distances
to obtain are such items as life extending drugs (like Niven's booster
spice), or cultural items.  A planet or star system might have too
little of some material like a certain metallic element, but they
wouldn't need to get that from another civilization; they'd just find
some nice uninhabited rock ball and mine it themselves.

> As to expense; once you collect a sufficient sample, you cart them
> to your own system, give them a "game preserve," and they will be
> self supporting.  You just quietly skim a few off the top every year
> to fill your own needs.  (Now, does anyone want to discuss the large
> number of disappearances every year on this planet?)  BTW, does any-
> one know just how many people it would take to "guarantee" a safe gene
> pool?  How about cultural continuity?

See above.
-- 

~~ John L. Templer,  University of Texas at Austin
~~ {allegra,gatech,seismo!ut-sally,vortex}!ut-ngp!lindley

		A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.